Fat Tuesday(64)

"Yes, she is."

"Does this vision have a name?"

Burke turned and looked into Dredd's wizened face."Mrs. Pinkie Duvall."

There was no outcry regarding Burke's sanity, no exclamation of disbelief, no barrage of questions or demands for an explanation.

He merely stared long and hard at Burke, then nodded."There's a bottle of whiskey in that cabinet. Help yourself." He headed for the door.

"The man out there is in pain."

Dredd waved, indicating he'd heard, but he didn't turn around.

Burke availed himself of Dredd's whiskey, grateful to see that it was a brand name and not rotgut out of a jug. The only chair in the room had rickety wooden legs and a rush seat, which had been snacked on by rodents, but Burke pulled it near the bed and gingerly lowered himself into it.

He hadn't eaten since breakfast almost twenty-four hours earlier.

He should forage in Dredd's kitchen for something, but he was so tired he talked himself out of it. For a time, he just sat there, watching the woman sleep, watching the gentle rise and fall of her back with each breath and feeling like a creep because he was thinking about her breasts mashed flat beneath her.

He'd undressed her with chivalry and reasonable detachment.

Reasonable detachment. That didn't mean he didn't notice. God, how could he not? A guy has an opportunity to see the object of his fantasies naked, he's gonna look. He's gonna check out her breasts and note that the nipples are firm but very pale. Who could expect him not to notice thigh-high stockings? Get real. And panties so sheer she might just as well not have bothered?

He drank two shots of whiskey in quick succession. They hit his empty stomach like fireballs.

Her right arm was lying along her side, her hand palm up. He saw the red impressions the key ring had made in her skin when he squeezed her hand around it. He couldn't resist reaching out and tracing the cruel marks with his fingertip. Her fingers responded reflexively and curled in toward her palm. Guiltily, he snatched his hand back.

The third shot went down without burning so badly.

His gaze moved back up to her face. Her eyelids were perfectly still.

Her lips were relaxed and slightly parted. Saliva had trickled from one corner of her mouth, and it was tinged pink with blood from the cut on her lip. He touched it as he had before with his little finger, then left the moisture there on the tip of his finger to dry naturally.

He took another swig from the whiskey bottle.

Well, he'd done it. He had committed a felony, a federal offense.

He witfe was irrevocably changed. If he were to return Mrs. Duvall to her husband tomorrow, Burke Basile couldn't resume he witfe where it had left off. There was no turning back now. All escape hatches were nailed shut.

He supposed he should feel more guilty, ashamed, and scared than he did Maybe the whiskey was making him drunk. Maybe he was just too plain stupid to fear the consequences that lay in store for him. But as he fell asleep listening to Remy Duvall's soft breathing, he felt pretty damn good.

What do you mean he's gone?"

After only a few hours of sleep sitting up in Dredd's uncomfortable chair, Burke's neck was stiff, his back felt like an army had marched across it, the whiskey had left him with a dull headache, and daylight had focused the cold light of reality on the fact that he had crossed the line between enforcing the law and breaking it.

"Don't yell at me," Dredd snapped. He used a long fork to turn a piece of meat frying in an iron skillet."He's your priest, not mine."

"He's not a priest."

"You don't say?"

Burke, massaging his temple, frowned at the other man's sarcasm.

"He wname is Gregory James and he's an unemployed actor. Among other things."

"Whatever else he is," Dredd grumbled, "he's a goddamn thief. He snuck off in my best pirogue."

Burke lowered his hand."Are you saying he left by way of the swamp?"

The idea of Gregory James poling through the hostile environment of the swamp was unthinkable."The closest he'd ever come to the swamp.was last night when we tried to sink the van. He'll never survive out there alone."

"Probably not," Dredd said with a shake of his long gray ponytail.

Impervious to the season, he was wearing ragged denim cutoffs. No shirt and no shoes. His callused feet looked as tough as hooves as they shuffled across the buckled linoleum floor. He would have turned heads on a downtown city boulevard, but his odd appearance suited the environment he had created for himself. A ragged, faded Union Jack served as a window curtain. The unvented cook stove stood at the end of the counter where he rang up sales for tobacco, beer, and live bait, and within sight of where he did his taxidermy. It was a health inspector's worst nightmare, but Dredd' witmited clientele wouldn't be fussy about such things.

He was philosophical about Gregory's chances for survival."I just hope that when the food chain catches up with him, my boat will drift back.

You ready for breakfast?"

"What is it?"

"Are you hungry or particular?"

"Hungry," Burke replied reluctantly.

Dredd dished up the fried meat and ladled over it a gravy he had made with the meat drippings, a handful of flour, and a little milk. He served it with plain white bread and strong New Orleans-style coffee with chicory.