Dead Man (21 page)

“That old broad don’t never stop working,” said Nicky. “Probably outlive us all.”

“Wanta give odds on that?” asked Trask, and laughed.

She returned to the house and the lights went on. Maxton
got out of the car, followed by the other two. They walked down the road to the store, climbed the creaky wooden steps to
the equally creaky
galerie.
Maxton stopped, Nicky and Trask went through the screen door, it slammed its three diminishing times behind them, tinkling
the bell.

Maman trudged up from the rear, beaming. Her expression changed when she saw the two men and Maxton outside.

“Cold beer,” said Trask.

Maman jerked her head. There was suspicion in her manner. “In de back. In de cooler ‘gainst de back wall.”

Trask went down the aisle out of sight. Nicky took out some folding money, offered her a $50 bill, thereby keeping her at
the front of the store.

“Got nuthin’ smaller, you?” she asked.

Nicky dug around in his billfold, came up with a twenty.

“For three of them,” he said.

Maman made change. Trask came up the store holding all three icy bottles of beer in his left hand, the necks between his curled
fingers.

“We’ll drink ‘em here.” said Nicky.

“Mebbe you leave dem empties in de crate on de porch,
non?”

On the
galerie
they gave Maxton his beer, and all three men moved to the front edge of the porch beside the steps. They could not readily
be heard from inside. They stood in a row in their town clothes, facing out, drinking their cold beers.

“I went through the place,” Trask said. “She’s alone in there now, but the clothes I saw on a fucking blonde snatch at the
New Orleans bus depot was lying on the bed.”

“Blonde, huh? A wig and she gets past you,” said Maxton in a low snarly voice. He stopped and spread his hands. “No matter.
She’s been here, we’re here now, we’ll ask where…”

A car came down the dirt track from the gravel to stop in front of the store. Two Cajun fishermen got out and crossed toward
the trio on the
galerie.
Sunset was flushing the sky over the trees to the west with delicate violet and rose pink.

“Nice sunset,” said Maxton to the fishermen as they started up to the steps.

“Tu dis,”
said one.

They went by, into the store. Maxton said, “Get us another round of beers, Nicky. It looks like we’ll be here a while.”

Papa’s scow, silhouetted against the gold and crimson sky, was towing Vangie’s empty boat across an open area of marsh. Vangie,
in the prow of Papa’s boat, was twisted around forward so the wind was in her face. The motor was a thin steady throb; a big
heron flapped by over them in spindly dignity. Vangie looked up at a trio of wood ducks whistling by overhead, then looked
back at her father. She laughed. He laughed. There was sheer shared delight in both of their faces.

Beertown was a tavern in Henderson where students from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette came to drink
beer during the school year. There were fishing nets with cork floats strung on the walls, a couple of open muskrat traps
on display, a warmouth bass mounted behind the bar, a juke and a shuffleboard and a lot of undistinguished country music,
which is why the college kids liked it.

School was out for the summer, so it was once more Cajun country. At the bar a group of young bucks, Minus among them, was
drinking beer. The bartender, Ta-Tese, was their age and obviously one of them.

“Eh la bas,
Minus,” he said. “Your roun’.”

Minus checked his watch, nodded.
“Tu dis.”

Ta-Tese got fresh beers all around from the cooler, plunked them down on the bar. He winked at the other Cajuns.

“Why you honor us comin’ roun’ here to do your drinkin’?”

Minus drank from the bottle neck like they all did.

“Dat Vangie, she back from de big city.”

Cojo exclaimed
“Pensez-donc!”
in wonder. “Dat was one pretty girl, her. What she lak after all dese years, man?”

Minus couldn’t resist making a whistling mouth and waving one hand as if he had just slammed it in the door.

“Poo-ya-yi!
Dat some woman!” Then he laughed and punched Cojo on the shoulder. “An’ she invite me to come out to de store tonight, drink
beer wit her and her folks.” He set his empty bottle on the counter, slapped some money down beside it for the round of beers.
“Henderson is closer to Broussard’s Store an’ Vangie den Lafayette is. And
dat’s
why Minus honors you by comin’ round here tonight fo’ a beer.”

He started for the door laughing at their envious faces. Until she had dropped out at the age of sixteen, Vangie had been
just about the hottest number their high school had ever seen.

