Lausaux cut in. “Okay, here’s what I’ll do. You reach me the briefcase, and I’ll pass you the detonator at the same time.”
......
“I’m not about to do that. The explosion would kill us all.”
......
“We’ve talked long enough. Let’s do it.”
Lausaux wound open the window and instructed Val to draw alongside the Bentley. As close as possible. The hot air of the slipstream started to raise the temperature inside the vehicle.
Moving into position, Val glanced across the empty passenger seat to a grim-faced Moncoeur staring straight at the road in front of him, concentrating on his driving. Despite the elevation of Lausaux’s Wagoneer, it wouldn’t be much of a reach for Moncoeur. The Bentley was no low-slung sports coupe.
Val allowed the Wagoneer to nose a few feet ahead of the Bentley. He moved the steering wheel a fraction to bring the two vehicles closer. Avoiding a collision would be principally his responsibility since Moncoeur would have only one hand on the wheel when he passed the briefcase over. None, if he was to grab hold the detonator at the same time.
MacLean must have been thinking along the same lines. He maneuvered himself through the gap between the Bentley’s front seats into the rear. He hauled an ox-blood leather briefcase behind him, then straightened himself up and opened the window.
Val made a slight adjustment to the rear view mirror so he could watch the hand-over. With luck, he would seize an opportunity to take the gun from Lausaux. But what purpose would that serve? Until he knew where Angie was, shooting Lausaux would have to remain wistful thinking.
The two vehicles almost touched. A red Renault sounded its horn as it overtook them on the inside lane.
“Watch your driving,” Lausaux snapped.
Val caught his first good look at MacLean’s face. Even in this light, it was evident how incensed he was. Almost to the point where he would prefer to die in an explosion than make the payoff.
Almost.
The briefcase was barely small enough to make it through the window. Val realized instinctively that there was something wrong, but alarm bells didn’t ring until he saw how Lausaux switched the detonator from his right to his left hand before taking a firm grip on the case’s handle.
MacLean made no attempt to reach for the detonator. His right hand pulled a small snub-nosed revolver from inside his jacket. He brought it up towards Lausaux.
Val hauled on the steering wheel, almost side-swiping the central crash barrier, a hundredth of a second before he heard the shot. He regained control and floored the accelerator, risking a glance backward at Lausaux.
Damn! He was hit. The briefcase was nestled safely in his lap, but the front of his polo shirt was already turning crimson.
“Don’t you die on me,” Val shouted.
“Don’t worry. I’m not the one about to die.”
A hundred and fifty yards in their wake the Bentley was slewing to a halt, directly under a highway light. The driver’s door opened and a black-trousered leg touched the asphalt.
The fireball from the explosion rose thirty feet into the night sky. Almost simultaneously the force of the blast scooped up the Wagoneer and pushed it forward. For an instant all four wheels lost contact with the surface of the road. The tailgate window disintegrated and Val could hear the ping of debris striking the vehicles metal skin.
“That’s one for the hogs,” Lausaux whispered softly. Then to Val, “Now let’s get off this fucking road.”
“I’m taking you straight to hospital,” Val fired over his shoulder. The nearest would he Tulane.
“Forget it,” Lausaux said, lowering the briefcase and raising the Beretta. “Take Highway Ninety and head towards Morgan City, then south to St Francis Parish.”
“The Jacksons’s place? That’s eighty miles. You won’t make it that far.”
“I’ll make it. Just you drive.”
“Not until I know where you have Angie. And the antidote.”
“Get me there and I’ll tell you everything. You don’t want to risk messing me around. I’ve taken all the crap I’m going to.”
Val had no choice but to do cooperate. Until he knew where Angie was, he couldn’t let Lausaux out of his sight. If Lausaux showed up at an Emergency Room with a bullet wound, the medics would alert the police immediately. Once they started questioning Val, the FBI wouldn’t be far behind. After what he had done to Comeaux and Lehman, it would take most of the night to persuade them he was on the level and have them search for Angie.
“Why there?”
