Robert Crais - Voodoo River

René LaBorde stepped out of nowhere and pulled me to my feet. Bennett, grinning like his face was split, took my gun and hit me again.

The rain fell harder and no one stirred from the Bayou Lounge.

The two men finished their killing and came to us. One of the men was Donaldo Prima. The other was Evangeline Parish Deputy Sheriff Tommy Willets. Willets looked scared. Donaldo Prima said, "We got that fawkuh good!" I knew then that the good guys were alone at the pumping station. All of the bad guys were here.

I said, "Jesus Christ, Willets."

Willets hit me on the forehead with the butt of his pistol and knocked me into the side of Bennett's Polara. Then Milt said, "Hurry up, goddammit, and get'm in the car. We got a lot of people to kill."

Willets put his cuffs on me, then got René to help put me in the backseat of Bennett's Polara. Willets breathed hard as he did it, a torrent of rain running off the brim of his campaign hat, his Evangeline Parish sheriffs poncho molten in the lightning flashes. The lounge's wooden front door was closed, and I thought maybe Bennett had closed it as we'd left. Maybe.

Across the lot, Bennett and a short guy with a heavy moustache loaded the bodies into Escobar's trunk, the short guy Donaldo Prima's thug. Donaldo Prima came over to the Polara and waved his gun at me. "This fawkuh set me up?" His eyes were blood simple from the kill.

Rossier said, "We might need the sonofabitch! Put it away! "

Prima pushed past Milt, screaming, "I gonna kill his ass!" When Prima touched Milt, Rent's snake-fast hands shot out, grabbing and lifting and twisting the gun away. Prima hissed something in Spanish, then said, "Make him let go!"

Rossier made Rene" put him down, and then Prima and Rossier went to Escobar's car with Bennett and the moustache. Willets got into the backseat of the Polara with me, and René stood in the rain. René was wearing a raincoat, but it was unbuttoned and looked as if someone had put it on for him. There was no hood, and the rain beat at his head and plastered his hair. Willets sat with his service revolver in his hand, still with the breathing, staring wide-eyed through the rear window at the group of men in the rain as if I weren't there. The glass around us began to fog. I said, "How much does it cost for a guy like you to sell out, Willets?"

"Shut up."

"I know he paid you enough to keep tabs on the sheriff, but is it enough to buy a night's sleep?"

"Shut up."

"Willets, if you sold your balk by the pound, you didn't get enough to feed a parking meter."

Willets looked over at me, blinked twice, then backhanded me with his revolver. The barrel and the cylinder caught me above the left eye, snapping my head back and opening the skin. There was an instant of blackness, then a field of gold sparkles, and then only sharp pain above the eye. I could feel blood run down across the outside corner of my eye. I grinned. "You didn't think it'd come to this when you sold them, did you? Guys like you never think that far ahead. Only now it's here and happening fast and you're scared shitless. You're in the deep water, Willets, and you oughta be scared."

He wet his lips and looked again at the men in the rain. Scared, all right. "I'm not the guy who has to worry about it."

"Were you in on Rebenack?"

He still didn't look at me.

"That's perfect, Willets. Perfect."

LeRoy and Milt came back to the Polara. Prima went behind the lounge, alone, and LaBorde and the mustache climbed into Escobar's Beamer. The Beamer pulled away, and Willets's highway car came from behind the lounge. We pulled out, and the highway car fell in behind us. No one had stirred in the Bayou Lounge, and no one had come out to look. All of it had been covered by the rain and the thunder.

I said, "I can't believe you didn't go for it, Milt. Two thousand a head is a lot of money."

Rossier turned in the front passenger seat and grinned at me. His old man's face looked cracked and splintered, and he was holding Bennett's government.45. He said, "Goddamned right it is. You almost had me, you sonofabitch. I woulda swallowed the whole damn hook if Willets here hadn't tipped me."

"Willets isn't the only cop who knows. A lot of people are in it, and Jo-el Boudreaux is going to take you down. The blackmail won't work anymore."

Willets licked his lips. "He's right, Milt. We oughta not play it this way."

Milt said, "Who else knows?"

Willets was licking his lips again. "The guys out at the station, Jo-el's wife and that lawyer from Baton Rouge, and Merhlie Comeaux. Comeaux went home, and the two women are at the Boudreauxs'."

Milt Rossier nodded and grinned still wider. "We'll just round'm up and kill'm and that's that." He said it the way you'd tell someone you wanted pickles on your potted meat sandwich.

I said, "You're out of your mind."

Willets said, "Jesus Christ, that's crazy."

Milt nodded. "We'll see."

Willets said, "You can't just kill all these people."

Milt nodded and asked Bennett if he knew how to get there, and Bennett said yes. Willets was licking his lips every few seconds, now. He said, "Hey, Milt, you don't mean that, do you? You can't just murder these people?"

Milt cocked his head and looked at Willets as you might a slow child. "Son, simple plans are best. What else can I do?"

Willets squirmed in his seat, holding the service revolver limply in his lap. I wondered if I could move fast enough to snake it from him before Milt shot me. Willets said, "But that's three officers. That's Jo-el's wife. How we gonna explain all that? Jesus Christ."

I said, "Hey, Willets, how do you think he's going to explain you being the only one left alive?"

Milt Rossier said, "Oh, that one's easy." Then he pointed LeRoy Bennett's.45 at Deputy Sheriff Thomas Willets and pulled the trigger. The sound was enormous, and the heat and muzzle blast flashed across my face, and Tommy Willets's head snapped back into the seat and then jerked forward, and a spray of red splattered on the vinyl and the door and the windows and me. When Willets's head came forward he slumped to the side and was still.

LeRoy said, "Man, dat was loud as a pork fart, yeah."

Milt reached back and took Willets's revolver and had Bennett pull over. Bennett put the body in the trunk and we went on. I said, "You really mean it. You're going to kill everybody, aren't you?"

Milt said, "Uh-hunh."

We drove to Jo-el Boudreaux's house and turned into the drive, Prima pulling the highway car in behind us. I said, "If you hurt them, Rossier, I swear to God I'll kill you."

LeRoy said, "Save the big talk, asshole. You gonna need it later."

Milt got out of the car and met Prima and the mustache, and together they went to the front door. Around us, the street was quiet and well lit and masked by the rain. Just another dreary southern evening in paradise.

Milt rang the bell, and Edith Boudreaux answered. The mustache pushed past her into the house, and as quickly as that they were bringing Lucy and Edith across the lawn to the highway car. Lucy was struggling, and the mustache had to keep a hand over her mouth. You never expect the bad guys will come to the door. You never expect that they'll ring the bell. When Rossier climbed back into the car, he was smiling. "We'll see what ol' Jo-el does, now. Yes, I guess we will, won't we?" I'm not sure he was saying it to me or to Bennett. Maybe just to himself.

They brought us to the crawfish farm, driving through sequined curtains of rain, and put us in the processing shed. Escobar's BMW was already there, René standing in the rain and mud like some great oblivious golem. When Milt Rossier saw him, he shook his head and made a tsk ing sound. I guess you never get used to it. They taped Lucy's and Edie's wrists with duct tape and made the three of us sit on the floor beneath the gutting tables. Rain hammered in through the big, open front of the processing shed, but we were well back and protected. The rear of the place was open, too, and more rain dripped there. Milt and Prima and Bennett gathered together, then Bennett got back into his Polara and drove away. Going to give the news to Jo-el Boudreaux. Edith looked pale and drawn, and Lucy looked scared. After Prima and the mustache finished with the taping and left us alone, I said, "Fancy meeting you here."