Kicks for a Sinner S3 (11 page)

Nell’s usually wide brown eyes narrowed. “Who?”

“No one I know,” Randi said and started in on her own pile of mudbugs. “I saw Tommy walking home alone. That’s not allowed, is it? He’s gonna be in big, big trouble.”

“Joe!” Nell called.

Joe had acquired a tray of boiled corn on the cob and small red potatoes to feed his brood. He set the tray down in his best waiter style. “I live to serve you, Madame.” His girls giggled. Their mother did not.

“Tommy got angry and walked home alone. I’ve told him time and again he must learn to deal with looking different from the rest of the family. He’s supposed to say he’s our special adopted child and let it go.”

“I’ve told him to ignore trash talk, too, but he’s young yet. It got worse when he started first grade. New kids who don’t know him see he doesn’t resemble Dean. They can be cruel.”

“I will speak with Sister Ursula about this, but Joe, you have to go after him and bring him back here right now. He can’t be allowed to go into a sulk and worry us.”

“I’m on my way.”

A pair of firm hands pushed him down on the picnic bench. “No, you don’t. Let my boy sit and enjoy his meal. I’ll send one of my grandsons to fetch Tommy. A couple of them can drive now,” MawMaw Nadine intervened.

“Thanks, Ma, but if Tommy set the alarm system and they try to get in, we’ll end up with the police coming out to check. Easier if I go.”

Dean returned, took an ear of corn and sunk his front teeth into it. When he opened his mouth, both remained stuck in the cob. A trickle of blood sauced the corn. “Hey, I lost my two front teef. They were loose anyhow. Do I get a dollar now? No, two dollars, huh?”

Nell tore a corner from a roll of paper towels in the can on the table and dipped it into her glass of ice water. “Here, hold this against your gums to stop the bleeding. What next? That’s all I can say is, ‘What next?’ How can I cope with three more on the way?” She burst into tears and reeled off more paper towels to blot her eyes.

“Now, now,
cher
heart. That’s just them babies makin’ you nervous. You feed them some crawfish, and they’ll settle down.” Strong as a stranglehold, Nadine squeezed her daughter-in-law’s shoulder.

“If only it were that simple. Joe?”

“I’m going. Save some crawfish for us.”

He loped toward the new red van he’d purchased in anticipation of a larger family. It sat twelve passengers. Nell said the change in vehicles came too soon. She hadn’t had her first ultrasound yet. Yes, she acknowledged she was pregnant, and judging by the bulge with more than one, but why the rush? Why not wait and see? So much could happen between now and October. He brushed her protests aside. He’d been to church on the sly and lit a hundred candles to draw attention to his prayers that all his babies would survive. He had no doubt they would. But first to retrieve Tommy and give him a good talking to about scaring his mother when she had bad baby nerves already.

He drove to the gates of Lorena Ranch lickety-split and used the remote on the dash to open them. Before he had children, before Bijou had tried to kidnap the infant Tommy for money, he’d been much more casual about security, but Knox Polk had urged him to take more care. The gates still being locked meant nothing. Small boys could and did slip in and out of the compound. He never came down hard on Dean and Tommy about that because he wanted them to have the same sort of childhood he’d experienced before football took over his life—the freedom to rove the countryside in search of harmless snakes and bugs to terrify their sisters, to fish in the bayou anywhere along its length, to pop into the homes of relatives for a cold drink and a visit before heading home, beating darkness and a possible punishment by minutes. His sons knew the rules. Never get into a car with a stranger. Call and tell their mother where they’d ended up.

The first bad vibe came when he found the front door open, the alarm unset. If anything, Tommy was more conscientious than Dean about such matters. Joe called out his son’s name and heard it echo through the vastness of the large house. No answer. He turned on his heels and checked the barn, a favorite sulking place as the animals always offered a sympathetic nuzzle, especially if offered a treat. No sign of a red-haired boy inside or up in the loft. Joe shouted outside using the same voice he drew upon when he called an audible and the other team’s fans tried to drown out his commands and cause confusion while the play clock ran down. No answer.

He returned to the house and took the steps upstairs two at a time. Maybe the kid had been worn out and come home to take a nap away from the noisy crowd of Billodeauxs gathered to eat crawfish on Good Friday. He knew the feeling of wanting to get away from his relatives sometimes. They could be overwhelming. Good thing Nell had proved to be tough enough to stand up to his four sisters and especially his mother, one of the many reasons he loved his wife.

