Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 13 - The Diamonds of Ghost Bayou (20 page)

Her voice quavered with fear. “You keep saying `they.’ Who
are they?”

“I don’t know,” I lied. “So much has happened in the last
couple of days, I haven’t had time to sit down and think about it.
All I want to do is get us safely back to Priouxville.”

We eventually hit the 1-10 access road, which curved beneath
an overpass and led us into Bon Espoir, population fourteen
thousand. The name was French for “good hope.” I crossed my
fingers that fate was not playing another trick on us.

The amber glow of high-pressure sodium streetlights lit the
four lanes bisecting the small city. The garish signs of several
fast-food restaurants and convenience stores beckoned to their
customers. Pickups and vans were most prominent about the
early-morning gas stations and restaurants.

I pulled in back of a McDonald’s and stopped. “Go in and get us
a table.” Diane frowned. “I’ll park down the street,” I explained.

She climbed out and then looked back in surprise. “My
purse. I-”

I pulled out my wallet and handed her a couple of bills. “Forget it. No telling where it is. Just get us a table.”

She closed the door, and I sped away. I found a spot behind a
ShortStop convenience store on the next block and parked between two Dumpsters. I hurried back to McDonald’s, making
sure my shirt covered the revolver tucked under my belt.

Diane had found an empty booth near the rear of the restaurant. We each ordered coffee and a breakfast biscuit and kept
our faces lowered while we ate and discussed our next move.

“We’ll get a cab and find a motel.”

“Motel?”

“Car rental places don’t open until eight or so,” I explained.
“We can’t afford to wander around out here for the next three
hours.”

“What about the bus station?”

“Huh?” I stared at her for a moment and hesitated. The idea
appealed to me. It wasn’t as high profile as car rental services
or cabs. Besides, we could always sit next to an exit in the lounge in case the trio showed up. And on the bus, our faces would be
among twenty or thirty others. “I hadn’t thought about a bus.” I
slid out of the booth. “Wait here.”

From the pay phone, I called the American Lines bus station.
I wanted to shout when they informed me a bus would be pulling out for Houston, Texas, at six thirty. That meant we could
make connections in Lafayette for Priouxville.

I told the clerk where I was and asked directions.

“You don’t need directions. Look out the window. See the
Moulin Rouge Motel across the street?”

I glanced out the window, spotting the green and red neon
sign. “Yeah.”

“That’s it. The bus picks up passengers in the lobby here.”

Ten minutes later, tickets in hand, we each poured a cup of
coffee and made ourselves comfortable on a battered couch in
front of a new flat-screen TV in the motel lobby, eagerly awaiting
the arrival of our bus. From time to time, I laid my hand on the
reassuring bulk of the .38.

I’d given the motel/bus clerk a story about hitching a ride
from New Orleans with an acquaintance, saying this was as far
as he was going. “I knew we couldn’t hitch a ride on to Lake
Charles, so the bus was our only choice,” I explained.

A tall, skinny man with a shock of long black hair hanging
down in his eyes shook his head. “Me, I know what you say.
There be too many of them hitchhikers out there what want to
hurt folks.”

For the next few minutes, we made idle chitchat.

Diane hissed. I glanced at her, and she shifted her furtive
gaze to the front window.

My blood ran cold. A tan Lexus had pulled up beside the red
van in back of the ShortStop down the street.

My heart thudded in my chest as I watched Buzz and Turk
search the van and then disappear into the convenience store.

After a few minutes, the two emerged from the store and
went next door to the donut shop. Their next stop was the McDonald’s. Diane looked up at me in alarm when they pushed
through the doors into the restaurant. I shook my head almost
imperceptibly.

At that moment, a green and white bus pulled in under the
portico in front of the motel.

“There she is, folks,” called out the desk clerk. “American
Lines, and believe it or not, she’s early. Load up as soon as the
driver gets the other folks’ luggage.”

The door hissed open, and a small man in a gray uniform
with a service cap stepped down. Three passengers followed. He
unlocked the storage area and found their luggage. He glanced
around and grinned at the desk clerk. “Hey, Jimbo. Any riders
for me?”

The clerk nodded to us. “Only two. They be going to Houston.”

We handed the driver our tickets and climbed aboard. As we
made our way down the aisle, I glanced out the window. The
Lexus remained in front of McDonald’s.

We found two empty seats in the rear of the bus.

I didn’t lie to myself. Having found the van, those bozos
would methodically run down every means of transportation out
of the small town. The bus station was just a matter of time.

The smell of burning diesel grew stronger as we roared away
from the Moulin Rouge Motel.

Diane sagged against my shoulder. “What a relief. Now we’re
safe.”

“Yeah.” I started to say more but held back. I had to figure out
our next step. We were sitting ducks on the bus. Then I thought of
Leroi, my cousin in Opelousas. He was only an hour from Baton
Rouge. Finally, I relaxed, but only slightly.

We remained silent. Sometime later, I looked over at Diane.
She was sleeping.

One unwavering fact I’ve discovered in the PI business is
that events will never go as you plan. That’s why I knew we had
to get off the bus as quickly as possible.

I had an idea, one that would call for the aid of my cousin,
Leroi. At our first stop, I would put my plan into action.

That job out of the way, I turned my thoughts to Eddie Dyson’s message regarding Benoit’s cell mates. He said C. K. Judice and Benoit had shared a cell. Lacoutrue’s message had not
included Judice as a cell mate. Why?

