Fat Tuesday (31 page)

"Some of Dredd's medicine is still in your system."

She went into the toilet. When she came out, she poured herself a glass of water and drank from it slowly. After a moment, she said, "Your grease is too hot."

Admittedly, he was no master chef, but he'd fried fish before, and it had been edible."Who made you a cook?" he asked peevishly.

"I'm self-taught."

He harrumphed.

"I'm a little rusty. I don't have many occasions to cook anymore, but I certainly know how, and if you don't turn down that flame, the breading is going to burn before the fish is done. I'd be glad to take over for you."

"I'm sure you would. And I'd wind up with a face full of hot grease."

"Actually, Mr. Basile, I'm hungry. I'd like something to eat before I stage my daring escape attempt. Besides, I doubt I could lift that iron pot using both hands."

Inside the sizzling grease, two fillets of fish were becoming way too crisp, way too fast. He glanced down at her and reasoned that she probably did lack the strength to disable him without also disabling herself. So he moved aside and motioned for her to take his place.

"Did you catch the fish?"

"This afternoon."

"If you don't mind, I'll start over. Would you please take the pot off the burner?" He did as she asked, she turned down the flame.

Using a wire spatula, she removed the charred fillets from the smoking grease.

While it was cooling, she sifted his flour and cornmeal breading mixture through her fingers."Did you add salt?"

"Uh, no."

"Any seasonings at all?"

He shook his head.

Several tins of spices were lined up on a narrow shelf behind the stove. She reached for the cayenne pepper. Burke took a hasty step backward, which caused her to laugh."City cop succumbs to cayenne," she said as she shook the pepper into the breading mixture."I can see the headlines now."

"I'm not a cop anymore."

"No, you've gone over to the other side and started committing crimes."

"I've committed only one. So far."

"Isn't kidnapping a little ambitious for your criminal debut?"

"Are you teasing me, Mrs. Duvall? You think this is funny?"

Startled by his tone, she turned to him."Do you find it amusing that Wayne Bardo has already killed two people since your husband got him acquitted?

Two that we know about, that is. That's a real hoot, isn't it?

"And how's this for grins? When Kevin Stuart died, he left two young sons who'll grow up not knowing what a great guy their dad was The next time you feel like a chuckle, think about that."

'"It's Pinkie's job to get his clients acquitted. That's what defense attorneys do."

"Well I see he's got you well indoctrinated. But then you're a smart cookie, aren't you? Even at an early age, you had learned enough about whoring from your mother to snare yourself a rich and powerful man."

"You don't have the slightest idea of what you're talking about."

"Wrong, Mrs. Duvall. I do. I know all about Angel, about her regular job as a topless dancer, as well as her lucrative sideline as a whore that supported her drug habit."

That evoked a reaction, but he couldn't categ hore it. Was she surprised that he knew so much? Angry that he had dredged up a past she wished to forget? Was she embarrassed or mad? He wasn't sure.

Whichever, she lashed back.

"If you know all that, how can you blame me for wanting to get away from her and that life? If I hadn't met Pinkie, Flarra and I "

"Flarra?"

"My sister."

Sister? How had he missed that part? Then he remembered her going to the ritzy girls' school."How old is she?"

"Sixteen. But she was only a baby when Pinkie took us away from our mother."

"Angel just let you go?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what? Exactly."

She averted her head, but he moved in front of her and forced her to look at him."How'd you link up with Duvall?"

"I thought you knew all about it, Mr. Basile," she mocked.

"I think I can fill in the blanks."

"Be my guest."

"Angel dances in one of his clubs, but he pays her for more than dancing. He's one of her clients. One day, he notices you, and you look better to him than mama. Angel tells you to put into practice something of what she's taught you, promising that if you do, you'll snag yourself a rich man. Is that about it?"

Her head dropped forward in what appeared to be defeat and remorse, but it lasted only a moment. When she defiantly threw back her head, her eyes were bright with angry tears.

