Chapter 6 What a Pair

Chapter 6

What a Pair

For a moment, the sight of the Gulf left me daydreaming about sailing across blue water with Penny, to some destination I can’t spell, and leaving the world behind. When I pulled myself from the dream, I said, “Take us home.”

Gator spun his head toward me as if I’d asked him to jump off a cliff. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. I have faith in you.”

He shrugged. “If you say so.”

Fifteen seconds later, I recognized the breakdown in our communication. Gator programmed the GPS to take us directly back to St. Marys and began a climb to eleven thousand five hundred feet.

Before he armed the autopilot, I said, “Not that home. I meant the camper. Besides, you can’t leave without your little Creole princess.”

His shoulders fell. “She’s Cajun, not Creole, and that camper is not our home.”

“It’s our temporary home, but I’ve got a better idea. Instead of heading back, let’s drop into that airport about thirty miles north. I can’t remember the name of it, but maybe they’ve got a rental car.”

He reprogrammed the GPS. “It’s Terrebonne Parish, and I think the town is Houma, but who knows how they pronounce either one of those names?”

“Hand-fly it,” I said. “You need to get used to the feel. The autopilot is an excellent tool, but I want to see you make the airplane behave.”

He thumbed the autopilot disconnect on the yoke and settled into our short northbound hop. “Tell me the approach numbers.”

I said, “Let’s do one-oh-five in the downwind, ninety-five on the base, eighty-five on final, and cross the fence at seventy-five. Don’t get slow. That’s a turbine out there, not a recip, so you won’t have power on demand. It’ll take a couple of seconds for the turbine to spool up before it delivers the extra power you need. Just manage your speed, and remember, you’ve got four wheels instead of three. Touch down on the mains, but don’t hold the nose off like you do in the One-Eighty-Two. It’ll feel pretty flat.”

“Got it,” he said, and he flew a beautiful pattern.

We turned final, and I asked, “What’s your airspeed?”

“Seventy-six.”

“What should it be?”

“Uh…eighty-five?”

“Is that a question?”

He lowered the nose and added a little power. “No, it’s not a question. It definitely should be eighty-five.”

“Feel that delay?”

His eyes widened, and he pushed the throttle even farther. I laid my hand on top of his and reduced the throttle slightly. “Don’t get carried away. Just be patient.”

He squirmed in his seat. “This feels a lot different than the Skylane.”

“It is a lot different, but the same principles still apply. Pitch for speed and power for descent rate.”

I extended my legs and let my toes rest on the rudder pedals, but after his little battle with the throttle, he came back nicely and greased the landing.

“Nicely done. Now, take us to the FBO. It looks like they’ve got a few rental cars over there.”

We taxied to the apron and worked through the shutdown checklist together.

“How’s that feel?” I asked.

He grunted. “To be honest, it felt like landing a school bus.”

I laughed. “That’s a pretty good way to describe it. Come on… Let’s get your feet back on the ground and see if we can find any body parts floating around.”

We got lucky and scored a 4-wheel-drive pickup truck from the young lady at the counter who couldn’t keep her eyes off my partner.

I tossed him the keys and climbed inside. “You’ve sure got something these Cajun girls like.”

He stuck the key into the ignition. “What can I say? All the girls love the Gator.”

“All right, Love Gator. Let’s see if you can get us lost. If there are body parts floating, Kenneth LePine can’t be the only one who’s seen them.”

“So, that’s our plan?” he asked. “We’re just going to drive around asking people if they’ve seen any arms and legs floating by?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I do. I’ve got the same idea the rest of the civilized world would have. We call the sheriff, then pack up and go home.”

I laid a hand on his shoulder. “Kenny LePine and Earline back in St. Marys are my friends , and that’s not a word I throw around. They asked me to look into what was going on down here. When a friend asks for a favor, the only thing that trumps that request is family and God. Kenny and Earl are practically family, and I don’t think God has any objection to us doing whatever we can to help.”

He said, “I didn’t mean we shouldn’t…”

“I know what you meant, and you’re right. This isn’t our typical mission, but what if Singer came to you and asked for a favor? What would you do?”

He swallowed hard. “I’d do whatever he wanted because he—and the rest of you guys—are the closest thing I’ll ever have to a family ever again.”

I motioned through the windshield. “Keep driving. I’ll tell you when to turn.”

He nodded and made himself comfortable behind the wheel.

I took a long breath to steady myself for what was about to come out of my mouth. “You were a good football player, huh?”

The look in his eyes said he was reliving the glory days of not so long ago. “Yeah, I was pretty good.”

