Bayou Brigade (7 page)

“Shit, baby, I forgot,” complained Eddie, as he placed a tube of KY jelly on the nearby table.

Elva June relaxed, a sensational rush of blood and heat pulsating through her body. Eddie went into the outer office, yanking
his pants up and diving for the receiver, now on its eighth ring.

“Crosby here; may I help you?”

A peppy feminine voice answered, “Eddie, this is Wilma Christian in Washington. I need some help with a story.”

“I’m your man.”

“Ever hear of Dartmouth Internationale? It’s a freight company in Buenos Aires.”

“Yep, the name’s familiar. The Port Authority is having trouble locating some of their merchandise. Six shipments vanished
off the pier without a trace.”

“That’s marvelous!”

“Tell that to the Board of Commissioners.”

Explaining the possible arms smuggling and Senator Parfrey’s involvement, Wilma suggested he .dig into the dock authority’s
records and compare Dartmouth’s original shipping memorandums with the actual bills of lading. “If there are any major discrepancies,”
she said, “I’ll be joining you tomorrow to follow up the case myself.” Elva June poked her head around the door. “Are we gonna
screw around or what?” she huffed.

“Hold on a minute, honey,” he replied, covering the mouthpiece.

Crosby returned the call from Washington two hours later. “Wilma, I have both sets of bills,” he said. “They’re almost identical.”

Wilma’s voice grew impatient. “What’s the difference?”

“Signatures aren’t the same. The shipping labels stapled to the port’s receiving copies show Costa Rica as the point of origin
for six of the shipments. But the bill of lading memo lists Argentina.”

“Could it be a clerical mix-up?”

“Not likely. The discrepancy is too consistent. Listen, this has the whole dock baffled. How d’ya find out about this?”

Wilma giggled.

Sunday morning at ten, Eddie met her at the New Orleans airport. Upon seeing him—strong build, square shoulders, standing
just over six feet with light brown hair and a minor graying of sideburns—it was lust at first sight. But the manner in which
he constantly eyed the girls, no matter what they looked like, reeked of male chauvinism. His conversation, when not confined
to the business at hand, flew into tangents regarding body building, and subtle suggestions that he wanted to land her in
the sack. It threw a wet towel on Wilma’s aspirations for the evening; Eddie Crosby was a self-acknowledged sex god, the kind
most intelligent women tried to avoid.

“Have you contacted Mr. Sherr, the port manager?” she asked between his boasts.

“Oh, sure,” he replied, as they drove downtown to the La Grange Hotel. “He’s tryin’ to keep his nose clean, but the shit’s
piling up awful fast.”

“You mean the bills of lading?”

“Also the fact all that merchandise shipped in from Costa Rica—or Buenos Aires, wherever—disappeared off
his
dock. There’s a lotta city officials wonderin’ if city longshoremen are ripping off the gun payload as it comes in.”

“Can I interview him?”

“This afternoon at three. But remember, he’s’ as confused about this as we are.”

Wilma smirked. “Conveniently so, it seems.”

“Don’t go rough on the man. The state, city, and Federal government mucky-mucks are always on his butt. New Orleans is a prime
entry port for contraband and illegals floating in from south of the border.”

“Granted. But how many ways can you smuggle a ton of weapons and explosives off the docks without being seen?”

“It wasn’t agreed that the cargo was strictly arms, was it?”

“The facts add up to that much. Has the dock crew been checked out?”

“Sherr told me they’re clean.”

“Well, if he’s in the practice of fending off any possible investigation, then why should he be straight with either of us?”

“Why would he lie?”

How naive, Wilma thought. “Ed, the smuggling might be sancitioned by his office, for all we know. After all, Senator Parfrey
was racketeering, and he was a
senator,
for God’s sake.”

“We can check my back file of news stories for any previous gun-running activities on the dock.”

“Jesus, I thought you’d be
prepared
when I got here.” “We can dig together, maybe at dinner?”

Wilma sighed.

“After
dinner,” he remarked, raising an eyebrow, Groucho-style.

“Don’t you ever quit?” said Wilma.

A cursory look at the wire service files revealed no published accounts of this brand of gun smuggling, although fourteen
cases of drug-trafficking and one of suspected (though unproven) gun-running gave the Port Authority plenty of headaches.
The Feds had the place under constant scrutiny.

