An Evil Shadow (22 page)

“Forget it,” Lausaux said, lowering the briefcase and
raising the Beretta. “Take Highway Ninety and head towards Morgan City, then
south to St Francis Parish.”

“The Jacksons’s place? That’s eighty miles. You won’t
make it that far.”

“I’ll make it. Just you drive.”

“Not until I know where you have Angie. And the
antidote.”

“Get me there and I’ll tell you everything. You don’t
want to risk messing me around. I’ve taken all the crap I’m going to.”

Val had no choice but to do cooperate. Until he knew
where Angie was, he couldn’t let Lausaux out of his sight. If Lausaux showed up
at an Emergency Room with a bullet wound, the medics would alert the police
immediately. Once they started questioning Val, the FBI wouldn’t be far behind.
After what he had done to Comeaux and Lehman, it would take most of the night
to persuade them he was on the level and have them search for Angie. “Why
there?”

“Gilett’s idea. It’s empty and the nearest house is
more than a mile away.”

Val remembered an additional attraction. “And a
seaplane can easily land on the bayou right by it. Is he meeting you there?”

“Yeah. He’s hired a pilot to fly us to Mexico.”

“Not the best of destinations for
two fugitives requiring medical treatment.”

Lausaux smiled. “Gilett’s not as incapacitated as you
think. The Morgan City docs did quite a job of fixing him up.”

Then what was the rationale behind Lausaux coercing
him into driving? Val thought he had the answer. They were approaching the slip
road for Highway 90. He made a signal and moved across.

“When exactly is this plane of Gilett’s expected to
touch down on the bayou?”

Lausaux smiled. “I’ll give you this, Bosanquet. You
catch on fast. A real smart cop. First light, Wednesday morning.”

“You brought the payoff forward by twenty-four hours.
Gilett’s the wrong man to double-cross.”

“He’ll have plenty to occupy him with the FBI on his
tail and no money to buy his way out of the country.”

“How much is in the case?”

“Twenty million in Treasury Bills.”

Lausaux folded a handkerchief into a pad and pressed
it against his wound. His breathing was irregular.

“There’s a couple of things I don’t understand. How
did you persuade Captain Clements to stand down the guard on my brother’s
house?”

“With the right motivation people will do just about
anything. Surely you can appreciate that at this precise moment?”

Understanding dawned on Val. “It was you who killed
Howard Woods? Did you kill Galen also?”

“No. He and Donny holed up in a houseboat owned by
Galen’s family down on the Bayou Penchant, though they had moved out by the
time I got there. Gilett was supposed to kill Jackson, but he messed up and
succeeded only in wounding him. Jackson would have blown everything if he had
taken it into his head to go after his uncle or Moncoeur, but I banked on that
not happening until his injuries had had time to heal. Now, thanks to you,
Jackson’s still out there someplace, alive and well. Presumably Woods warned
him that you were closing in. What the hell did you do to him? I’ve never seen
a man so numb with fear
.
Kept
imagining you were hiding around every corner waiting to pounce on him. It
didn’t dawn on him until too late that he was stewing over the wrong man.”

Lausaux’s newly acquired affluence had him in a
talkative mood. Val had another question. “How did Kellerman get hold of the
Macoute money?”

“Some of Roy Jackson’s pillow talk to Valerie Duval
was about his brother-in-law the former Wall Street whiz kid turned priest. She
told her husband, and he contacted Kellerman and asked him to handle the
Macoute money. His expertise didn’t come cheap I’d imagine, but Duval’s husband
was Catholic and must have thought Kellerman could be trusted; he was a priest
and practically one of the family. Then Baby Doc Duvalier pulled out of Haiti,
the killings started, and Kellerman saw an opportunity to make some serious
money for himself. He brought in MacLean, an old Wall Street buddy, to front
Arena Victory, and cut Moncoeur in for a third in return for his cooperation on
Haiti. Valerie Duval discovered what they were planning for the Artibonite
valley hog project and she threatened to blow the whistle. She contacted the
one man she could depend on, Roy Jackson. He agreed to help her.”

