Chapter Seventeen

Eddy woke up ravenous on Wednesday, went to the Cafe du Monde for coffee and beignets, read the Times-Picayune without finding any new clues, and returned to find that a grimy slip of paper had been tacked to the door of her apartment.

EDDIE: it read, MY PARENTS' HOUSE WAS RAIDED AND MY SYSTEM SEIZED. I AM COOPERATING FULLY WITH THE GOVT. ON THE CASE OF ZACHARY BOSCH, DOB 5-25-73, SS# 283-54-6781. I KNOW HIS CAR. AND I READ THE PAPERS TOO. It was signed so, along with a local phone number.

She swore and ripped the filthy thing off her door. The paper felt slimy in her hand, eldritch, unspeakably loathsome. Eddy crumpled it in her hand. She wondered how he had gotten past the street gate, then realized that its “security” consisted of an electronic keypad. Presumably such a gadget couldn't thwart a Phoetus of Dag0n.

I read the papers too.

Had Stefan the fish-lipped, frog-eyed fanboy seen the same item she'd found yesterday, the one about the Cajun shooting himself with five different guns? Had he wondered about it, and maybe-just as a matter of course- pointed it out to his friendly neighborhood feds? I don't know if there really is a town called Missing Mile, she could hear him whining, but if there is, I think you'd better check it out.

Well, if he had, at least he'd made a half-assed attempt to warn her about it. Maybe somewhere in his narky little heart he wanted Zach to have a chance.

But, of course, it was up to Eddy to actually give him one.

Her brain felt as if it had been dropped into a centrifuge. The cells were whirling dizzily, the synapses separating, short-circuiting. She sat on the bed and tried to steady herself. She couldn't help Zach by getting hysterical.

What could she do? First, she needed a way to find Zach and alert him to the danger. She hoped there was a way to do that by phone, but if there wasn't, she guessed she would just have to hie her butt to Missing Mile, North Carolina.

Second, she needed a way to help Zach get away for good. Probably he would have to leave the country. She might even go with him. He could hardly refuse her company this time, not after she had saved his ass.

And before she could do any of this, she needed a safe phone.

Okay. It wasn't quite a plan, but it was a place to start.

Eddy grabbed a notebook and a pen to write down numbers. Then she set off to catch the streetcar that wound away from the French Quarter, down St. Charles Avenue and into the city.

First she called the Pink Diamond. She had missed two shifts already, so they probably assumed she wasn't coming back. Still, she hadn't been able to call since the Secret Service took her phone out, and she wanted to wrap up her loose ends; that was just the way she'd been raised. She dialed the office, and the manager's slimy voice answered.

“Hey, Loup, this is Eddy. ”

“Who? ”

“Miss Lee. ”

“Oh yeah, we figured you ran off back to China. ” She heard the wet sinus-damaged snort that passed for Loup's laugh. “Hey, you got a message here. ”

“Really? ” Her heart quickened a little. “What is it? ”

“Well, it's kinda weird. I think it must be from some crazy customer. Valerye wrote it down”-Valerye was the daytime bartender-“and she said the guy spelled it out real careful and swore it was important. ”

“What is it? ” she repeated. The phone booth she had found in the parking lot of a seafood shack near the riverbend was private, but hot and claustrophobic. Eddy felt the beginnings of a headache.

“Well, it says 'Wax Jism. ' ”

“What? ”

Loup spelled out the two words, and Eddy wrote them down in her notebook. Her head was pounding now. She thanked Loup, told him almost as an afterthought that she wasn't coming back to work, then hung up and stood staring at the ridiculous message. Wax jism. It had to be from Zach. But what in hell did it mean?

She looked out at the parking lot. Over the green hump of the levee she could see a sliver of the Mississippi, a tugboat and barge riding on the mighty polluted current. Her eyes slid back to the keypad of the phone, and something clicked in her mind. There were letters on the keys as well as numbers. Eddy looked back at the message. Two words: three letters, then four. The same configuration as a phone number.

Eddy grabbed the unwieldy metal-covered phone book that hung from a coiled cord in the booth. It was battered but miraculously intact. She riffled through the opening pages, found the listing of area codes for all states. Missing Mile had been fairly near Raleigh and Chapel Hill on the map, and the area code was the same for both places. She dropped in a handful of change, punched in the area code, and with shaking fingers picked out the number.

It rang twice. Three times. Then the receiver was lifted, and a slightly hoarse male voice said, “Howdy, this is the Sacred Yew. ”

“Hi, you don't know me, but I'm looking for—”

“No one's within earshot right now, but we have lots of great shows coming up this week. Wednesday night it's vintage swamp rock with GUMBO!!! Thursday—”

Eddy leaned her forehead against the hot glass, felt hot tears of frustration trickling from the corners of her eyes. It was a recording.