"Angel taught me, all right, Mr. Basile. By age six I could shoplift cigarettes for her without getting caught. By the time I was eight, I had worked my way up to stealing food so I would have some supper But stealing cans and boxes got cumbersome, so Angel had one of her clients coach me on how to pick pockets. He said I had a natural talent for it. My fingers got limber. I practiced until I was better than my coach. Which was good, because when Flarra came along, the money I made picking pockets came in handy to buy her milk and other necessities."

She paused to wipe a tear off her cheek."Except there never seemed to be enough money for everything, and sometimes Angel took it from me to buy drugs before I could spend it on the baby. So I had to get bolder, steal more often.

"One day, outside Antoine's, I picked the wrong pocket. Pinkie Duvall chased me all the way home, ready to have me arrested. But then he saw how we lived and changed his mind."

"He made Angel an offer. He'd forget the theft in exchange for you."

"In exchange for both Flarra and me. Mother agreed to make him our guardian."

"I bet she did. She saw where Duvall was coming from. She watched his lights go on when he looked at her ripe, young daughter."

"That's not the way it was," she insisted with a hard shake of her head.

"Pinkie Duvall became your guardian out of the goodness of his heart, out of Christian charity?" Burke laughed."Even you don't believe that.

What makes you think I would?"

"He didn't have to assume responsibility for Flarra, too."

"He did if he wanted to make it all nice and legal. A judge might not swallow his wanting to become the guardian of a nubile girl, but two abused and impoverished sisters went down much smoother."

Maybe it was the reminder of Kev's family who had rejected his friendship, or maybe it was because he felt a tinge of pity for little Remy and baby sister Flarra, or perhaps it was his own guilty conscience fueling his anger and urging him on. He felt a dark meanness rising within himself. He wanted to bludgeon Remy Duvall with cruel insults, so that somebody else on the planet would know what real heartache felt like. It was like having barbed wire wound around your heart. He thought it was time that someone else experience what he'd been living with since the night he killed his own man.

He moved several steps closer, until she was backed up as far as she could go and he could see himself reflected in the obsidian mirrors of her pupils.

"You've whitewashed it in your mind, but you knew then and you know now what Duvall wanted. He wanted a young whore who had learned from an old pro."

"Why do you hate me?"

"I bet your virginity was guaranteed, wasn't it? Duvall could return you if you weren't as pure as Angel claimed."

"I won't let you talk to me this way."

"Did he wait a day or two, or did he try you on for size that very first night?"

She flung the wire spatula at him and bolted.

Hot grease splashed in his eye. Holding a hand to it, he staggered across the room and through the door. The instant he cleared the opening, something hard landed against the back of his head and knocked him to his knees. Then again, his head was struck from behind.

By the time he collapsed face first onto the pier, he was unconscious.

"Nancy?"

Nancy Stuart was shooing her rambunctious sons into the backseat of her car. When she heard her name, she came around and exclaimed in surprise, "Doug! What on earth are you doing here?" Pat said, "I got here in time to see some of the practice.

You're raising two major leaguers there."

"Personally I think it's too cold for baseball, but the coaches like to get a running start on the season."

"Got a minute?"

"Well," she hedged, "we're on our way to a team pizza party."

"Hmm." He looked around and then down, and shifted around some gravel with the toe of his shoe."I apologize for ambushing you like this, but I need your input on something that shouldn't be discussed over the telephone."

Worry settled on her pretty features."What's going on?"

"It's about Basile. He's flown the coop. I need to find him."

The boys began complaining about the delay. Nancy opened the car door and motioned them out."Go ride with the Haileys. Tell Mrs. Hailey that I'm coming along right behind you. And settle down! " Disregarding that last instruction, they ran pell-mell across the parking lot toward a van being loaded with rowdy little boys. The,_> other mom ushered the Stuarts aboard, then waved at Nancy to acknowledge receipt of her message.

Turning back to Pat, Nancy said, "The boys miss Burke. They ask about him constantly. I didn't want them to overhear this conversation."

"They miss him?" he asked, confused."I thought he was a regular fixture at your house."

"He was, until I asked him not to come anymore."