“Gilett’s idea. It’s empty and the nearest house is more than a mile away.”
Val remembered an additional attraction. “And a seaplane can easily land on the bayou right by it. Is he meeting you there?”
“Yeah. He’s hired a pilot to fly us to Mexico.”
“Not the best of destinations for two fugitives requiring medical treatment.”
Lausaux smiled. “Gilett’s not as incapacitated as you think. The Morgan City docs did quite a job of fixing him up.”
Then what was the rationale behind Lausaux coercing him into driving? Val thought he had the answer. They were approaching the slip road for Highway 90. He made a signal and moved across.
“When exactly is this plane of Gilett’s expected to touch down on the bayou?”
Lausaux smiled. “I’ll give you this, Bosanquet. You catch on fast. A real smart cop. First light, Wednesday morning.”
“You brought the payoff forward by twenty-four hours. Gilett’s the wrong man to double-cross.”
“He’ll have plenty to occupy him with the FBI on his tail and no money to buy his way out of the country.”
“How much is in the case?”
“Twenty million in Treasury Bills.”
Lausaux folded a handkerchief into a pad and pressed it against his wound. His breathing was irregular.
“There’s a couple of things I don’t understand. How did you persuade Captain Clements to stand down the guard on my brother’s house?”
“With the right motivation people will do just about anything. Surely you can appreciate that at this precise moment?”
Understanding dawned on Val. “It was you who killed Howard Woods? Did you kill Galen also?”
“No. He and Donny holed up in a houseboat owned by Galen’s family down on the Bayou Penchant, though they had moved out by the time I got there. Gilett was supposed to kill Jackson, but he messed up and succeeded only in wounding him. Jackson would have blown everything if he had taken it into his head to go after his uncle or Moncoeur, but I banked on that not happening until his injuries had had time to heal. Now, thanks to you, Jackson’s still out there someplace, alive and well. Presumably, Woods warned him that you were closing in. What the hell did you do to him? I’ve never seen a man so numb with fear. Kept imagining you were hiding around every corner waiting to pounce on him. It didn’t dawn on him until too late that he was stewing over the wrong man.”
Lausaux’s newly acquired affluence had him in a talkative mood. Val had another question. “How did Kellerman get hold of the Macoute money?”
“Some of Roy Jackson’s pillow talk to Valerie Duval was about his brother-in-law the former Wall Street whiz kid turned priest. She told her husband, and he contacted Kellerman and asked him to handle the Macoute money. His expertise didn’t come cheap I’d imagine, but Duval’s husband was Catholic and must have thought Kellerman could be trusted; he was a priest and practically one of the family. Then Baby Doc Duvalier pulled out of Haiti, the killings started, and Kellerman saw an opportunity to make some serious money for himself. He brought in MacLean, an old Wall Street buddy, to front Arena Victory, and cut Moncoeur in for a third in return for his cooperation on Haiti. Valerie Duval discovered what they were planning for the Artibonite valley hog project and she threatened to blow the whistle. She contacted the one man she could depend on, Roy Jackson. He agreed to help her.”
Lausaux started to cou
gh. He wiped spittle and blood from the corner of his mouth.
“That’s the point where good ol’ Donny enters the story. His father tells him about his half-sister and asks him to move Duval and her mother to a safe apartment, out of the Channel and someplace where Kellerman couldn’t find them. Donny figures there might be some advantage in it for him if he squeals to his uncle. He was right. Kellerman offers him a thousand dollars and some stock in Arena Victory to kill the Duval woman.”
“Not the girl?”
“No. Kellerman reckoned if Roy’s daughter was harmed, he might just go ahead and blow that whistle. As long as she was okay, Roy wouldn’t say a word. Donny was still his son, no matter what sort of scumbag he had turned out to be.”
“You got all this from Roy Jackson?”
“Most of it. All it took was a little coaxing. He had it bottled up inside of him long enough; he needed to tell somebody.”
“If you had the whole story, why risk bringing Gilett in?”
