Scott Mariani - The Rebel’s Revenge

Keeping his back to the window the sheriff said, ‘Elijah, would you move those folks on?’ The deputy called Elijah hastened outside to carry out the command. The sheriff said to the other, ‘Mason, get on the radio and find out where those meatwagons are at, before this asshole goes and bleeds to death right here in front of us.’

Mason was the deputy with the drawn pistol. He was hatless, with brown hair spiky on top and shaved up the sides like a Marine. His face was fleshy and pasty and burned by the sun and his eyes were somewhat dull. He glanced nervously at Roque. ‘What about these boys?’

The sheriff replied calmly, ‘They’re unconscious, Mason. I think I can handle it. Now scoot and get on that darn radio.’

Mason holstered his weapon and ran out to the car. The sheriff watched him go, and shook his head with a sigh. ‘’Bout as sharp as a bowlin’ ball, that one.’ Then he turned his flinty eyes back on Ben. ‘I’m Waylon Roque, Sheriff of Clovis Parish. I don’t believe I know you, Mister—?’

‘Hope. Ben Hope.’

‘You ain’t from around heah.’

‘So everyone keeps telling me,’ Ben said. ‘I’m just a tourist, that’s all. Arrived here in Villeneuve this afternoon and I’m staying at the Bayou Inn. I’m only in town for the Woody McCoy gig the night after next, then I’ll be heading back home.’ He slipped his passport from his pocket and held it out.

The sheriff took the passport and gave it a quick once-over, then seemed satisfied and tossed it back. ‘A Brit.’

‘Half Irish, for what it’s worth. But I live in France.’

Roque pulled a face, as if he thought even less of the Irish than the Brits. ‘Jazz fan too, huh? I’m more of a Jimmie Davis man, myself.’

Ben smiled. ‘You are my sunshine.’

But Roque wasn’t one for chitchat. ‘What’s your occupation, Mister Hope from France?’

‘I work in education,’ Ben replied. Technically correct although economical with the truth. He didn’t think it necessary to reveal to Roque what kind of education the training facility at Le Val offered, or to whom. Information like that tended to invite too many questions.

‘Teacher, huh?’ If Ben had said he was a smack dealer, Roque wouldn’t have looked any less impressed.

‘Near enough,’ Ben said.

Roque reflected for a moment, eyeing him suspiciously. ‘Well, Teach, seems to me you must either be the luckiest sumbitch alive, or you’re some kinda trained ninja assassin in your spare time.’ He jerked his chin in the direction of Billy Bob Lafleur. ‘Sleepin’ beauty here is a local white-trash scumbag well known to Clovis Parish PD for his violent and intemperate ways. Put many a man in the hospital, and keeps all manner of unsavoury company out there on Garrett Island. His buddy looks kinda rough, too. I’m just wonderin’ how in hell an ordinary tourist, a schoolteacher, could manage to take these bad boys both down in one second flat like Elmo said, bust ’em up real good and walk away without taking so much as a scratch hisself.’

‘I never said I was a schoolteacher,’ Ben replied. ‘And actually it was more like two seconds. Maybe even longer. I must be getting slow in my old age. And they’re not as good as they think they are.’

The sheriff eyed him for the longest moment. ‘Just who exactly are you, boah?’

Ben didn’t like being called ‘boy’. In fact there was little he was liking much about Sheriff Waylon Roque in general. Which came as no great surprise to him. ‘Would you care to rephrase that question, Officer?’

A knowing kind of look crinkled the sheriff’s pale eyes. He nodded to himself, as though savouring an idea. ‘I have a pretty good notion who you are. Tell me. What’s your unit?’

Ben said nothing.

The corners of Roque’s lips stretched into a humourless smile. ‘I knew right off you weren’t no teacher. You got the soldier look, for sure. Maybe you think you can hide it, but I can see it as sure as if you was still wearin’ the uniform. I can see it in your eyes, and from the way you’re standin’ there lookin’ back at me. I saw it before I even walked in here.’

Roque paused. Enjoying the moment. ‘Am I right, Mister Hope? You a military man?’

‘I’m not a soldier,’ Ben said. Which was another technically truthful answer, as he had quit that life a long time ago. ‘But even if I were, Sheriff, I can’t see how it would be any business of yours.’

The deputy called Mason had got off the radio and now returned from the car to say the ambulances were en route and would be with them ‘momentarily’. Ben always wondered at the way Americans used that particular word. In the Queen’s English it meant the ambulances would appear one instant, and then vanish again the next like a disappearing mirage.

In the event, when they did turn up a couple of minutes later and parked behind the police cars, the paramedic units hung around long enough to strap the wounded robbers onto a pair of gurneys and prepare to ship them to hospital, from where they’d be going straight to jail.

Billy Bob Lafleur had woken up by then and had to be sedated to prevent him from trying to escape. He had his Miranda rights read to him before he fell back unconscious. The sheriff directed the police deputy called Elijah to ride with him in the back of the ambulance. Meanwhile, Billy Bob’s friend was still passed out and looking very pale. The medics wheeled him hurriedly aboard and took off with the lights and siren going full pelt.

‘Now what?’ Ben said to Sheriff Roque.

‘Say you’re gonna be in town until the night after tomorrow?’

Ben shrugged. ‘Or the morning after that. I’m not in a rush.’

‘Good. I’ll need you to come down to the station to make a formal statement and fill in a few blanks for me.’

‘What kind of blanks?’ Ben asked.

‘Call it satisfyin’ my curiosity. I like to keep tabs on what’s happenin’ in my parish, just like I like to know who comes and goes. See you around, Mister Hope. Don’t you leave without payin’ me a visit, now, you heah?’

‘Something for me to look forward to,’ Ben said.

The sheriff pulled another half-smile. He tipped his hat to Elmo. ‘Y’all have a peaceful rest of the night.’

After the police were gone, the liquor store and the street fell back into tranquil silence. Only the mess and the blood remained to bear witness to what had happened there that night. Ben felt bad about leaving the old man to clear it all up himself, and spent an hour helping him. When Elmo asked ‘Say, you really a soldier?’ Ben replied, ‘Your sheriff has a heck of an imagination.’

Finally, well after 1.30 a.m., Ben returned to the Bayou Inn with an intact bottle of twelve-year-old Glenmorangie tucked under his arm. He encountered no more armed robbers on the way back. The night was fresh and fragrant, and all seemed well with the world.

And that was the end of all the trouble.

Or, it should have been.

Because trouble would waste little time in finding him again. Sooner than he might have thought.

By the time Ben got back to his room at the Bayou Inn, the urge to spend a couple of the wee small hours enjoying the Glenmorangie had left him and all he wanted to do was go to bed. He rose early the next morning, as the dawn was breaking over the town and painting the white houses vermilion and gold.

Feeling that last night’s meal had been a little overindulgent, he spent longer than usual on his morning exercise routine, clicking off set after set of press-ups and sit-ups on the floor. He showered and dressed, then used his new burner phone to fire off that text message to Jeff asking how things were going at Le Val, and one to Sandrine to say nothing much in particular except that he’d arrived safe and sound in Louisiana.