Pat listened as she explained her reasons for asking Basile to stop visiting."I know I hurt him, Doug, but seeing him so frequently was hurting me. Each visit was a painful reminder of Kev and how he died.

I was trying to make it part of my past. Burke was keeping it in the present." Pat asked when that last visit had taken place, and when she told him, he frowned."That's about the time he resigned."

"Resigned? He's left the department?" He told her about Basile's gradual but steady decline. Dismayed, she said, "I didn't even know about his and Barbara's breakup. He didn't say a word to me about it."

"He didn't take it nearly as hard as he did Kev's death. That's still eating him up. Even I didn't realize how much until ... this."

"What's happened, Doug? What did you mean when you said he'd flown the coop? Do you mean he's disappeared?"

"Looks like it."

She raised shaking fingers to her lips."You don't think he'd harm himself?"

"No. It's not that, but anything else I say would be unfair to Burke because the details are still sketchy."

"Details of what? Has he ... done something?"

Pat hedged."I'd rather not discuss it, Nancy. There was an incident, but it isn't a matter of record yet because the other involved party wishes to keep it contained. But it's a volatile situation.

If I'm very lucky and locate Basile soon, I might be able to prevent a real disaster. If not, for all practical purposes, his life will be over."

Wringing her hands, she groaned."This is my fault."

"No, no it isn't. He was close to the edge and would have gone over even if you hadn't stopped his visits."

Far from convinced, she offered to do whatever she could to help.

"Tell me where he might have gone," Pat said."Did he ever mention a getaway to you? Some special place?"

"I don't know. A fishing cabin maybe, but ..." She massaged her forehead as though to stimulate her memory."If he ever said where it was, I don't remember. Barbara would know."

Pat's expression turned sour."I'd been trying to reach her at home, when I gave up and called the school where she teaches. She and her boyfriend took some personal days and went to Jamaica. They were already out of town before Basile disappeared. I'm sure she knows nothing about it."

Nancy looked forlorn."I wish I could help. I love Burke. He was a dear friend to Kev and to me. It tore me apart to ask him to stop coming around. But you understand my reasoning, don't you?"

"Yes, I do. And I'm sure he understood, too." He touched her hand in farewell and apologized for keeping her from the pizza party.

Moving away, he said, "If you think of anything, call me."

"Have you spoken with his brother?"

Pat stopped."Brother?" ...

Burke was unconscious for only a couple of minutes, but in that brief amount of time Remy Duvall had managed to row the boat twenty or thirty yards out. She was struggling to start the motor.

He crawled to the end of the pier and called her name. Rockets of pain exploded behind his eyeballs, and he wondered what she had hit him with, and how a woman that slender could have put that much power behind the blow.

She was headed toward land in the direction that he'd indicated to her earlier, when actually the old pier was on the opposite side. He had deliberately told her wrong."Mrs. Duvall, even if you make it to solid ground, you'll die out there. You'll get lost and never find your way out."

Giving up on the motor, she retrieved the oar and began to row again.

Burke considered jumping in and going after her. In some parts of the swamp the water was no more than knee deep. But here it was at least over his head. Ordinarily that wouldn't pose a problem. Swimming, he could cover the distance to the boat in seconds. But he was dizzy and nauseous and unsure he could remain conscious if he tried to swim.

He might drown. Then both of them would perish, because, damn it, he'd meant it when he warned her of the dangers awaiting a person alone and lost in the swamp.

There was only one choice left to him, and it was a bitch.

But, seeing no other way to stop her, he forced himself to stand.

He swayed on his feet and had to close his eyes for a moment while the horizon rocked itself back into its rightful position. When the Worst of the dizziness passed, he stumbled toward the cabin in a listing gait that he thought must look like a poor imitation of John Wayne.

The pistol was where he'd hidden it.

Moving as quickly as his distressed equilibrium permitted, he returned to the end of the pier, cupped the pistol in both hands, and aimed it at the small boat."Turn around and come back, Mrs. Duvall." She ignored him."If you don't, I'm going to shoot holes in the boat and sink it."