Gator Aide (25 page)

Buddy sorted through a mound of skins piled like a bunch of old clothes for Goodwill. “You see this here? It’s all going over to the Japs. I take yen, I take lire, I take deutsche marks. If it’s any kinda money, I take it. It’s all the same to me.”

Buddy slapped his stomach in satisfaction, jiggling a layer of fat as we walked back out. Throwing some wrinkled tee shirts off a crate and onto the floor, he motioned for me to sit while he plunked himself down in an old easy chair.

“Between you and me, outlawing was the best thing I ever did. Hell, most of us dealing legal these days got our start through poaching.”

“It looks like you’ve got quite a business going for yourself.” I decided to play a hunch. “I hear you’re also keeping pretty busy working on Hillard’s campaign these days.”

Buddy grinned and gave me a wink. “That’s right, I sure am. And mark my words—we’re gonna make him mayor, too. N’Awlins is in bad need of someone like Hillard. Straighten that hellhole right out.”

Slugging back the rest of his beer, Buddy’s cheeks puffed out in large fleshy pouches.

“It must be hard finding the time to run a big business along with a campaign.”

Buddy hefted his bulk out of the chair with a forward swinging motion. “When something’s important, you find the time for it, know what I mean?” Opening an icebox that could have sold as an antique, he grabbed two more beers. “What’s your interest in all this anyway? You wanna stuff some envelopes for us? Ain’t ol’ Charlie keeping you busy enough, running ragged after all those boys out shooting his ducks? ’Cause the way you look, I’d say they’re winning.”

Buddy handed me another beer and lowered himself back into the chair, landing with a heavy thud.

“If you’re referring to my bruises, I was caught in that march in town the other day. Got whacked on the head for it, too.”

Buddy let out a belly laugh. “That’ll teach you to look both ways before you step out on the street next time. Better yet, don’t hang around with fags.”

I put the second bottle of beer down on the floor next to the first, which I hadn’t touched. “Is Hillard still heading up the movement down here these days?”

Buddy’s tongue flicked across his bottom lip. “Naw. Hillard’s outta that now. I suppose you also heard I used to be his second-in-command.”

Smiling, I shook my head. “Yeah, at one time. But I heard you’re running the whole show now.”

“Sugar, who’d go and tell you a thing like that?” He winked as the neck of the bottle slid partway down his throat. “You ain’t Jewish, are ya?”

“What do you think? Do I look like I am?”

Buddy laughed as
Love Connection
turned into
Concentration
.

“Naw. I’d been able to sniff you out if you were.” Emptying his second bottle of beer, Buddy picked up one of mine. “Who knows, what with the two Germanys back together, maybe they’ll learn to do it right this time. Except those damn Jews are just like cockroaches. Seems you can’t kill ’em off, no matter how hard you try. Getting to be the same way with fags. That AIDS thing is gonna kill the rest of us, but the damn fags will still be out there marching for their damn rights. Now that’s one problem we’re gonna try to do something about.”

Buddy smiled as he stretched out and propped his feet on top of his desk, knocking a gator skull to the floor. “So, tell me. Didya meet Hillard yet?”

Picking up the skull, I held it in my lap. “I was at his house not long ago.”

“On a social visit like this one?”

“No, it had to do with an investigation into the murder of a dancer, Valerie Vaughn.”

Buddy twirled one of the empty beer bottles on his finger. “So what were you doing there?”

“I was called in because of a gator found in her apartment.”

Buddy put his feet down and leaned in close. “Bunch of wackos in that town. Listen here, sugar. Ain’t nobody don’t fool around if they get the chance, know what I mean? But Hillard had nothing to do with that two-bit piece of ass. She wouldn’t have been worth his getting in trouble over.”

“You knew Valerie?”

“Yeah, I knew Valerie. Who didn’t know Valerie? But you don’t go and shit in your backyard, and N’Awlins is Hillard’s backyard. Besides, that wife of his woulda killed him.”

If Buddy could lie for Hillard, maybe he could fill in some blanks as well.

“Tell me about Gunter Schuess. Is he involved with the movement down here?”