“Moncoeur and MacLean wouldn’t have lost much sleep over Kellerman. They would have given him up or had him killed, then cut a deal with FRAPH if they had to. But I had a trump card to play. Something I knew would turn their insides to stone.”
“What was that?”
Lausaux started a second bout of coughing. It lasted a lot longer than the first and, took a heavy toll. When finally it ended, he said weakly, “That’s enough talking. Shut up and drive. If you want to ask questions, try asking yourself how your wife’s brain is coping with a reduced oxygen supply?”
The night was still black as pitch when they crossed the wooden bridge over the coulee and pulled up outside the Jackson place. The house was in darkness and dense rain clouds sweeping in from the Gulf had obscured the moon. There was no pickup parked out front, the sheriff would have had it driven into town. Val stopped the Wagoneer a short distance back from the house, where the headlights would illuminate the steps to the front porch. He switched off the engine. As he climbed out, the first plump raindrops of the cloudburst struck him. He could smell the mud of the bayou and Rita Jackson’s honeysuckle.
Clutching the briefcase under his good right arm, Lausaux cautiously descended from the rear seat, keeping the automatic trained on Val at all times. The rear near side door of the jeep open to the rain. He had Val cross in front of the Jeep and step into the light first, and then he followed him.
Lausaux’s breathing had deteriorated dramatically, erratic and shallow; each step he took seemed to send a spasm of pain coursing through him. The bullet had entered his chest just above his left nipple end exited at his collarbone. There were traces of frothing from both wounds, so it seemed likely that the bullet had penetrated a lung.
“Where’s Angie?” Val demanded, his hair already sopping wet and water streaming down his face. “I’ve done what you’ve asked. I’ve cooperated fully.”
Lausaux spat a stream of bloody saliva onto the ground. “You think I’m dumb enough to tell you one minute before the seaplane is preparing for take-off? We’ll wait inside.”
The sheriff had strung yellow crime-scene tape across the tops of the stanchions. Val angrily ripped it away and climbed the steps. He knew he would probably have a chance to turn the tables on Lausaux in the hour or so before dawn, but could he force him to talk. He wanted to heat pokers on the Jacksons’s stove until they were red and insert them in Lausaux’s eyes. He wanted to stake him to the ground and let the alligators chew on him. He wanted to take a bolt cutter to his fingers.
But could a man who has had a twenty million-dollar dream just ripped from his grasp, with nothing to look forward to but a number one Angola haircut and a date with the chair, be made to talk?
Probably not, Val thought. But it might be fun finding out.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Val had difficulty removing the crime-scene tape from around the doorframe. The illumination from the headlights didn’t reach all the way up to the porch, so he had to work by touch. In the end he gave up, lowered a shoulder and broke open the door. The rain was coming down in torrents and the cypress boards were slippery underfoot. Lausaux stood directly behind him and prodded his back with the barrel of the gun.
“See if you can find a light switch,” he said
Val’s fingers groped around until he came on one. He flicked it, but the room remained in darkness. It he remembered correctly, the junction box was located behind the kitchen door.
“Power’s off.”
“Move on in. There’s bound to be candles or a flashlight about somewhere.”
Val took a couple of steps, trying to recall the exact layout of the room. He cracked his injured knee against something hard and swore. Lausaux collided into his back.
As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Val started to make out the silhouettes of furniture. Lausaux bumped into him again and grunted with pain. Val had had enough. He jabbed the point of his elbow backward into Lausaux’s chest, roughly where he thought the wound should be. The man dropped the gun and doubled up, squealing like an injured animal. Val hunkered down and started to grope for the gun.
Before he had time to find it, every light in the room flooded on. The three bulbs on the wooden wheel hanging from the center of the ceiling, a standard lamp, even the wall sconces. The sudden brightness momentarily dazzled Val.
“Leave it!”
The command had come from behind him, in the direction of the kitchen. He didn’t need to see a face to know who it was. It would have been difficult to forget the high-pitched voice of Malcolm Kellerman.
“Stand up slowly, Bosanquet. Then move over against the dresser. Take Lausaux with you.”