No Tommy asleep in the bed, but the laptop on the desk burst into life when he jostled the chair. Strange it was turned on. Joe saw the note, a white piece of paper propped on the pillow sham depicting a palomino horse’s head, neck curved, ears pricked, wild, white mane flying. A short, clear message and all wrong to his way of thinking. He pulled out his cell phone and poked in a number.

“Knox, sorry to disturb you when you’re with your people, but we have a problem. Seems Tommy has run away from home. He got into snit over someone making fun of his red hair and freckles and took off.” Joe roved the room as he talked to his ranch manager and security officer. “Yeah, lots of his clothes are gone and that Sinners duffel he uses for sleepovers and camping. Seems like way more than a small boy would take along or could carry. Yes, he left a note, but I don’t like the looks of it.”

“How so?” asked the man on the other end of the conversation.

“Well, he says he is going to find his real dad, and he spelled Mexico right. You think a six-year-old could do that?”

“Spell check? All the kids use it.”

“Maybe, but all the kids would use I M instead of typing out ‘am’, too.”

“Good point. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. We’ll check the security tapes, but I wouldn’t worry too much. A boy his age toting a big duffle won’t get far. We’ll probably find him hot and tired and sorry sitting under a tree. How long you think he’s been gone?”

“No more than an hour, probably less.”

“Notify the sheriff’s office. They might find him before I get back to the ranch.”

“Say, don’t tell Corazon yet. No sense in upsetting her or Nell right away.”

“She’s helping my nieces decorate Easter eggs. I’ll tell her some stock got out and we have to round ’em up.”

“Thanks. As quickly as you can, okay?”

“Roger that.”

Joe placed the call to the cops who assured him good-naturedly they’d probably have the boy back in no time. After all, how many red-haired, freckled kids did a Cajun town like Chapelle have or even the whole area of Ste. Jeanne d’Arc parish? The boy would stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.

Joe paced the bedroom. He had that same prickling feeling he got when a tackle came from behind to sack him during a game and took him down with a heavy thud. No sense wasting time. He knew inevitably that Bijou had come back. He placed another call to Toledo Bend and got an answer in two rings.

“Joe Dean, what a nice Good Friday surprise. Just a second, let me get my gardening gloves off. You know how I believe in planting on holy days. If you want your uncle, he’s out on the lake.”

He imagined his elderly aunt with a big floppy gardening hat covering her tightly-permed blue-gray curls, the knees of her stretch pants dirty, her large breasts covered with a flowered muumuu top. Hal had given her one of those phones she could program to identify the caller for an anniversary gift. Despite playing for the Sinners, he knew she’d chosen
When the Saints go Marchin’
In
for his I.D. For Tommy, she’d picked the theme from the rock opera by the same name. Despite his own anxiety, he did not want to alarm her. No better people on earth than Flo and Hal. How they had produced a rotten apple like Bijou, no one knew. All their other kids turned out fine. No reason to pass time with pleasantries.

“No, Aunt Flo. You can tell me what I need to know. Where is Bijou hiding out these days?”

His aunt hesitated. “Why do you need to know? You promised you wouldn’t send him to jail if he stayed in Mexico.”

Certain his aunt stayed in touch with her worthless son, Joe guessed Bijou’s ring tone might be
Chain Gang
. “Tommy is missing.”

“Oh, no! Bijou can’t be involved. He’s settled down on a ranch south of Nuevo Laredo and has a beautiful Mexican wife and a pretty little daughter the same age as your girls. He trains racehorses, you know. He’s reformed, Joe.”

“Sounds like you stay in touch. He ever talk about Tommy?” He kept his voice calm and casual like he did when the Sinners were down two touchdowns, no big deal. They could catch up. He did not want to scare or hurt her anymore than Bijou already had, but could he catch up with Bijou if he’d taken the boy?

Again, that hesitation in her voice. “At first, he didn’t show much interest in his son. You know lots of men don’t care about babies, not the way you do, doting on them and all. But lately he asked me how Tommy was doing. He said Pilar couldn’t have more children, and Tommy would be his only son. He asked for a picture so I sent him one of the school photos from this year. Was that so bad? A man should be able to recognize his own son.”