Lausaux started to cough. He wiped spittle and blood
from the corner of his mouth.

“That’s the point where good ol’ Donny enters the
story. His father tells him about his half-sister and asks him to move Duval
and her mother to a safe apartment, out of the Channel and someplace where
Kellerman couldn’t find them. Donny figures there might be some advantage in it
for him if he squeals to his uncle. He was right. Kellerman offers him a
thousand dollars and some stock in Arena Victory to kill the Duval woman.”

“Not the girl?”

“No. Kellerman reckoned if Roy’s daughter was harmed,
he might just go ahead and blow that whistle. As long as she was okay, Roy
wouldn’t say a word. Donny was still his son, no matter what sort of scumbag he
had turned out to be.”

“You got all this from Roy Jackson?”

“Most of it. All it took was a little coaxing. He had
it bottled up inside of him long enough; he needed to tell somebody.”

“If you had the whole story, why risk bringing Gilett
in?”

“Moncoeur and MacLean wouldn’t have lost much sleep
over Kellerman. They would have given him up or had him killed, then cut a deal
with FRAPH if they had to. But I had a trump card to play. Something I knew
would turn their insides to stone.”

“What was that?”

Lausaux started a second bout of coughing. It lasted a
lot longer than the first and, took a heavy toll. When finally it ended, he
said weakly, “That’s enough talking. Shut up and drive. If you want to ask
questions, try asking yourself how your wife’s brain is coping with a reduced
oxygen supply?”

The night was still black as pitch when they crossed
the wooden bridge over the coulee and pulled up outside the Jackson place. The
house was in darkness and dense rain clouds sweeping in from the Gulf had
obscured the moon. There was no pickup parked out front, the sheriff would have
had it driven into town. Val stopped
the Wagoneer a short distance back from the house, where the headlights would
illuminate the steps to the front porch. He switched off the engine. As he
climbed out, the first plump raindrops of the cloudburst struck him. He could
smell the mud of the bayou and Rita Jackson’s honeysuckle.

Clutching the briefcase under his good right arm,
Lausaux cautiously descended from the rear seat, keeping the automatic trained
on Val at all times. The rear near side door of the jeep open to the rain. He
had Val cross in front of the Jeep and step into the light first, and then he
followed him.

Lausaux’s breathing had deteriorated dramatically,
erratic and shallow; each step he took seemed to send a spasm of pain coursing
through him. The bullet had entered his chest just above his left nipple end
exited at his collarbone. There were traces of frothing from both wounds, so it
seemed likely that the bullet had penetrated a lung.

“Where’s Angie?” Val demanded, his hair already
sopping wet and water streaming down his face. “I’ve done what you’ve asked.
I’ve cooperated fully.”

Lausaux spat a stream of bloody saliva onto the
ground. “You think I’m dumb enough to tell you one minute before the seaplane
is preparing for take-off? We’ll wait inside.”

The sheriff had strung yellow crime-scene tape across
the tops of the stanchions. Val angrily ripped it away and climbed the steps.
He knew he would probably have a chance to turn the tables on Lausaux in the
hour or so before dawn, but could he force him to talk. He wanted to heat
pokers on the Jacksons’s stove until they were red and insert them in Lausaux’s
eyes. He wanted to stake him to the ground and let the alligators chew on him.
He wanted to take a bolt cutter to his fingers.

But could a man who has had a twenty million-dollar
dream just ripped from his grasp, with nothing to look forward to but a number
one Angola haircut and a date with the chair, be made to talk?

Probably not, Val thought. But it might be fun finding
out.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Val had difficulty removing the crime-scene tape from
around the doorframe. The illumination from the headlights didn’t reach all the
way up to the porch, so he had to work by touch. In the end he gave up, lowered
a shoulder and broke open the door. The rain was coming down in torrents and
the cypress boards were slippery underfoot. Lausaux stood directly behind him
and prodded his back with the barrel of the gun.

“See if you can find a light switch,” he said

Val’s fingers groped around until he came on one. He
flicked it, but the room remained in darkness. It he remembered correctly, the
junction box was located behind the kitchen door.

