One Blood (23 page)

A black man spilled out, head first, wielding a heavy metal chair. The man hit the ground and sprung back up, turning back to pull someone else through.

Juanita!

Even through burning eyes, Moses knew she was unconscious. He peered into the doorway as sweat poured into his eyes and smoke scorched his throat. Except for an all-encompassing flame rapidly devouring the office, he couldn’t see anything.

Moses managed to pull the couple back to the stairwell. Then he closed the reinforced door to put one more obstacle between them and a fiery grave. The temporary reprieve gave him an opportunity to see who he’d saved.

Malcolm Wright opened his good eye and stared at Moses with a furious desperation that chilled Moses’ blood. Malcolm tried to speak, but only a cough escaped.

“
Where’s Walter?” Moses screamed.

Malcolm looked away.

Moses pushed at the door. Intense heat seared the palms of his hands and he screamed with pain and frustration. Fire engines still some distance away matched his wailing.

Moses backed off the door and saw Malcolm half dragging, half carrying Juanita down the stairs like a heavy suitcase.

Did Malcolm have something to do with this?

Moses shook off the ridiculous thought. Instead of letting his mind wander down crooked paths, he lent Malcolm a hand. Soon the three of them burst out the front door into an orange-brown Louisiana dusk. Moses wanted to stay and wait for the firefighters, but Malcolm made it clear he was getting out of there.

After a few violent coughs, Malcolm said, “I’m taking Juanita with me.”

“
What happened up there, Malc? Where’s Walter?”

“
You don’t want to know,” Malcolm said grimly. “And I don’t have time to tell you.”

With that, Malcolm carried Juanita over to her car, put her in the backseat, and sped off without looking back.

* * * * *

Chapter Thirty-Three

Monday

Baton Rouge, LA

Randy stepped back from the podium atop the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol building, the tallest capitol building in the United States. He’d survived another round in the boxing ring of public opinion by bobbing and weaving through flurries of tough questions. Credibility intact, Randy’s thoughts returned to Karen. He prayed that the Lake City arm of his sting operation had been successful.

Randy’s cloak of calm threatened to slip away, but he held it together by sheer will. He was deathly afraid of the consequences if he lost his head. Gazing down at the grand staircase, one step for each of the fifty states (listed in the order of their admittance to the Union), he steadied himself. His eyes settled on the quotation chiseled in stone beside the main entrance:

“
We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our whole lives…The United States take rank today among the first powers of the world.”

Flanked by his usual secret service escort, Randy re-entered the Capitol and strode down the striking Memorial Hall, adorned with the likenesses of several Louisiana luminaries. When he made it to the bank of elevators, he waved off the secret service man shadowing him and entered the elevator alone.

He straightened himself out in the reflective metal of the elevator doors as the numbers jumped in gleeful diagonals. The elevator settled to a halt on the twenty-seventh floor and Randy exited onto the promenade of the Observation Deck, which overlooked the city of Baton Rouge.

Here he would have complete privacy.

His thoughts turned to his old adversary. Panama X had assumed that Randy would be so distraught by Karen’s kidnapping that he’d make a mistake. He probably hoped Randy would just lie down and die. Somehow, Randy always beat the odds.

Panama X’s luck, however, had run out. At this very moment, he was being moved to the solitary confinement wing in Camp F, the Injection Center. Imagining Panama X in his final death throes brought a rare smile to Randy’s face.

The bars were back on his cell phone. He dialed Bill Edwards to find out the outcome of the morning’s activities. Voicemail picked up and Randy left a quick message for Bill to call him back with an update.

Storm clouds billowed around the needle of the Capitol tower. The hurricane would be the perfect cover for the Lake City and Angola operations. This time tomorrow, no one would ask too many questions about what had happened in Lake City, and no one would care that Lincoln Baker had been killed while trying to exit the prison. He’d be just another dead nigger in the right place at the wrong time.

His cell phone vibrated. It was Snake Roberts. But that was impossible because Snake Roberts was supposed to be dead.

“
Snake?”

“
Yuh fucked with the wrong one, Boss.”

“
Excuse me?” Randy asked, trying to figure out how Snake had survived.

“
Your boys missed. Now we’re comin’ for ya, Boss. And we’ve got your wife.”

He has Coral? How?

“
Bullshit,” Randy said, stalling for time.

“
Yuh willin’ to call my bluff?” Snake asked.

“
Let’s say I believe you,” Randy replied, wondering how he’d lost the upper hand. “What do you want?”

“
At first, all I wanted was yuh money,” Snake said. “Now that yuh tried to have me killed, that won’t do anymore. Not at all. Yuh gonna have to do much better.”

Randy could tell that the backstabbing bastard was really enjoying this.

“
Are you afraid to get your hands bloody?”

He heard the echo of Madame Deveaux’s question in his mind. She’d been right all along, of course. If he’d taken care of things himself from the beginning, none of this would be happening. He remembered the tall, black man who’d shot his father.

A voice spoke up in his head,
get him close and then bleed him like the leech he is.

“
Yuh still there?” Snake asked.

“
I’ll match the seven million dollars I’ve already paid your friend, Amir Barber,” Randy said. “Meet me at my place in Lake City at 6 p.m. tonight and I’ll make you a rich man. You bring my wife, I’ll bring the money, and we’ll make a trade.”

“
Yuh must think I’m an idiot.”

