R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

Verlaine nodded.

‘What is it you want here?’ the man asked, his accent thick, his tone threatening.

‘I came to see Mister Feraud,’ Verlaine said.

‘You did, eh?’ the man said, and smiled. He turned towards the veranda. His attention seemed to be held for a moment, and then he turned once again to Verlaine.

‘He asks you to come?’

Verlaine shook his head.

‘So he is not here peut-être .’

Verlaine shrugged. ‘If he’s not here I’ll come back another time.’

The man nodded and looked down. He appeared to be considering his options. ‘Vous attendez ici . I will see if Mister Feraud is in.’

Verlaine opened his mouth to thank the man but he had already turned and started walking towards the house. Verlaine watched as he reached the veranda, shared some words with another man by the door, and then passed inside.

He seemed to be gone for an eternity while Verlaine stood on the driveway with a dozen eyes watching him intently. He wanted to turn and run.

Eventually the man returned. He again spoke to one of the men by the door, and then he raised his hand.

‘ Venez ici! ’ he shouted, and Verlaine started walking.

Daddy Always Feraud was as Louisiana as they came. A lined and weathered face, creases like ravines running from his eyes, his mouth, the edge of each nostril. His eyes were like washed-out riverbed stones, almost transparent, piercing and haunted. He sat in a deep blue leather armchair, his legs crossed, in his right hand a cigarette. He wore a cream three-piece suit, and held in his left hand a panama hat which he waved every once in a while to cool himself. His hair was fine silver, combed neatly back, but for one unruly spike that protruded from the crown where he had leaned against the chair. He watched Verlaine as he walked towards him from the doorway of the room. His eyes were distant and yet possessive of an expression that said he’d seen too much for too long to let anything slide by. Bruised light filtered through ceiling-high windows graced with the finest organdy curtains. The old man did not speak, and at each shoulder stood two other men, as still as cigar-store Indians, men that could only have been his sons.

Verlaine stopped three or four yards from Feraud. He nodded his head somewhat deferentially. Feraud said a word that Verlaine did not hear and someone appeared with a chair. Verlaine sat without question, cleared his throat, and opened his mouth to speak.

Feraud raised his hand and Verlaine fell silent.

‘There is always a price to pay,’ the old man said, his voice ›rumbling from his throat and filling the room. ‘You have come to ask me for something, I imagine, but I must tell you that the principle of exchange holds court in my kingdom. If there is something you wish from me, then you must give me something in return.’

Verlaine nodded. He was aware of the rules.

‘Someone was found dead in the trunk of a car,’ Feraud said matter-of-factly. ‘You believe there is something I might know about this and you have come to ask me.’

Verlaine nodded once again. He did not question how Feraud knew who he was or why he had come.

‘And what makes you think that I might know something of such a thing?’ Feraud asked.

‘Because I know who you are, and because I know enough to realize there is nothing that escapes your attention,’ Verlaine said.

Feraud frowned, raised his right hand and took a draw from his cigarette. He did not exhale through his mouth but allowed the smoke to creep in thin tendrils from each nostril and obscure his face for a second. He wafted the brim of his panama hat and the smoke hurried away revealing his face once more.

‘I received a message,’ Verlaine said.

‘A message?’

‘It was simply one word: Always.’

The old man smiled. ‘Seems the whole world believes I have something to do with everything,’ he said.

Verlaine smiled with him.

‘So tell me a little about your man in the trunk of his car.’

‘His heart was cut out,’ Verlaine said. ‘Someone cut his heart out, and then replaced it in his chest. They drove him across town in the back seat of a beautiful old car, and then they put him in the trunk and we found him three days later. Right now we have very little to go on, but there was one thing. Whoever killed him drew a pattern on his back, a pattern that looked like the Gemini constellation.’

Feraud’s expression registered nothing. He was silent for some seconds, seconds that drew themselves into minutes. The feeling within the room was one of breathless tension, anticipatory and oppressive.

‘Gemini,’ he eventually said.

‘That’s right,’ Verlaine said. ‘Gemini.’

Feraud shook his head. ‘The heart was removed, and then replaced in the chest?’

Verlaine nodded.

Feraud leaned forward slightly. He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I think you may have a problem,’ he said quietly, his voice almost a whisper.

Verlaine frowned.

‘If this is who I think it might be… well, if this is-’ Feraud looked up at Verlaine, his transparent eyes now sharp and direct. ‘You have a serious problem, and I do not believe there is anything I can do to help you.’

‘But-’ Verlaine started.

‘I will tell you this, and then we will not discuss this any more.’ Feraud stated bluntly. ‘The man you are looking for does not come from here. He was once one of us, but not now, not for many years. He comes from the outside, and he will bring with him something that is big enough to swallow us all.’ Feraud leaned back. Once again he closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Walk away,’ he said. ‘Turn and walk away from this quickly and quietly, and if you believe in God then pray that whatever might have been the purpose of this killing has been served. This is not something you should go looking for, you understand?’

Verlaine shook his head. ‘You must give me something. If there is something you know you must tell me-’

Feraud once again raised his hand. ‘I am not obligated to tell you anything,’ he said, his voice edged with irritation. ‘You will leave now, go back to the city and attend to your business. Do not come here again, and do not ask anything of me regarding this matter. This is not something I am part of, nor is it something I wish to become involved in.’

Feraud turned and nodded at the man to his right. The man stepped forward, and without uttering a word made it clear that Verlaine should leave. Confused and disoriented, he was shown to the door, and once out on the veranda he started walking back the way he’d come, again feeling that eyes were burning right through him, his heart thudding in his chest, sweat glistening his forehead – a sensation that he had somehow walked into something that he might seriously regret.

He reached his car and sat for a while until his heart slowed down. He started the engine, turned around, drove back the way he’d come for a good thirty minutes before he finally slowed and stopped. He got out and leaned against the wing of his car. He tried to think in something resembling a straight line, but he could not.

Eventually he climbed back into the car, started the engine, and drove back to the city.

The FBI were waiting for Verlaine when he reached the Precinct House. The dark gray sedan, the dark suits, dark ties, white shirts, clean shoes. There were two of them, neither of whom looked like they’d smiled since their teens. They knew his name before he reached them, and though they shook his hand and introduced themselves respectively as Agents Luckman and Gabillard there was no humor in their tone, nothing warm or amicable. Whatever this was it was business, straight and direct, and when they expressed their wish to speak with Verlaine ‘in confidence’ he understood that somehow he’d managed to step on the toes of something that he was regretting more and more as each minute passed.