The Cajuns emerged from Broussard’s Store in the deepening dusk, one carrying a six-pack, the other a paper bag. Maxton, Nicky,
and Trask were over by the edge of the porch, putting their empties in the wooden crate left there for that purpose.

They covertly watched the others depart.

“Nicky, stay out here in case anyone else comes.”

Maxton and Trask went in, their entry jingling the little bell merrily. Maman hurried from the living quarters, went behind
the front counter. Her face was flushed from cooking.

“You want a couple more beers, you?” she asked brightly.

“We want your daughter,” said Maxton.

Maman leaned on her elbows and locked her eyes on the network sitcom feed now coming in on the blurry little TV, thus further
concealing the attaché case with her body should any of them come around behind the counter.

“Go off ten year ago, her,” she said.

“Come back today, her,” said Maxton harshly.

“We want your daughter Vangie, goddammit!” yelled Trask. He loved this stuff. It excited him.

“No see her, ten year.”

Maxton slapped her explosively across the face. Maman cowered back against the wall, her hands up to protect herself from
a beating. Maxton made a disgusted gesture and went back toward the living area. Trask took over, carelessly.

“Tell us now, you old sow, or I’ll hurt you bad.”

He reached for her, and clawed hands flashed out to rip down his cheeks. Trask reeled back, yelling, his face pouring blood
as Maman ducked under his arm and was gone. He crashed after her, toppling merchandise to right and left. Maxton emerged from
the living area.

“What the hell’s going on?”

“Fucking old bitch clawed my face.”

“Well, at least you were right about the clothes, Trask—I remember that outfit from Chicago. Now go find the old lady. She
can’t get by Nicky on the front and I’ll cover here.”

Crouching behind a rack of hunting clothes, Maman jerked down the circuit breaker. Instant darkness.

Maxton’s voice wobbled with earnestness. “Goddam her!”

Red and green running lights glowed out to the side of Papa’s flatboat as it approached the landing. The wake curled palely
in the near darkness. He turned the throttle, the motor dropped in pitch, the boat slowed. He reached back to keep Vangie’s
towed flatboat from running over them as he cut the motor and the keel grated on the bank. Vangie jumped ashore.

“We put the fish in the live-box, Papa?”

“Tu dis,”
he grinned.

He heard the mooring chain clink as Vangie wrapped it around the tree, could dimly see the open padlock in her hand.

He shook his head. “No, de chain hol’ her, good-good.” He had a big rich laugh for such a small, feisty man. “Bet Maman got
one great big gumbo waitin’!”

Maman was in the bait room using both hands to hold a large scoop net submerged in one of the live-bait tanks. A sudden flashlight
beam hit her square in the face. She crouched, tensed like a trapped bobcat, did everything but hiss.

In a satisfied voice, Trask called, “I got the old bitch.”

And the scoop net full of live wriggling shad slammed into his face. He crashed down on his back, flashlight flying, as Maman
ran right over him up the stairs.

The dim battery-powered light in the cricket box at the front of the store had not gone out with the other lights. Maxton
saw Maman scuttling from the bait room, a dark figure moving between him and that dim light. She ducked around behind the
front counter, grabbed the attaché case, jerked open the screen door—and ran right into Nicky.

Trask stumbled up to grab her with savage pleasure.

“She’s fucking
mine!”
he exclaimed.

Nicky hissed, “Someone’s coming.”

Trask slapped a hand over Maman’s mouth, dragged her to the back of the store. Her eyes gleamed over his hand like those of
a ferret in a trap. Maxton put the attaché case on the counter.

“Just keep quiet,” he said to Nicky in a low voice. “With the lights out, they’ll probably go away.”

Papa’s approaching voice said, “… an’ catfish gettin’ more a pound than they ever got.”

“That’s wonderful, Papa,” said Vangie’s voice.

Maxton hissed at Nicky, “That’s her! Quiet…”

Vangie stopped abruptly. “The lights are out, Papa.”
“Fous pas mal.
Dat Maman, she in back makin’ supper, her.”

Without hesitation he went up the steps and across the porch. Maxton could see Papa’s silhouette appear in the paleoblong
of the screen door. Papa came in, tinkling the bell. Vangie was coming warily a few steps behind him.