I scoffed. “I watched some tape. You were better than pretty good. You set the all-time NCAA Division-One record for most interceptions by a safety in a single season.”

He nodded, and I admired what I perceived as humility until he said, “That’s not a bad stat, but the one I’m really proud of is most pick-sixes by not only a free safety, but by any player in D-One history. And I did it in less than three full seasons. I was going to stack some serious paper when the draft rolled around, but after what happened to my family, suddenly, everything called a ‘game’ felt useless.”

We sat in silence as the sand-covered road hummed beneath us. “I guess you can’t really understand what it’s like to see your whole family murdered. It screwed me up, and I was done.”

It took another deep breath for me to say, “I think I know how you feel. I was barely a teenager when my parents and sister were murdered by some leftist guerrillas in Panama.”

He hit the brakes and slid the truck to a stop. “What? Are you serious?”

I didn’t bother checking the mirror. Instead, I nodded. “Yep. I didn’t see it happen, but I know how it feels. I was just a kid, though. You were an adult.”

“Wait a minute,” he said. “What were your parents and sister doing in Panama?”

“They were missionaries and aid workers, as far as anybody knew, but there was a lot more to them than just spreading the Gospel and passing out antibiotics. They worked for the State Department or something like that. Some people called them spies, but based on what I’ve learned from people who knew them best, they were communist-killing, badass freedom fighters operating under the cover of missionaries.”

Gator sat in stunned silence for a long moment. “So, this is like a family tradition for you.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. I played a little baseball in school, and like you, I wasn’t bad. I never intercepted any passes and ran them back for a touchdown, but I still hold the D-One record for gunning down the most runners attempting to steal.”

“No way!”

I said, “They named a whole section after me at Foley Field in Athens.”

“You played at Georgia?”

“Yep.”

“If you were that good, why aren’t you in the majors right now?”

I held up my scarred right wrist and hand. “A little trainwreck at home plate in ninety-six relegated me to the ranks of the has-beens. Some folks who knew and worked with my parents recruited me into this, and here we are, a couple of old ballers blocking a one-lane dirt road somewhere in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana.”

He shook his head and pressed the accelerator. “What a pair we make.”

We drove for several miles without a word until I said, “Turn left when you can, and let’s head south.”

He made the turn, and we followed the even rougher road toward the Gulf.

I pointed to a shack on the edge of what qualified as a road in that part of the world. “Pull in there.”

The area beside the structure that wasn’t swamp held a dozen pickup trucks and perhaps half that many people standing beneath a lean-to with smoke pouring from a concrete block pit.

We stepped from our rented truck and ambled toward the scene.

Gator whispered, “Please tell me you won’t try to speak Cajun with these guys.”

“Watch and learn, Grasshopper.”

One of the men gathered around the pit, looked up, and spat a long stream of tobacco juice onto the dusty ground. “ Comment ca va? ”

I shrugged. “ Laissez les bon temps rouler .”

That got a hearty chuckle, and the man said, “Go on inside, you. I bring in da chicken when it done, me.”

We turned for the open door of the shack, and Gator continued whispering. “What was that?”

“I think I said ‘Let the good times roll,’ but I’m not sure.”

He shook his head. “You’re going to get us killed.”

I gave him a wink. “Not before lunch.”

I had no expectation of a hostess inside the door, but I also didn’t expect to see the small place packed with people. Most of them sounded a lot like the guys outside by the fire pit, but a few sounded more like Gator and me.

A woman stomped by, wiping her hands on a dirty towel. “You two eatin’?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She gestured toward the corner. “It’ll be ready soon.”

We planted ourselves at the only empty table, and Gator asked, “Have you seen a menu?”

Before I could answer, two Styrofoam cups of water and two bottled beers landed on our table.

My partner watched the lady come, deposit the drinks, and vanish. “Okay…that’s different.” He never stopped scanning the crowd, and he drummed his fingertips against the well-worn table.

“Relax,” I said. “We’re just having lunch.”

“I’m way out of my element here.”

“Is it the people?”

He leaned back and scanned the room again as if memorizing every face. “You’re doing that Dr. Freud thing, aren’t you?”

I laughed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but Freud was wrong about everything.”

He sighed. “It’s not really the people that freak me out. It’s the fact that it’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen next. When we’re downrange, I expect people to shoot at me, and I know exactly what to do when that happens. Down here, though, I’ve got no idea what’s going on. It’s like the rules of the rest of the world don’t apply here.”

“Keep talking,” I said.

He pulled himself closer to the table. “I mean, think about it. What language do they speak?”