“If you'd like to leave a message for me or anyone who works here, ” the voice was saying, “start talking at the beep. And remember, please come out and support your local bands at THE SACRED YEW! ” The guy sounded nervous and slightly desperate. At last the accursed machine beeped.

“This is a message for a boy named Zach, ” Eddy said without much hope. She didn't know if he'd be using his real first name, but she was sure he wouldn't be using his last, and she didn't want to give it away. “He's nineteen, about five-eight, skinny, black hair, green eyes, very pale, very striking. If you know him, will you please tell him he's in terrible danger? My name is Eddy. I have to get in touch with him. I'll try to call back. ” She checked her watch. “I don't know when. Tell him. . . ” She realized tears were spilling from her eyes, pouring down her face. “Tell him I'm coming to get him. ”

Eddy hung up, swiped at her eyes, composed herself. She had one more call to make, to a local number she knew by heart. She dialed it, listened to the phone ring and ring, then closed her eyes in relief as it was picked up. A rhythmic swath of reggae pulsed in the background, and for a moment she thought it was another recording. Then a deep musical voice said “Hello? ”

“Dougal, ” she said. “This is Eddy. Have you heard what happened to Zach? ”

“Ya mon. Busted. Terrible fing. ” She imagined him shaking his head, long bright-threaded dreadlocks swaying gently around his face.

Eddy closed her eyes and counted to five. “No, ” she forced herself to say calmly, “he wasn't busted. He got away, but they're still after him, and I think they're closing in. Do you want to help? ”

“Oh, ya mon. I would help Zachary any way I can. 'Specially 'gainst de damn government. ” She wasn't sure, but she thought she heard him spit. She took a deep breath, felt relief spreading through her. At last she wasn't alone in this anymore.

“Could you start by picking me up outside Liberty's Fish Camp? I need to tell you all about it. And I need your help too. ”

“Sweetheart, don' you worry 'bout a t'ing, hear? You jus' wait right there outside Liberty's. I know de very place. ”

“Are you sure? ”

“Irie, ” Dougal St. Clair's beautiful voice soothed her. “No problem. ”

At the Sacred Yew, the rehearsal was still blasting away onstage. Kinsey had gone down the street to get pretzels for the bar. As he came back in, he saw that the message light on the answering machine was blinking. But when he tried to play back the message, the machine just emitted a long series of beeps, then made a sound like a car going up a hill stuck in first gear. Kinsey peered inside and saw that it had eaten the tape. The machine had been on its last legs for weeks, erasing as many messages as it took. Now it was finally dead.

He picked up the phone to call tonight's doorman and realized with much greater consternation that it was dead too, though he knew it had been on earlier because Trevor had gotten that mysterious call.

Kinsey looked at the clock, saw that it was just after five: cutoff time. He'd let the bill go too long. Now there was no way to get the phone turned back on until tomorrow, and Kinsey would have to drive the cash all the way to Raleigh. That was if the bar took in enough tonight to pay for it and the other bills too. The phone was important, but water was more so. And in a club, electricity took the highest priority of all; it was what kept the band loud and the beer cold. He had to get that damn power bill paid.

Kinsey had always loved summer in Missing Mile. But just lately it was a cruel season.

Dougal St. Clair lived in a tree in a secluded corner of City Park. His little wooden house was nestled high among the big oak's spreading canopy of branches, accessible by a long, twisty, terrifying rope ladder that was barely visible against the tree trunk. He parked his car at the nearby fairgrounds, made use of public rest rooms and afternoon rainstorms, ate at the city's many fine restaurants with the money he saved on rent, and often relied on the kindness of friends. Dougal had so much slack that it was considered something of a privilege among French Quarter bohos to buy him lunch once in a while.

The outside of his treehouse was painted in a drab brown camouflage pattern. The inside compensated with a riot of color. The walls were red, yellow, green, and purple, covered with snapshots of Dougal's American and Jamaican friends, the former a motley cross-section of New Orleans freak society, the latter invariably dreadlocked and grinning.

The striped ceiling was not quite high enough for Dougal to stand up straight, though Eddy could do so comfortably. The floor was covered with a woven straw mat. There was a nest of blankets in one corner, a crate of books and a boom box with some tapes stacked around it in another. He kept a lot of stuff in his car in case the treehouse was ever discovered, but somehow it never was.

“How do you get phone service up here? ” Eddy asked as she settled herself on a gorgeously embroidered cushion. She had told him the whole story on the ride over from the lake.