Maman twisted so her mouth was momentarily uncovered.

“Prenez garde!”
she yelled.

Trask’s hand jerked her head savagely the other way, there was a loud snap and it remained over at the grotesque angle. Her
eyes were wide and staring. Nicky jumped Papa, but her cry had alerted him, he was no easy prey for the strongarm. They went
over sideways into the cricket box, smashing it to pieces.

Papa found breath to yell, “Vangie! Run!”

She grabbed the case as Maxton grabbed her. Kicking and clawing fiercely, she twisted free, slammed the screen door wide and
was off the edge of the
galerie
with the attaché case. Maxton tried to do the same, his left foot came down in thin air, and he did a tremendous front flip
off the edge of the porch.

Papa had a grim two-handed bulldog grip on Nicky’s ankle, but Trask slammed him beside the head with his gun butt, followed
him down, smashing again and again until Nicky dragged him away.

“C’mon, for Chrissake, the old guy’s finished.”

Vangie slid down the bank in pale moonlight like an otter down a mud slide. There was mist over the water. She jumped into
her father’s boat, snapped shut the padlock on the chain around the tree, ran down to the stern. Hand-over-handed up her scow
on the towrope. She threw in the attaché case, jerked open the slipknot on the towrope.

“Here! She’s here!” yelled a badly limping Maxton when he saw her below just about to jump into the flatboat.

Without even looking back, Vangie dove into the water. The boat started to swing free. Maxton tried to scramble down the bank,
fell, slid and rolled right down to the water’s edge. Nicky and Trask, on the bank above, started firing wildly over his head
at the drifting scow, even though Vangie was nowhere to be seen in the concealing river mist.

* * *

Her sleek head broke water on the far side of the scow so it was between her and the shore. She reached up for the gunwale,
but it splintered and flew apart. She grabbed a breath, ducked under again so she didn’t see two more slugs hole the side
of her outboard motor. Maxton, flat on his back in the mud, was yelling hysterically at his cohorts firing over his head.

“Quit firing, quit firing, you fucking apes!” He struggled to his feet as they slid down the bank, waved his arms wildly.
“Get after her, for Chrissake!”

Neither man moved. They weren’t about to dive into that cold fucking water in the dark, there were gators and snakes and turtles,
oh my…

“The boat, you stupid fuckers! Use the boat!”

They scrambled for Papa’s fishing scow. Nicky grabbed the prow. Trask tried to unwind the mooring chain from around the tree.
Nicky shoved. Nothing happened. Trask took out his gun.

“She locked the fucking chain to the tree.”

Maxton said, “It doesn’t matter,” in a subdued voice. They turned to look out over the mist-covered slow brown river. There
was nothing to be seen but mist. “She got away clean.”

Actually, the flat-bottom scow had wedged itself up against a cypress knee. Vangie’s forearm and lower leg came up to hook
themselves over the gunwale, she rolled up into the boat. It sent out silent wavelets, Vangie herself was silent, listening
to their distant voices echoing off the sounding board of fog.

“Hell, I hit the motor a couple times,” said Nicky’s voice. “She ain’t going anywhere with it.”

Vangie saw the holes, with cold fingers loosened the clamps holding the motor to the transom. She was shivering in the night
air. Maxton’s echoing voice transfixed her.

“What about her folks?”

Trask said in bragging tones, “I took ‘em both out.”

Vangie sat down abruptly on the bottom of the boat, terror
and despair washing over her in great waves. She started to sob even as Maxton’s voice came again.

“Terrific work, Trask! Let’s get out of here before someone finds ‘em.”

Suddenly all fear was gone. She stood up, knuckling her eyes like a little girl, but her face was a mask of hatred. She jerked
lose the gas line, with one wild heave sent the motor into the water with a heavy splash.

Maxton’s distant, muffled voice demanded, “What was that?”

“Me, you fuckers!” she screamed into the fog. “I’ve got the bonds! Come and get me, I’ll be waiting for you! Especially you,
Trask!”

When Minus turned into the dirt track to Broussard’s Store, his headlights swept across three fishermen just getting into
their big four-door sedan. They spun gravel and came right at him, lights on bright. Minus had to slew over to one side of
the dirt track, his horn braying angrily, so their fenders could clear his by scant inches.