Robert Crais - Voodoo River

"How did you know it was me?"

He didn't answer.

I gave him the short version on Edith and Jo-el Boudreaux and Milt Rossier and what we wanted to do. I told him about Sandi. When I was done he said, "I can come in tonight or tomorrow."

I said, "Tomorrow's fine. Tonight I have plans."

He said, "Uh."

I said, "Call Lucy Chenier's office with your arrival time. I'll pick you up."

Joe hung up without another word. Some partner, huh?

I put the dishes in the sink, then walked back to Lucy's bedroom and into her bath. The water was running, and the steam from the water had fogged the mirror. I peeled off my underwear and let myself into the shower and ran my hands over her back and down along her sides and across her belly. She was slick and glistening, and her flesh was firm. Her hair was white with bubbles. She said, "Well, I guess the old family recipe is working." She turned and pressed into me. "Let's not forget my one o'clock. I don't have very much time."

"Efficiency," I said. "Efficiency is the key to all happiness." I worked my fingers into her hair.

"Perhaps I could be ravished and cleaned at the same time. Do you think?"

I worked the soap down along her neck and shoulders. "I think I'm up for the try."

She smiled and sank down to her knees. "You are," she said. "But not for long."

T he next morning, Lucy and I were in the Baton Rouge Airport at 11:40, waiting for Joe Pike. We had been together twenty-eight minutes and had done a fine job of keeping our clothes on. I was pleased with my self-control. I had cramps, but I was pleased.

When Pike's plane taxied in, she said, "How will I recognize him?"

"He's six-one and he weighs right at one-ninety. He has short brown hair and large red arrows tattooed on the outside of each deltoid. He'll be wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off and dark glasses."

"How do you know what he'll be wearing?"

"It's what he wears."

"All the time?"

"If it's cold, he wears a Marine Corps parka."

She smiled. "And if the occasion were formal?"

"Think of it as consistency. Joe Pike is the most consistent person I know."

"Hm."

"And if he speaks, he will be direct. He won't say much. That's just his way."

"It sounds like you're warning me."

"Preparing. Preparing is a better word."

Joe Pike materialized in the file of passengers as if he were there yet not there, as separate from them as one photograph superimposed upon another. He came to us, and we shook. I said, "Lucy Chenier, this is Joe Pike. Joe, Lucy."

Lucy put out her hand and said, "It's a pleasure, Mr. Pike."

Pike's head swiveled toward her and he gave her the full focus of his attention. He is like that with people. You are either there to him, or you are not. If you are there, he gives you all of himself. He said, "Joe." He took her hand, held it for a moment, then kissed it. Gracious.

Lucy beamed. "Why, thank you."

"You're a couple."

That pleased her, too. "Is it that obvious?"

Joe nodded.

I said, "You can let go of the hand, now, Joe."

Joe's head swiveled my way, his eyes hidden and secret behind the black lenses of his glasses. His mouth twitched, and he let go of Lucy's hand. Joe will never smile, but his mouth will twitch, so you know he found this funny. He looked at Lucy again, then came back to me. The mouth twitched a second time. A riot, for Joe. Absolute insane hysteria. He said, "I've got a bag."

We collected an olive green duffel bag from the claim area, then picked up the car, and drove across town toward Lucy's office. Pike rode in the back and Lucy was in the front. She sat sideways so that she could see him. "Have you been to Louisiana before, Joe?"

Pike said, "Uh-huh."

"When was that?"

"A while back."

"Did you enjoy yourself?"

Pike didn't answer.

She twisted more in her seat to get a better look at him. "Joe?"

Pike was staring out the window, the passing scenery racing across the dark lenses. Immobile.

Lucy looked at me and I patted her leg. You see?

As we drove I brought Joe up to speed on Milt Rossier and Jodi Taylor and what Jodi wanted us to do. I told him what I had uncovered about Leon Williams, and how Rossier was using it against the Boudreauxs, and I told him about Jimmie Ray Rebenack and Sandi. "Lucy ran a DMV check on Sandi through her firm and got us a name and an address."

Lucy said, "Sandi's last name is Bergeron. She's twenty-eight years old, unmarried, and she works in the Social Services Department here in the capitol building."

I said, "A guy like Jimmie Ray couldn't get sealed state documents without help, so maybe that's Sandi."

Pike said, "Um." It was the first sound he'd made in fifteen minutes. "What about Rossier?"

Lucy took a 9 by 12 manila envelope from her briefcase and passed it to Pike. "My friend in the attorney general's office gave me a printout of Rossier's file. Rossier ran prostitution and intimidation rackets through the sixties and seventies until he was convicted of supplying methamphetamines to a local motorcycle gang in nineteen seventy-three. He pulled twenty-four months in Angola, then went into the fish farm business. The fish farm is legitimate, but its primary purpose is to launder money. He was indicted as a co-conspirator in two drug-related murders, and suspected of involvement in six additional homicides."

Pike looked through the file as they spoke. "So how come this guy's walking around?"

"Action was dropped on the indictments when the state's witnesses disappeared. They don't think Rossier pulled the trigger, but they believe he ordered it. They think LeRoy Bennett did the shooting, or a man named René LaBorde."

Pike offered the file back, but Lucy shook her head. "You can keep it if you'd like. Just be careful with it. My friend could get in trouble if anyone found out he'd given it to me."

I said, "He?"

Pike tapped my shoulder. Getting my attention. "You think Boudreaux is involved with Rossier in some kind of crime?"

"I don't think so. I think he's just looking the other way so that Rossier can do whatever he's doing."

Pike said, "But we don't know what that is."

I shook my head. "Not yet, but maybe Sandi Bergeron can tell us."

Pike went back to staring out the window. "Some great gig, helping people who don't want to be helped."

Lucy twisted around to again look at Pike. "Mrs. Boudreaux wants the help. She'd like to put this behind her. Jodi Taylor hired us to do that."

Pike said, "Us."

Lucy said, "Do you have a problem with that?"

Pike's mouth twitched. "Not at all." He squeezed her arm. "Thanks for the help."

I frowned. "What's your relationship to this guy in the A.G.?"

Lucy made a big sigh. "I love a man with raging hormones."

We dropped Lucy at the curb outside her office. She gathered her things and offered her hand to Joe Pike. "It was a pleasure, Joe. You're an interesting man."

Pike said, "Yes."

Lucy gave me a kiss, then let herself out and went into her building. I twisted around in the seat and looked at Joe. "She says you're interesting and you say yes?"

Pike got out of the back and into the front. "Did you want me to lie?"

We drove to the capitol building and parked in the shade of an enormous oak near the banks of a lake. The Louisiana State capitol building is thirty-four stories of art-deco monolith rising above the Mississippi River, sort of like the Empire State Building in miniature. It's the largest state capitol building in the nation, and looks like the kind of place that Charles Foster Kane would call home. Huey Long was assassinated there.

A tour group of retired people from Wisconsin were filing through the lobby, and we filed with them, slipping past a couple of guards who were laughing about the New Orleans Saints, and taking an elevator to the sixth floor. The Social Services Department was on the sixth floor. We could have phoned ahead and asked to speak with Sandi Bergeron, and Sandi might have been willing to talk with us, but you never know. Surprise is often your only recourse.