Dougal held up a sleek black cellular phone. “Present from Zachary. ”

“I should've known. Can I use that? ”

He gave it to her, then pulled a fat straw pouch and a package of rolling papers from his pocket, shook out a generous quantity of fragrant green pot, and started rolling a joint. Eddy dialed the Sacred Yew's number again. It only rang once; then a piercing electronic tone wailed in her ear and a recorded voice said, “The number you have reached has been temporarily disconnected. No further information is available at this time. The number you have reached—”

“DAMMIT! ” Eddy nearly hurled the phone across the treehouse. Only the fear that it would fly out the window and go crashing to the ground fifty feet below stopped her hand. Her treacherous eyes filled with tears again, though she was sick of crying. “Our only link to Zach has just been severed. Now what do we do? ”

“Relax, sweetheart. ” Dougal handed her the joint, an enormous, tightly rolled bomber. “First we smoke a spleef. Then we t'ink better, an' we plan. ”

“Speak for yourself. You must have been smoking this stuff since you were born. ”

“I was smokin' it in my momma's womb, ” Dougal assured her. “But don' worry. This is smart ganja. Relaxes you an' clears your head. ”

Eddy regarded the huge bomber glumly. Dougal struck a match, offered her the flame cupped between his pinkbrown palms. Oh, what the hell, she decided, and let him light it for her.

The taste was sticky and sweet, almost cloying. But as it swirled through her lungs and out into her bloodstream, she thought she could feel some of the shadows lifting. By the time she'd had two hits, she actually believed she might see Zach again, might even be able to save him. Another drag and she'd probably be imagining them as an old married couple. She handed the joint back to Dougal. “What is this stuff? ”

“Fresh Jamaican. ” Dougal wrapped his hand around the joint, brought it to his lips, and produced an enormous cloud of smoke. She noticed that he didn't automatically pass the joint back as Americans did, but let it dangle casually between his first two fingers until he was ready to hit it again. When you grew up in Jamaica, Eddy guessed, you always knew where your next joint was coming from.

The afternoon light was very clear, sifting through the canopy of leaves and the cracks in the wood, filling the treehouse with green and gold. Eddy leaned back against the wall, beginning to relax. “Where do you get fresh Jamaican around here? ”

“Got a frien' who flies to Jamaica two times a month or so. He lan' at a little strip up in de hills near Negril on de western coast, pick it up an' fly back to his place in de swamp, then somebody else pick it up an' bring it to New Orleans. No problem. ”

“He has an airstrip in the swamp? ”

“Ya mon. Jus' a little shack an' a place to lan' his plane. ”

Eddy's heart was pounding. “Do you think he might be making a trip soon? ”

“I fink he could be convinced, ” said Dougal gravely. “I don' b'lieve he would fly to North Carolina. He don' like to fly over U. S. airspace. But if we get Zachary down to de swamp, I fink my frien' would take him. ”

“I'll drive to Missing Mile. I'll shoot coffee into my veins and drive all night if I have to. I'm not letting them get him. ”

“You wan' drive my car? You wan' me to go with you? ”

“I guess so. We can't bring Zach back through New Orleans. We'll have to go around it and straight down into the swamp. Do you think your friend—”

“My frien' will be there, ” Dougal soothed. “Don' worry. We call him once we get on the road. ”

He was smiling at her, his teeth crooked but very white in his dark face, his eyes the color of warm chocolate. She couldn't help smiling back.

“See, ” said Dougal. “I tol' you we plan better with our heads cleared out. De smart ganja works ever' time. ”

Agent Cover maneuvered his white Chevy van through the carbon monoxide snarl of downtown New Orleans. A fruitless visit to the French Quarter had left him staring at a lot of dead ends. Edwina Sung's toothbrush was missing from her bathroom, and it turned out she had withdrawn seven thousand dollars from her bank account yesterday afternoon, several hours after the raid. Possibly she was shacked up somewhere, consoling herself over the loss of her favorite wanted criminal. But Cover suspected his exotic little bird had flown the coop.

A short electronic purr came from the region of his armpit. His cellular phone. He wrested it out of his sweaty jacket and thumbed the talk button. “Cover. ”

“Afternoon, Agent. This is Payne from the DMV. ”

“Yeah? ” Cover perked up a little. A call from the Department of Motor Vehicles could mean good news.

Sure enough, Payne went on, “We got a trace on that name you gave us. Zachary Bosco—”

“Bosch. ”

“Well, it took us a while to trace 'cause somebody had changed it in the computer. But we got a registration for him. Plate reads LLBTR-5. It's a 1965 Chevy pickup, color red, down in Terrebonne Parish—”

“Terrebonne? You mean down by Houma? ”

“Yep, Houma it is. ”

“Shit. ”

“You gotta go down there, Agent? Better be careful. Some a' them Cajuns don't like cops much. Kinda got their own laws an' idears about things an' all. Hot as hell an' swampy as an open grave too. Listen, you need anything else today? ”

“No. Thanks, Payne. ”

Cover terminated the call, tugged the knot of his tie loose, and sat in stalled traffic with the air-conditioning vents aimed straight at his face. He knew Bosch must have gotten into the DMV computer and messed with the plates. Bosco. Cute. He probably could have deleted his registration altogether, but that might have set off alarms in the computer, and it was more his style to create as much confusion with as few keystrokes as possible.