“
Clearly, I’m the idiot for not seeing you for the snake you really were all these years,” Randy replied, surprising himself by stating the plain truth. “This is my best offer, Snake. You can’t run and hide forever. Plus, you’ve got the most recognizable woman in the state in tow. There’s no place you can go. And if you kill her that will only give me the increased incentive, public support, and resources I need to hunt you down. Truthfully, I’m tired, Snake. I just want my wife and daughter returned safely. Think about it and call me back.”

Randy hung up and leaned his forehead against the floor to ceiling window overlooking the Capitol Gardens. Had he just signed Coral’s death certificate?

Movement amongst the roses below caught his attention. Some lanky punk teenager was trying to pull an act of vandalism on the State Capitol in broad daylight. The shaggy, brown-haired kid had come out of nowhere and was wearing a baggy white velour sweatsuit favored by rappers and suburban white kids dying to be niggers.

With growing anger, Randy watched as the wigger looked around, then pulled up roses like a slave bailing cotton.

How can he do that without cutting his palms to shreds? Where the hell is the gardener or security or somebody?

Randy banged on the window before realizing from this high up, even the birds wouldn’t hear him. The murder of the roses continued. Randy was going to have to take care of the damn kid himself. He was going to have to take care of everything. All thought ceased when the adolescent looked up at the great white phallus, making eye contact with him all the way up on the Observation Deck.

Randy felt a sensation similar to a dull ice pick stabbing him in the eye. He lost his grip on the phone and it slapped against the floor and shattered.

Kristopher!

His testicles crawled into his small intestine; his saliva evaporated. Gasping for air, he leaned on the railing before him.

The brunt of the shock did not come from seeing his long dead child materialize before him. The shock came from seeing blood-filled, eyeless sockets streaming red tears down pale cheeks, forming a morbid mask.

Randy walked toward the elevator in a trance, strangely compelled to meet his son—a lunatic voice speaking in his mind.

“
Come see what I’ve seen, dear old Dad. Come walk the promenade of the blood forests of Sheol with me. I’ll show you your fate. Sure, it might drive you a little batty, but we’ll have ourselves a time. I’ll be waiting for you…”

* * * * *

Chapter Thirty-Four

Monday

New Roads, LA

Jhonnette Deveaux sat in an uncomfortable blue bucket seat in the waiting area of the hospital Emergency Room. She read the news on her laptop and bit her left pinky compulsively. The taste of acetone assaulted her taste buds. She’d forgotten about the nail solution she coated her nails with to break the bad childhood habit.

Jhonnette glanced at the TV in the corner. The ten o’clock news was on. The anchorman had interrupted the interminable hurricane coverage for a breaking news story.

Although set to low volume, she could make out the anchorman stating, “Well, we’ve got another Fox 29 News superstory for you. Exclusive footage from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, where Lincoln Baker, the man convicted ten years ago for the Simmons Park Massacre, was released earlier this morning. You’re not going to believe your eyes…”

As this was the second time she’d seen this report
,
Jhonnette only gave it half her attention. She’d already heard the ridiculous explanation from the warden about how someone had opened fire on Lincoln from the crowd and the guards had returned fire to
protect
him. The only part she agreed with was just how lucky Lincoln had been.

After getting shot multiple times, Lincoln somehow managed to make it out of the prison, only to later fall off the bow of the Angola ferry. They’d fished him out of the Mississippi River a few hours ago and rushed him to the hospital.

This was definitely
not
how Jhonnette had foreseen events transpiring. Both Snake and Lincoln should be dead as a result of her meeting with Randy Lafitte. Instead, Lincoln had miraculously survived. Because she believed everything happened for a reason, Lincoln must be alive because he was
supposed
to live, just as Randy Lafitte had survived his bout with brain cancer due to her involuntary assistance. There was something greater at work here, and the only thing she could do was work with it, not against it.

Besides, keeping Lincoln among the living presented several interesting opportunities for her to capitalize on.

Another intriguing story getting a lot of coverage was how one of the four civilians injured during the commotion was Lincoln’s adopted father, Moses Mouton. He was in critical condition receiving care in the prison infirmary, the R.E. Barrow Treatment Center.

Jhonnette knew she could use this news to get Lincoln on her side.

“
Miss Deveaux?”

Jhonnette jerked her attention from the television and looked over her shoulder toward the triage station. The charge nurse waved her inside the double doors that led to the ER. Jhonnette was anxious to confirm her theory that Lincoln was still breathing because he was somehow a part of the Lafitte curse, too. Lafitte hadn’t exactly taken the bait when she teased him with the possibility, so she couldn’t be sure, but it was the only explanation that made sense.

By now Lafitte was probably waking up to the fact that he’d been duped, but it was far too late for him to change the course of events she’d set in motion. Jhonnette had amplified Amir’s spiritual capacity so much that the
baka
he’d unleashed would be far too powerful for anyone to control. And if the
baka
didn’t finish Lafitte off, Lincoln would. It was his destiny. Jhonnette understood that now.

The charge nurse pointed to room number 243. “He just came out of surgery. You’ve got an hour, not a minute more.” The nurse looked her up and down. “What news station did you say you were from again?”

“
Channel Nine News in Lake City,” Jhonnette replied, suppressing her disappointment. Lincoln was no good to her if he wasn’t conscious, and she was running out of time. “Just try not to aggravate him too much, okay?”

Jhonnette thanked the nurse with a fifty dollar bill and paused in front of the door. She longed to bite her nails again but remembered the acetone polish.

“
Not a minute more,” the nurse reminded her as she walked back to the nurse’s station.