The port manager was a rotund barrel of a man, constantly under pressure from an intolerant Board of Commissioners and his
own doctor, who warned him to lose weight or die an early death. He chain-smoked Camel filters and talked in an irritating
stop-start manner which grated on Wilma’s nerves.

“Did you ever hear of Senator Parfrey’s involvement with Dartmouth Internationale?” she asked, while he ran a pencil through
an electric sharpener.

“No. And if you’re going to suggest that Parfrey’s influence with the Texas dockworkers’ unions had spread to Louisiana, you’d
better forget it. I run a clean shop here.” He shredded the brand new lead-tip down to a ludicrous two-inch nub.

“If it were all that clean, there’d be no need for me t talk with you about this.”

“Don’t get uppity with me, girlie. I’m breaking a very important appointment as a favor to Eddie-boy, her Any more accusations,
and you can leave.”

Wilma bit her tongue. “Sorry. But how can you explain . the discrepancy on the bills of lading?”

“Yes, it’s obvious someone is pulling a very sophisticated con job on us, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Parfrey had been
behind it, God rest his soul. The bills should have been cross-referenced in our files, but they weren’t. A clerical error.”

“But the same error was repeated six times.”

“It don’t matter to me, Miss Christmas—”

“Christian,” Wilma interrupted.

“I’m
sorry.” He bowed in his seat. “It’s a matter for the FBI and the Treasury Department. The Board of Commissioners aren’t to
blame for the illicit dealings of gun-runners and dock thieves. Besides, our own security men never reported any suspicious
goings-on while that merchandise was on our dock.”

“Nonetheless, the crates were stolen from your docks.”

“We are investigatin’ the matter.” Sherr spoke calmly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a board meetin’ to attend.”

To question him further would have been useless backsliding. Wilma and Eddie departed Bob Sherr’s office convinced the man
wasn’t telling all.

“What can we do about it, though?” wondered Eddie aloud as they headed uptown. “We checked the docks ourselves. Not a clue
from any of the workers we talked to.”

“They’re stalling—maybe it’s a cover-up.” Wilma suggested.

“Maybe they just don’t know.” Eddie turned the corner, aiming west down St. Louis Street. “Why are you so suspicious of everybody?”

Wilma didn’t answer. She wished Daughton had put her on the Washington Monument story. That was a simple terrorist bombing,
nothing like this current exercise in futility.

Eddie managed to coerce her into their having dinner together; she accepted it as being the only game in town. Shortly after
a delicious French dinner at Arnaud’s Restaurant, he suggested “A little nightcap at my place would make tonight
really
memorable.” Wilma felt ill.

“I work out at the club regularly,” he boasted. “Gotta stay in shape if you work hard like I do.”

“What did you say, Eddie?” she said, disinterested.

“Am I boring you?”

“Not exactly,” she said, relaxing a bit. An image of Ben Slayton flashed in her mind, his lips curling back into a smile.
Coming back to the real world, she saw Eddie was still half expecting an answer. “I’m sorry, it must be this drink. Suddenly
I’m very tired.”

“Do you want me to drive you back?”

“Eddie, my hotel is right next door.” She laughed.

“How about that nightcap,” he said, “in your hotel room?”

“Maybe some other time. I’m ready to go.”

Eddie didn’t understand. “Have you got something against me?”

“Of course not. I’m just interested in…” Reconsidering, she tried to let him down easily. “Let’s see what happens after a
couple of days, okay?” It was rare that Eddie was turned down on a first date.

He stood, plainly disappointed. “I’m sorry, Wilma, but it’s my way.”

“No need to apologize. Care to see me to my room?”

Eyes brightening again, he said, “May I see you inside?”

“The door will be just fine.”

He even tried for a light good-night kiss, flatly refused.

Cascading out of tranquil, quiescent sleep, and forward into the vivid glare of day, Wilma awoke to the telephone’s unwelcome
buzzing. It was Eddie.

“Who wants me at nine-fifteen?” Her brain was still a little blurry.

“C’mon, c’mon, hop in a cab right away, get down to the office.” He was in a state of feverish incoherence.

“Back up and start at the beginning.”

“I’m calling from a pay phone—can’t talk now—meet me in a half hour.”