Buddy snorted in disgust. “That arrogant asswipe? Naw. He’s just pulling the wool over Hillard’s eyes with that liaison bullshit. He’s getting himself a free ride for a while. But let me fill you in on something, since you seem to be so interested. American Nazis don’t need the damn Germans. The Krauts, they think they’re better than us, you know what I mean? Shit, we could teach those bastards a thing or two would make their heads spin.” Buddy leaned back as he let out a burp. “But I don’t bother myself with none of that, cause I’m just a good-natured ol’ swamp boy. I love everyone.”

He grinned in a way that made my skin crawl. Taking a quick glance around the room once more, I spotted a sawed-off shotgun. It poked out from a pile of clothes where it stood against a wall. Buddy followed my gaze.

“You got a hankering for guns, sugar? That there ain’t nothing. I got me a real beauty at home. A goddamn Remington with a silencer that I used to hunt gators with in the old days. I figured it would come in mighty handy in case I ever bumped into a game warden I hadn’t bought off. It could shoot his ass to kingdom come and never make a sound.”

Buddy watched me closely, then broke a smirk. Logic told me to get up and leave, but there were a few things I still needed answered.

“Clyde Bolles is a strange kind of guy. Since he seems to have taken such a dislike to me, is there anything I should know?”

Buddy reached down between the buttons of his shirt and slowly scratched his belly.

“Doncha know? Ol’ Clyde used to be a poacher himself before he got a job with the state. Now I’m giving him tips on who’s poaching gators these days. I don’t need no scum cutting into my business. Now that I’m legitimate, that is.” Buddy laughed as his hand heaved up and down on his stomach. “But Clyde, he’s kind of a loner. Don’t like no one messing around in what he considers his territory. At the moment, you’re sitting in part of it.”

I stood up to leave, placing the gator skull on top of the jumble of correspondence and bills. Catching a glimpse of a black matchbook that looked vaguely familiar, I leaned in closer as I bent down to pick up my beer bottles. On the way back up, I managed to get a better look. The matchbook was from Pasta Nostra.

Driving back along Route 1, I swerved around a walking stick that had been thrown in the middle of the road. The boy standing there earlier had disappeared from sight. The empty stretch of road ahead glistened under a hot white sun like a long string of black licorice. Passing by the 7-Eleven, I saw the girl in her tube top and short shorts sitting on a wooden step, lazily fanning herself with a wilted newspaper. I was more confused than ever after my visit with Buddy. With no clear-cut lines dividing the poachers from the politicians from the gay bashers, it was all one big roux being stirred in the hotpot of southern Louisiana.

The raucous cry of a great blue heron rose up from the bayou. I pulled my attention back to the road just in time to slam on my brakes as a pickup veered toward me. Swerving at the last second, it barreled down a narrow dirt road, coughing up hairballs of dust. The whirlwind it had thrown up settled back down to earth in time for me to catch sight of the license plate, with its letters HONK. It was Hunky Delroix, getting even with me for our tiff the other morning. On another day I might have let him go, not wanting to bother with a Bayou car chase, but this morning I needed to vent my frustration.

Peeling out after him, I dodged one pothole after another in a road leading to nowhere as Hunky churned up a layer of dirt that fell like fine volcanic ash. Squinting at the road ahead, I rounded a bend in time to see his vehicle fly up in the air and then crash back to earth with a heavy thud, the frame settling onto a tire as flat as a pancake. Pulling up a few yards behind, I watched as Hunky waddled around, trying to assess just how bad the damage was. The axle of his pickup rested on top of a sharp rock that was lodged in the middle of the road.

“That’s what you get for cutting me off, Hunky. It wasn’t a nice thing to do.”

Glaring at me, he returned his attention to the tire that was beyond any hope of repair. “Dammit, Porter. I ain’t having no luck these days.”

I sympathized with him on that, feeling pretty much out of luck myself.

“There’s a 7-Eleven not too far back. I’ll make a call and have the nearest service tow you out.”

Hunky kicked at a spider as it scurried out of his way. “I ain’t got no money for that. I’ll change the damn thing myself. I got another tire in the back was mended not too long ago.”

Evidently, Hunky was used to flat tires. If he wanted to kill himself in the heat, it wasn’t my place to argue with him. Getting out of my car, I joined him to examine the damage.

“Where were you heading off to so fast anyway, Hunky? You got something in the back here I should know about? Maybe another bag of ducks?”