The only explanation that made sense was that the sheriff had
assigned the task to his deputy, Paul Thibodeaux, who struck
me as the kind who might go fishing without a hook.

If, as Eddie Dyson reported, C. K. Judice had spent time with
L. Q. Benoit at Winn Correctional, then there was a good chance he’d revealed the secret of the hidden diamonds to the old man.

I grimaced at the dirty tricks fate sometimes played. The
old man had probably returned to Priouxville figuring he would
never again want for money in his life. Instead, someone had
killed him and then left horse tracks in the mud to place the
blame on the loup-garou. I leaned back against the seat and
closed my eyes. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t afford to sleep.
Buzz and Turk weren’t the brightest lights around, but their
boss was no dummy.

We stopped a few miles up the road at a Super Go convenience
store in Gonzales for a rest break. Inside, I got lucky and found a
pay phone. I called Leroi.

He picked up on the first ring. “Catfish Lube.”

“It’s me, Leroi, Tony. Just listen. Don’t talk. I need help. Bigtime. Fast.”

Thinking I was joking, he quipped, “What’s up, cuz? Rob a
bank or something?”

“I’m serious, man. Some bad guys are after me and Diane.
You remember her.”

He grew serious. “Yeah. Your ex. What are you two doing together?”

“I’ll explain it all later. We’re on an American Lines bus. I
don’t know where the station is in Baton Rouge, but you remember the old Colonial Plaza on Highway 190, north of town?
Carson’s Supermarket was across the street. You know, where
we used to deliver sweet potatoes when we were in high school?”

“That place still there?”

“It’s a Piggly Wiggly now. At least it was last fall.”

“I got you”

“Meet us there. About an hour or so. Don’t leave without us”

“You got it, bro. How you going to get out there?”

“Don’t worry about that. And, Leroi-”

“Yeah?”

“You still carry that .45 under the seat?”

“Sure do.”

“Good. Don’t lose it.”

Back on the bus, I explained to Diane that we had to get off
the bus as soon as we hit Baton Rouge. We couldn’t take any
chances. “I would not be at all surprised if those jokers aren’t
waiting at the bus station for us”

Her eyes grew wide in alarm.

“But Leroi’s only seventy miles from Baton Rouge,” I reassured her. “He’ll be waiting for us when we get there.”

She frowned. “Isn’t he your black cousin?”

My eyes grew cold. “This isn’t the time to turn your nose up
at help. We need him now more than anything.”

She eyed me a moment, then dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry,
but what if he isn’t there?”

I chuckled. “He will be. If he isn’t, then we’ll just be forced
to do a lot of shopping at the Piggly Wiggly until he gets there”

For the next forty minutes, I kept looking for the tan Lexus with the scarred fender. Finally, we rolled into Baton Rouge. The bus turned onto Highway 61 from 1-10. At the first red light,
Diane and I disembarked.

I glanced over my shoulder as we mingled with the pedestrian traffic.

“Now what?” she whispered.

“Now a cab.” I saw a Checker down the street. “There’s one
now.”

Just after we climbed into the cab, I thought I spotted the tan
Lexus. I wasn’t certain, but I pressed back in the seat to be safe.

The Colonial Plaza was north of downtown, near where the Opelousas Highway turned west and crossed the Mississippi.

Leroi was waiting for us. A broad grin split his face, his white
teeth in sharp contrast to his black skin.

He didn’t waste time asking questions. As soon as we got in
and closed the door, he whipped his yellow pickup around and
quickly shot up to the speed limit.

in Opelousas, we picked up a vehicle from Pelican Rental,
grabbed a hamburger and milkshake, and headed for Priouxville. An hour and a half later, we pushed through the door into
Jack’s room. He stared at us in surprise. “Jeez. You look terrible.”

The tears Diane had been holding back finally came. She
rushed to him and buried her face in his chest, sobbing uncontrollably.

He cradled his good arm about her and patted her gently on
the back. He looked up at me, his face a mask of confusion. I
shook my head and for the next fifteen minutes detailed the
events of our trip to New Orleans and the harrowing hours we
had faced.

“But who were they?” he asked furiously.

“I don’t know for sure. The only thing I’m positive about is
that someone thinks we know more about the diamonds than
we do. I figure they’re trying to run us off so they can search
without interference.”

“Run you off? But they shot at you.”

“Yeah.”

He muttered a curse through his teeth. “They tried to kill you.”

What could I say? “Yeah. Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“They were mechanics. But if they’d planned to waste us, they
would have done it, instead of chaining us up in that house.” I
don’t know if I convinced him or not. I wasn’t even sure I had
convinced myself.

By now, Diane had stopped crying and was wiping away the tears in her eyes. “You’ve got no idea how scared I was,” she
said softly to Jack. “I kept thinking about you.”

Jack grinned sappily. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

She looked around at me in shock. “What about the car?”

“The car?” Jack looked from her to me.

I hooked my thumb in the direction of New Orleans. “It’s still
in Frenier,” I said, reaching for the phone. “I’ll give them a call.”

A few moments later, the receptionist at Frenier Motors put me through to the service manager. I asked about Mrs. Edney’s
Cadillac and listened in disbelief as he replied that her husband
had picked it up yesterday afternoon.

“What?” Jack exclaimed when I related the service manager’s announcement.

With a wry chuckle, I replied, “That’s what he said. You
picked it up yesterday.”