Wilma recognized Eddie’s car in the new bureau parking lot as the cab let her off at the corner of St. Philip and North Rampart
Street. A dilapidated Ford truck, with both fenders missing and its tailpipe hitting the pavement, was nearby, parked at a
shabby angle.

She bounced inside. “I hurried as fast as I… could.” In front of Eddie’s desk stood an Indian, Jacques Telemacques, an Acadian
who lived in the backwater of sugar cane fields and alligator traps of the bayou.

Seemingly ageless, weathered and worn by sixty years of hardship on a wilderness homestead handed down for generations, Telemacques’s
face embodied the pioneer durability of the French-Indian heritage well-known in the swamps. His hands were calloused by the
plow and shovel, his eyes robbed of their vigor and strength by a life of hard work in the sun as a cane farmer. Standing
next to him, almost in his shadow, was a teen-aged girl, Orial. Her impoverished, ragamuffin attire belied an unspoiled beauty,
haunting blue eyes and dark brown hair falling down her back in soft waves. This was Telemacques’s daughter.

Wilma turned to Eddie, who, wearing an impudent grin, was quite amused by her puzzlement. “Who are they? What’s going on here?”
she asked.

After introductions, Eddie paced the floor and explained, “Mr. Telemacques lives about twenty-five miles west of Morgan City,
in the heart of the swamps. He was in town getting supplies and buying a transistor radio for his little girl. I was buying
stamps at the post office and overheard him talking to one of the clerks—he was sending a letter to the newspaper, all about
this military fortress out where he lives.”

Wilma almost leaped out of her shoes. “What did he say? What did you tell them, Mr. Telemacques?”

“I told the man,” began the Acadian, “that the Army was buildin’ this fort in the swamp. They come to my home, bother Orial
and me. We don’t like them.”

“Do they have weapons? Guns?”

“Machine guns,” he smiled, rocking back and forth. “I know what machine guns look like.”

“Do you know how to find this place?”

“I know. They tell me to forget all I see. They say we leave them alone, they will leave us alone. But they watch us all the
time. Perhaps I should not say these things, but the ghost of my dear wife makes me. The fort, it is a castle of wood, rising
out of the water.” He gestured, spreading his arms wide, suggesting a building of enormous size.

Wilma walked over to Telemacques daughter. “And what about you, honey. Did you see it, too?”

Eddie butted in. “Don’t patronize them, Wilma. These are intelligent people. Old Telemacques here admits to a little witchcraft
now and then, but his story opens up new horizons for your story about the guns. Where else but an isolated stockade to hide
the weapons?”

“A rather amazing coincidence that you found him,” she said, turning to Telemacques. “Will you show us?”

The Indian remained silent.

“Yes, of course, Papa,” said Orial in a low tone.

Telemacques relented. “You will have to come at night. They watch us during the day.”

“They saw you come here?” inquired Wilma.

“We saw no one follow us.”

Eddie tried convincing Telemacques to allow him and Wilma to accompany him to the bayou, but the stubborn Acadian wouldn’t
hear of anyone setting foot on his soil until Thursday. “Ghosts will not return to my house for two days,” he said. “When
they come back, you will be protected from the evil men, the Army. I cast a spell .

it will drive the spirits off my land for two days. It’s not safe for you until they return.”

“Don’t be ridiculou—” began Wilma.

Orial interrupted, “My father knows what he is talking about. Please don’t argue with him.”

Removing a topographical map from his files, Eddie obtained directions to their bayou home. A paved road led a few miles out
of Morgan City to dirt paths winding through the marshes. Figuring they’d have to charter a plane to avoid the hidden perils
of the bayou, Telemacques pointed out a clearing (unspecified on the map) where an air strip would accommodate a small craft.

As Telemacques and his daughter drove off, they were watched by the seedy occupants of a black van idling noisily across the
street. One, who looked like a burly Hell’s Angel, was equipped with binoculars. He left the van and walked to a telephone
booth.

“Mr. Baal,” he said, raspy-voiced.

Someone on the other end spoke. “You followed the old man?”

“Yeah, he and the teen-age bitch just came out of the wire service office. I couldn’t get close enough to hear anything, but
they were looking at maps.”

Baal paused. “Return to the motel and await my instructions. I will be in the city for a few more hours and will take care
of the Indian.”