“Power’s off.”

“Move on in. There’s bound to be candles or a
flashlight about somewhere.”

Val took a couple of steps, trying to recall the exact
layout of the room. He cracked his injured knee against something hard and
swore. Lausaux collided into his back.

As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Val
started to make out the silhouettes of furniture. Lausaux bumped into him again
and grunted with pain. Val had had enough. He jabbed the point of his elbow
backward into Lausaux’s chest, roughly where he thought the wound should be.
The man dropped the gun and doubled up, squealing like an injured animal. Val
hunkered down and started to grope for the gun.

Before he had time to find it, every light in the room
flooded on. The three bulbs on the wooden wheel hanging from the center of the
ceiling, a standard lamp, even the wall sconces. The sudden brightness momentarily
dazzled Val.

“Leave it!”

The command had come from behind him, in the direction
of the kitchen. He didn’t need to see a face to know who it was. It would have
been difficult to forget the high-pitched voice of Malcolm Kellerman.

“Stand up slowly, Bosanquet. Then move over against
the dresser. Take Lausaux with you.”

Val clambered to his feet. The Beretta had skidded a
yard away from where he had been searching. Kellerman was clutching a
chrome-coated revolver in his fist.

“Go ahead and try for it. I’m a very good shot.”

The parish sheriff had vouched for the Kellerman
family’s prowess with firearms. He took Lausaux’s arm and helped him over to
the dresser. The front of his shirt and the waist of his trousers were drenched
with blood. The man would die if he didn’t get medical attention soon. His lips
moved as he tried to say something. Val bent down to catch it. Very faint, it
sounded like, “She’s drunk.”

Lausaux’s delirious, Val thought. He’s trying to tell
him about Angie drinking the Zombi Juice.

No, not drunk. Trunk!

Had Angie been in the Wagoneer’s trunk for the last
six or seven hours? It was hardly creditable, but where better to hide a
comatose adult? Lausaux would have been pushed for time and needed to stash
Angie where there would be no risk of accidental discovery. On the hour and
half drive to St Francis, Val had given a lot of thought to where Lausaux had
hidden Angie: Assist Haiti’s storage facility at the airport, Lausaux’s home,
even his French Quarter office, and had rejected them all for one reason or
another. It had to be the Wagoneer, especially considering the success Lausaux
had had with his Bomb-in-a-Bentley stratagem.

Val turned to face Kellerman and edged a step closer.
The priest was dressed much the same as when they had met in the church. He was
still wearing his clerical collar.

“How did you know to be here?” Val asked.

“Just a hunch. Though, to be honest, I was expecting
Donny. Who put a bullet in Lausaux?”

“MacLean. During the handover.”

Kellerman’s eyes flicked on to the briefcase Lausaux
was still clutching tightly, then to the injured man, who was unable to
straighten up under his own steam, his breathing coming in rapid, shallow
gulps.

“Where s MacLean now?’ Kellerman wanted to know.

“Dead.”

“And Moncoeur?”

“They’re both dead.”

Kellerman didn’t display any sorrow. “How?”

Val shrugged. “Ask Lausaux.”

Kellerman said, “I don’t think I will.’ He fired a
shot into the crown of Lausaux’s head. Lausaux shuddered and dropped to the
floor as though some invisible force had yanked his legs from under him. Val
reeled. With one bullet, Kellerman had finished both Lausaux and Angie. He put
out a hand and gripped the dresser to prevent himself from collapsing.
Kellerman moved over to the Beretta, bent down and picked it up. He stuck it in
the waistband of his trousers and pointed the revolver at Val.

“How did Lausaux plan to make his getaway? Seaplane?”

Val’s pupils shrank to the size of match heads. “The
killing has to stop.”

“I
did
say
that, didn’t I?” He lowered the gun a fraction. “Is Donny coming in on the
plane?”

Val said nothing.

“I would like the opportunity of seeing him one last
time. He has deprived me of a great deal of money.”

“He might deprive you of more than that.”

“We’ll see. Close all the drapes. I wouldn’t want to
spoil his surprise.”