Val clambered to his feet. The Beretta had skidded a yard away from where he had been searching. Kellerman was clutching a chrome-coated revolver in his fist.
“Go ahead and try for it. I’m a very good shot.”
The parish sheriff had vouched for the Kellerman family’s prowess with firearms. He took Lausaux’s arm and helped him over to the dresser. The front of his shirt and the waist of his trousers were drenched with blood. The man would die if he didn’t get medical attention soon. His lips moved as he tried to say something. Val bent down to catch it. Very faint, it sounded like, “She’s drunk.”
Lausaux’s delirious, Val thought. He’s trying to tell him about Angie drinking the Zombi Juice.
No, not drunk. Trunk!
Had Angie been in the Wagoneer’s trunk for the last six or seven hours? It was hardly creditable, but where better to hide a comatose adult? Lausaux would have been pushed for time and needed to stash Angie where there would be no risk of accidental discovery. On the hour and half drive to St Francis, Val had given a lot of thought to where Lausaux had hidden Angie: Assist Haiti’s storage facility at the airport, Lausaux’s home, even his French Quarter office, and had rejected them all for one reason or another. It had to be the Wagoneer, especially considering the success Lausaux had had with his Bomb-in-a-Bentley stratagem.
Val turned to face Kellerman and edged a step closer. The priest was dressed much the same as when they had met in the church. He was still wearing his clerical collar.
“How did you know to be here?” Val asked.
“Just a hunch. Though, to be honest, I was expecting Donny. Who put a bullet in Lausaux?”
“MacLean. During the handover.”
Kellerman’s eyes flicked on to the briefcase Lausaux was still clutching tightly, then to the injured man, who was unable to straighten up under his own steam, his breathing coming in rapid, shallow gulps.
“Where’s MacLean now?’ Kellerman wanted to know.
“Dead.”
“And Moncoeur?”
“They’re both dead.”
Kellerman didn’t display any sorrow. “How?”
Val shrugged. “Ask Lausaux.”
Kellerman said, “I don’t think I will.’ He fired a shot into the crown of Lausaux’s head. Lausaux shuddered and dropped to the floor as though some invi
sible force had yanked his legs from under him. Val reeled. With one bullet, Kellerman had finished both Lausaux and Angie. He put out a hand and gripped the dresser to prevent himself from collapsing. Kellerman moved over to the Beretta, bent down and picked it up. He stuck it in the waistband of his trousers and pointed the revolver at Val.
“How did Lausaux plan to make his getaway? Seaplane?”
Val’s pupils shrank to the size of match heads. “The killing has to stop.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?” He lowered the gun a fraction.
“Is Donny coming in on the plane?”
Val said nothing.
“I would like the opportunity of seeing him one last time. He has deprived me of a great deal of money.”
“He might deprive you of more than that.”
“We’ll see. Close all the drapes. I wouldn’t want to spoil his surprise.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The downpour delayed first light by a half hour. Twenty minutes after that Val heard the throb of an aero engine. Kellerman switched out the lights and pulled back the corner of a drape to peer up at the morning sky.
They hadn’t traded more than a couple of dozen words in the last hour. Kellerman kept his distance, knowing a bullet would cover the ground between them a lot faster than Val could. He opened the briefcase and checked the treasury bills, but refused to be drawn by Val’s questions and in turn seemed little interested in asking any of him.
Val had weighed the pros and cons of asking if he could check the trunk for Angie and decided against it. Kellerman was a stone killer and wouldn’t think twice about putting a bullet in her. She was safer left where she was.
All he could do was sit and wait. The slimmest of chances, and he would pound Kellerman’s head to a bloody pulp with his bare fists. So far no chance had come his way.
The engine noise grew in volume.
“I see it,” Kellerman announced. “He’ll be here soon.”
Val could hear the plane banking in a circle above the Jacksons’s house. Then it reduced power as the pilot feathered the props for a landing. Would the pilot leave his plane and come up to the house, or if nobody showed, simply take off again?