Before giving me a chance to answer, he threw up his hands. “Nobody knows. It’s not a real language. They suck the brains out of crawfish heads, for Pete’s sake. Alligators eat everything made out of meat except for severed body parts. What’s that about?”

He grew louder with every word, so I stepped in. “Let’s not have this conversation quite so loud. I’d like to make it through lunch without starting a fight in this place.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just letting it all out. And the voodoo… My God, voodoo? Really?”

In the middle of his rant, the same young lady who’d delivered our drinks appeared again and plopped two paper plates in front of us. Each had a mound of white rice several inches thick with half of a grilled chicken resting on top. As we sat admiring the feast before us, a second lady appeared with two enormous bowls of something and slid them onto the table. She drew a handful of silverware from her back pocket and dropped it between us. “If you need more, just yell out.” She vanished, leaving us in utter disbelief at the amount of food on our table.

Gator said, “Mongo’s going to love this place.” A few seconds later, he wiped his mouth. “Forget all that stuff I said earlier. I’m never leaving. This is the best chicken I’ve ever had.”

We ate for half an hour, but it would’ve been impossible to prove it by what remained on our plates. The contents of the bowls proved to be gumbo, and I wanted fifty gallons of it to go.

Gator’s beard was dripping with gumbo and chicken grease, but I never remember seeing him happier…unless Cecilia was involved.

“It looks like you’re enjoying yourself,” I said.

He leaned back and exhaled a long breath. “I love everything about this place.”

Before I could remind him how out of his element he’d been only minutes before, someone threw a table through the air, landing it upside down on a second table.

Gator spun in his chair and reached for his pistol, but I got a hand on his arm before he could draw. “Don’t. It’s not our fight. There’s a door ten feet behind me and a pair of windows fifteen feet to your left.”

The table wasn’t the only thing that became airborne. A massive man plucked a much younger man from his chair and threw him over his head and onto the metal counter near the front door. The victim expelled every drop of air in his lungs at the instant of impact and gasped as he worked to refill his chest.

The giant drew a knife that would be considered a machete in most circles and swung it like a broadsword toward his target. With air finally back in his lungs, the younger man rolled from the countertop and yanked a cast-iron skillet from a hook. The makeshift shield provided just enough protection to ward off the wildly swinging blade.

The fight continued through the front door and onto the sandy ground. A lucky swing of the skillet knocked the knife from the bigger man’s hand and sent it skittering beneath our truck.

Clear of the front door, Gator and I stepped between a pair of trucks, putting a few thousand pounds of steel between us and the fighters.

The smaller man was much faster than his attacker, and he dived into the cab of a truck I assumed was his, but the escape was far from over. The engine roared to life, and sand and gravel exploded from the rear tires, but Mongo’s twin brother was still on a rampage. He hoisted a concrete block in each hand and hurled them toward the fleeing truck. The first hit the windshield directly in front of the terrified driver, and the second found its way through the open driver’s side window. The block struck the man’s head and shoulders and sent blood spraying all over the interior of the truck.

The enormous man thrust both massive arms through the window and grabbed the man behind the wheel as the truck continued rolling toward the bayou. With a powerful twist of his body, he yanked the smaller man through the window and onto the road just as the front wheels of the truck left solid ground.

No one seemed concerned about the truck sinking in the black water. Everyone’s attention was focused on the battle royale in the middle of the dirt street. Blood continued flowing from the younger man’s head, but he wasn’t unconscious. The rate at which the crimson flow was leaving his head said his eyes wouldn’t be open much longer, and if Goliath had his way, it was likely the young man would never open those eyes again.

Either of us could’ve ended the fight with the press of a trigger, but we were outsiders, and picking sides in a fight we didn’t understand had great potential to end badly for us, no matter how well armed we were.

The big man straddled his victim and raised a sledgehammer fist above his head. The coming blow would surely render the man unconscious and deliver more than a few fractures to his face.

“We’ve got to do something,” Gator said. “He’s going to kill that guy.”

From my vantage point, I could see something Gator could not. A second truck threw sand into the air behind it as it accelerated toward the melee. In the bed of the truck stood a man in cutoff jeans and no shirt, swinging a lasso over his head. With the precision of a professional rodeo cowboy, he floated the lariat through the air and around the monster’s torso. The instant the rope came taut, the Cajun cowboy released it from his hands, and I saw for the first time that the other end of the rope was tied to the trailer hitch of the truck.

The beast of a man who was an instant away from ending the young man’s life suddenly left the ground and landed on his back as he was dragged across the roadway at what must’ve been twenty miles per hour.