A red 1965 Chevy pickup... it was all wrong. Stefan “Phoetus” Duplessis knew approximately as much about automobiles as he did about girls, but he swore up and down that he remembered Bosch driving a black Mustang.

Duplessis had been of little help so far. He had found articles in the Times-Picayune implying Bosch could be found in, variously, Cancun, Mexico; Bangor, Maine; and Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The newspaper, of course, insisted no hacker could ever violate the sanctity of their system and every word they printed was one hundred percent genuine. And it turned out they did have a staff writer named Joseph Boudreaux, the byline on the goddessin-a-bowl-of-gumbo story. Cover had an agent tracking down the reporter to find out if he'd actually written the story. But there was little doubt that Bosch could have cracked the paper's pathetic security.

Privately, Cover thought the hacker had grabbed his cache of ready money and left the country, in which case they were most likely fucked. Duplessis said Bosch was part Cajun; it was just possible that he had relatives in Houma and was lying low in some fish camp. But Cover thought he was too smart to have stayed in Louisiana. And from other things Duplessis had said about the Bosch family, Cover doubted the kid would want to stay with any of his relatives.

He called in an all-points bulletin on the pickup, though he hoped the damn thing was rusting in a junkyard somewhere and wouldn't be found. He knew it couldn't have anything to do with Bosch.

But by the time he made it back to the office, the pickup had already been sighted in Houma, which was only an hour's drive from New Orleans. Cover could think of no excuse that would keep him from checking it out.

“Any word on that hacker? ” Frank Norton called as Cover strode past his door.

“Maybe. ”

“You know, Ab, if you get outsmarted by a nineteen-year-old, you're really gonna have egg on your face. ”

“Fuck you, Spider. ”

The old agent let out an annoyingly hearty belly laugh that followed Cover all the way down the hall.

The highway between New Orleans and Houma was precariously close to flooding, as it was much of the year. Cover's tires had thrown off a thin steady spray of water for the last forty miles or so. There were cranes in the breakdown lane, big white birds standing on one leg watching his van slush by, or catching frogs in the reeds and cattails that grew right up onto the blacktop. Huge gnarled trees hung low over the road, draped in Spanish moss. God, he hated the look of Spanish moss.

The local cop in Houma said the truck was parked in somebody's front yard and looked like it hadn't moved in a while. Cover navigated the joyless streets of downtown Houma, got lost several times, finally pulled up in front of the house. The yard was dotted here and there with scraggly chickens. He disliked chickens; his grandmother had kept a henhouse, and even as a little boy the chalky smell of their shit, their scaly feet, and the weird, wobbly red flesh of their combs had filled him with revulsion.

The pickup was a sorry sight, sitting on three flat tires and a cement block, with an ancient paint job that might have once been red beneath the chicken shit. But there was the license plate, clear as anything: LLBTR-5. The cop was leaning against his cruiser taking a steady torrent of abuse from a big black-haired, red-faced man with a flair for dramatic gestures. Relief spread across the cop's ratty little face as Cover pulled up.

“Mister Big Damn G-man! ” hollered the Cajun. Cover cringed. He hated being called a G-man. “Mister G-man, maybe you can tell me for why this stupid cop wants to plague me all damn day, hein? I'm just stirrin' up a pot a' gumbo, me, an' he come knockin' an' ask so many questions I done scorched my roux! ”

“Uh, Agent Cover, this is Mr. Robicheaux, ” the cop broke in. “He says the truck hasn't been driven for about five years—”

“Damn right it ain't! My wife she made me put on that damn, what-you-call-him, vanity plate. Was a damn voodoo curse, says me. S'posed to stand for 'Laissez Les Bans Temps Rouler, ' an' it ain't rolled since. Now the chickens roost in there. ”

Agent Cover opened the truck's passenger door. There were three frizzly chickens on the front seat, several more nesting in straw on the floorboards. They cocked their reptilian eyes at him and gobbled frantically.

As if to cap off the sheer perfection of his day, a single egg rolled off the seat and landed square on the tip of his left tassel loafer. Cover stared down at the golden yolk and milky albumen oozing over the carefully polished leather.

Somebody hates me, he thought. He wished he never had to set foot in the sweltering mud of Louisiana again. He wished he never had to interrogate another snotty punk who knew a thousand times more about computers than he ever would or wanted to. He wished he had the coveted White House detail.

But none of that mattered. What was the first thing they had drummed into him at Glynco?

Absalom Cover was a Secret Service agent. And Secret Service agents were granite agents.