Hunky’s face flushed bright red as though he had just stepped out of a sauna. “I ain’t got nothing back there, Porter. You got me the other day. Even took my gun, remember? Why don’t you just leave me alone now? I got everything here under control.”

Tiny beads of sweat rolled down his face and onto his beard, where they clung like miniature Christmas balls. Sauntering over to the back of his pickup, I peered in. Hunky trailed after me.

“I’ve changed my mind. Maybe you oughta go call that tow truck for me, Porter. Okay? Will you do that?”

“Sure, Hunky. Just as soon as I see what’s going on back here.”

Stepping up on the rear fender, I swung myself over the tailgate and into the bed of the truck. I landed on a burlap sack stuffed with millet seed, used for baiting a lake and shooting geese. Pushing aside a fishing pole and a container of worms spoiling in the heat, I rummaged through a pile of old clothes grungy to the touch, stiff from dirt and sweat. Beneath those were some cardboard boxes flattened to cover the floor of the truck. Seeing nothing there, I realized Hunky’s reaction to me had become like that of one of Pavlov’s dogs—except instead of him getting hungry, I just made him sweat. Ready to give up and head back out, I took a final look around.

“Porter, I want you outta my pickup right now. Don’t you need some kinda warrant or something to go searching back there?”

That did it. There had to be something, and I was going to find it, even if it meant tearing the truck apart piece by piece.

“I don’t need any search warrant, Hunky. But if you’ve got a problem with this, feel free to have a chat with Hickok after you fix your tire.”

Pulling up the cardboard, I discovered a long wooden pole with a sign nailed to it. I turned it over and read, “Kill All Fags. Get Rid of AIDS. Vote Hillard Williams.” Looking at Hunky, I now knew one other person who had been at the march that day.

“Nice sign you got here, Hunky. I was hit over the head with something that looked an awful lot like this. In fact, I had to go to the hospital because of it.”

Hunky cleared his throat, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I got a constitutional right to express myself, same as everybody else.”

“You’re absolutely right, Hunky—you do. But it stops at bashing people over the head to make your point. Assault and battery of a federal agent is an offense punishable with jail.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Porter.”

“I think you do. In fact, I think you’re the one who gave me those contusions. Yep, it’s all coming back to me now. I think I’m going to have to press charges against you.”

“You’re a crazy woman, Porter! You know that? I didn’t even see you at that march! You can’t throw me in jail for something I didn’t do!”

“It’s your word against mine, Hunky and I think the police just might believe me before they do you.”

He stood with his head hanging down, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets, muttering to himself.

“What was that, Hunky?”

“What do you want this time, Porter?”

Hunky was the only key I had.

“I want to know who was responsible for planning the riot, and where you hold your meetings.”

Hunky stamped his feet, pawing at the ground. “Are you outta your mind? I can’t tell you that stuff!” Letting loose, he kicked the flat tire. “Besides, I don’t know.”

“Let me make this easier for you, Hunky. You’re aware that I caught Trenton, aren’t you? Well, he wants to know awfully bad who it was that gave him up. Since he’s willing to work with me, I feel kind of obliged to tell him.” Hunky’s complexion went from red to ash grey in a matter of seconds. When he finally spoke, his voice came out in a rasp.

“You can’t tell him. You promised me! I’ll be a dead man!”

“You’re right. And I’d feel really bad about that Hunky, so I’ll tell you what. I’m going to make you a deal. You tell me what I want to know, and I won’t bring charges against you. I also won’t tell Trenton who it was that turned him in. Is it a deal?”

Hunky’s brow furrowed in a mass of deep wrinkles as he worked out every angle.

“If I tell you what you want, you can’t use this Trenton stuff on me again the next time.”

“Agreed.”

Hunky doubled over as if he were fighting off gas pains. “Shit. I can’t believe I gotta tell you this stuff.”

Leaning against the sign, I showed no pity.

“All right. It was Buddy organized the thing. He’s just trying to help Hillard win the election, was all.”

“Who else was involved besides Buddy? Was Hillard in on it?”

“He mighta known about it. I don’t know. It wasn’t like he was at the meeting or nothing.”

“Who else was there?”

“Nobody you’d know, Porter.”

I’d been a fool to think this was going to be easy. “Was a German there by the name of Gunter Schuess?”

“Yeah. He was there.”

“What’s his involvement? Is he one of the leaders?”