“Sure, Aunt Flo. Look, I need the name and location of that ranch in Mexico just in case.”

“In case what?”

“In case I need to go there to get my son.”

Flo heaved a sigh into the phone so heavy he knew it came laden with tears like a raincloud about to burst. “I’ll get that information for you. Don’t hurt my boy, Joe.”

“I’ll try to restrain myself. I promise not to kill him.”

He listened patiently as his aunt made her way inside, measuring her progress by the slam of a screen door, the tap of her athletic shoes crossing the hardwood floor to the kitchen. He took a piece of paper from the computer printer and wrote out what she told him, where she’d sent the school picture.

“Thanks, Aunt Flo. I hope this turns out well for all of us. Happy Easter.”

“And to you and your family. Tell Nell and Nadine, I pray every day for those little frozen babies to survive.”

“I will. Bye.”

Joe heard Knox Polk arrive driving the big-engined farm truck. He raced to join him in the surveillance room designed to look like all the other cottages on the ranch but smaller and always locked. As efficiently as he’d carried out military missions, Knox already had the images of the last hour up on the screens. The ranch manager’s disconcerting green eyes set in the mahogany-colored skin of his face scanned the progress of the break-in while Joe watched over his shoulder. Here the culprits came: dog, boy, and man crossing the fence, approaching the house, no attempt to hide his face, flaunting that gold tooth, giving Joe the finger. Damn fuckin’ Bijou!

THIRTEEN

Ignoring the whining of both the pup and the boy, Bijou didn’t stop for food until they crossed the Texas border two hours after leaving the vicinity of Chapelle. He should have resisted the temptation to stick it to Joe Dean and snuck in and out of Lorena Ranch. That would have given him more time to escape, but he figured they didn’t have his license plates, carefully obscured by mud, just another Cajun off-roading to celebrate the holiday. He felt safer in Texas. Hell, the Great State had thousands of big-ass double cab trucks on the road even if his cousin did recognize this one as the same stolen from him six years ago along with Cassie.

As darkness fell, he used a drive-up window at a restaurant just off the interstate to get a burger and fries and a cheap toy for the boy, a cheeseburger for the dog, and a quarter-pound burger for himself. He stopped for gas at a convenience store with no other customers in the lot, let Tommy use the bathroom, and put the puppy down in a patch of weeds to piddle. Tanking himself up with one of those energy drinks and buying a few extra bottles because he planned to drive all night, Bijou made a bed with a blanket in the back seat and told his son to take a nap since with night coming on there wouldn’t be much to see outside.

He let the pup curl up on top of the blanket, too. “Aww, ain’t that cute.” That’s what the border guards would say when he approached the bridge in Laredo crossing over into Mexico, father and son going home after a trip to the states. Thanks to that school photo his always gullible mother sent, he had a passport for Tommy. It bore the name Thomas Charles Deaux, son of Juan Deaux. Age, birth date, place of birth, color of hair and eyes, all true. Shouldn’t be any trouble to gull the authorities while the Barney Fifes of Ste. Jeanne Parish ran around tripping over their own feet and shooting off toes.

He crossed the border regularly hauling racehorses belonging to his boss to various tracks. Many of the guards knew him. He hauled other stuff as well. Funny how no one wanted to search steaming piles of manure for illegal substances. Since the nasty job of uncovering the plastic sacks full of white powder and wrapping the bags again in brown paper to make them less noticeable fell to him and a pair of rubber gloves, Bijou figured Esteban Miro owed him more than a paycheck and a place to live. He skimmed a little from each of those white sacks and made up one to sell through his own contacts, a small gratuity considering he took the risk of being arrested while the boss stayed safe in Old Mexico. Still, he suspected the drug lord greased palms on both sides of the border because he’d never been stopped or questioned. This would work in his favor, too, when it came to Tommy.

Dawn lit a furtive glow in the eastern sky and sneaked over the horizon by the time the three of them reached Laredo. Bijou skipped the commercial bridge with its lines of big rigs since he was hauling nothing back into the country but his very own son. He’d never signed over any parental rights to Joe Dean either. Damn Cassie for handing the child over to his cousin who had everything. If she didn’t want the kid she’d refused to abort, she should have kept it or given the baby to someone else.