J. Bertrand - Pattern of Wounds

“Aw, come on, now.” He makes a show of turning, but when the guards look ready to let him retreat, he pauses. “All right, all right. I’ll talk to the man. I’ll let him talk, anyway, just don’t be expecting no replies.”

“Lower your voice,” I say. “Nobody can hear you. How you doing, anyway?”

He cracks a smile. “Just grinding time up here until I get out. You know, you can’t just drag a man out of church. I got a right to worship, just like everybody.”

“Did I interrupt? Accept my apologies. As much sin as you have to confess, I know the time must be precious. I’ll make this as short as I can.”

“All right, all right,” he says. “You drove yourself all the way up here; least I can do is hear you out.”

Coleman props his elbows on the table, clearly curious about my unexpected arrival, calculating how he might work whatever I want from him to his advantage. When I don’t say anything, his smile fades.

“It ain’t my grandmama, is it?”

I shake my head. “Far as I know she’s fine. This is about something else. I need a set of eyes and ears back in the cages, all right? There’s a fellow inmate of yours I’m interested in.”

“Man,” he says, “I ain’t no snitch. I start acting like one now and somebody in here’s gonna cut me a new orifice, feel me? Now, I’ll be happy to barter back and forth on something out there .” He waves a hand to indicate the outside world. “Up in here, though, you can’t even be asking.”

“Maybe you already have the information I want.”

A pause. “All right, then. Shoot.”

“Donald Fauk.”

“Fauk?” He smiles. “What kind of name is that?”

“Do you know him?”

He sits back, arms crossed, casting a glance up at the ceiling. “Maybe I know of the man.”

“What do you know of him?”

“Doing life, ain’t he? Got him some juice inside, for an old white boy, on account of he’s rich. Hear tell he’s fixed some people up on the outside.”

“Fixed them up?”

“In a financial way.” He pauses again. “Speaking of fixing, how you gonna fix me? Ain’t no milk until you buy yourself the cow.”

“That’s charming,” I say. “Nicely put. How about I have a word with the warden and take you home with me today? You like the sound of that?”

He shakes his head. “You offering me nothing , is that it?”

“Coleman, you have to think of this relationship like an investment. You want a big return over time, and that means putting in something up front, and putting in a little bit more every so often. Now, can I offer you anything right this minute? Probably not. I can’t move your next parole hearing forward. I can’t even switch you to a nicer cell. Think about it: if I did, would you really want to go back into general circulation and try to explain?”

“So you want something for nothing.”

“I want something today for nothing today. But a time’s gonna come when I can help you in a big way.”

“Man,” he says, “you the one put me back in here.”

I show him open palms. “My bad.”

He laughs a little, waits, then laughs a little more. Getting used to the idea. “There is something I can give you, and I got half a mind to do it. Only you gotta give some assurances that when that day comes when you got the power to do me a good turn, I can count on you to pay up.”

“Scout’s honor.”

“All right.” He leans forward. “There’s a story about this dude. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I hear people talking-you know how they do. Anyways, this boy who was getting out, Mr. Donald Fauk, he gives him a job to do. And in return there’s something waiting for him.”

“What kind of job?”

Coleman shrugs. “A job out there. A favor, like. He gets paid to run an errand for the man. And there’s more of them got that treatment, too. All white boys. I don’t know what they gotta do, but when they done it, they get taken care of.” He sees my expression and laughs. “Not taken care of like that. I mean, financial-like.”

“So Donald Fauk pays inmates to do favors for him on the outside when they’re released? And you don’t know what kind of things they do?”

“Delivering messages? How should I know?”

“There have to be rumors. If guys are talking about this, what are they saying?”

“Man, I done told you I don’t know.”

I can think of a dozen reasons Fauk might want to recruit errand boys from the prison population, none of which include committing copycat murders. What I don’t understand is why a man with his kind of fortune can’t arrange anything he wants done in the outside world through his legal team. Presumably he’s up to something the lawyers won’t touch. Something he wants to keep from them.

“If you hear anything more,” I say, “you know how to get in touch. I’m not asking you to risk your neck or anything. Just keep an ear to the ground.”

As I start to rise, he motions me back.

“Hold up. There is one thing.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Is it true you done beat a confession outta this man? ’Cause I don’t wanna mix myself up in nothing illegal.”

Wait a second.

His broad smile tells me all I need to know.

Coleman saw me coming a mile away, and probably knows more about Donald Fauk than he’s prepared to say. Maybe he’ll leave here and report straight back, telling Fauk everything that’s transpired across the table. Fauk can do more for him than I can, after all.

“Don’t freak out,” he says, reading my thoughts. “I’m just messing with you, man. Look here, I’ll give you something. There’s a New Orleans white boy, name of Bourgeois.” He pronounces it Boojwah . “When he got out, Mr. Fauk give him one of these jobs. I knowed the boy, and while he wouldn’t tell me what the job was, I bet he’d get one look at you and give it up.”

“What’s the Bourgeois boy’s first name?”

“They call him Peeper in here. Don’t know his real name.”

I’m not sure I can trust what Coleman tells me, but by the time I pull out of the penitentiary heading back to I-45, there’s a computer printout in my briefcase courtesy of an obliging corrections supervisor. Wayne “Peeper” Bourgeois, another post-Katrina immigrant, did a two-year stretch in Huntsville for beating up a hooker. His release date was back in August and he was supposed to report to an East Texas parole officer whose contact information is now scribbled in my Filofax.

After driving through a fast-food joint for lunch, I dial the parole officer’s number. He picks up right away and, once he’s satisfied with my credentials, confirms that Bourgeois checked in with him after his release.

“But I haven’t seen the boy ever since. If you ask me, he hightailed it back to Louisiana. A lot of ’em do. They get sick of not living in the third world.”

The obvious next step is to call Gene Fontenot for an assist. But under the circumstances I’m not sure that’s the best idea. So I dial Wilcox instead to see what he’s managed to find out about the NOPD investigation. With any luck he’ll give Fontenot a clean bill of health and I can call in a favor on the Bourgeois thing. After the trouble he’s stirred up, Gene owes me.

“Where are you?” Wilcox asks. “Your voice is breaking up.”

I fill him in on my chat with Coleman, asking for the all clear so I can call Fontenot.

“So you really went up there? I wish you hadn’t.”

“Why not? I told you I was going to.”

He ignores my question. “This thing with Fontenot. . I think it would be best not to have any contact with him.”

“What did you find out?”