Fat Tuesday(66)

"More or less. I'm going to keep her in the fishing cabin."

Burke used the cabin only once or twice a year, if he was lucky enough to get away for a few days. Whenever he did, he always stopped at Dredd's Mercantile to buy his food, beer, and bait.

Dredd's shop was off the beaten path, but to fishermen and hunters who knew their way through the labyrinth of bayous, it was a well known spot and a point of reference. Only one gravel road led to it. The primary form of transportation to and from it was by boat.

Dredd didn't make a lot of money, but he didn't need much. Most of his income was earned during alligator season. He hunted them, then sold the skins. He also did some taxidermy as a sideline.

"Who else knows about your cabin?" Dredd asked.

"Only Barbara, but she doesn't know where it is. She never went there with me, because she hated even the idea of it."

"Anybody else?"

"My brother, Joe, met me there a couple of times for a weekend of fishing. Not in a couple of years, though."

"You trust him?"

Burke laughed."My brother? Of course I trust him."

"If you say so. What about that Gregory character?"

"He's harmless."

"And you're a damn fool," Dredd said harshly."Supposing he gets lucky and finds his way out of the swamp before a cottonmouth gets him.

Supposing he starts to thinking about what Pinkie Duvall would do to him if he catches him. Supposing he figures he'll go to Duvall first and sell out your hide to save his."

"I'm not worried about that."

"Why not?"

"Because Gregory is a coward."

"He was brave enough to steal my pirogue and go into the swamp."

"Only because he's more frightened of me than he is of the elements.

He thinks I still might kill him for what he did at the Crossroads. I threatened to enough times, maybe he thinks I meant it. Anyway, he'll survive. He's lived a charmed life. When the swamp spits him back, he'll run as far and fast as he can. He won't go to Duvall."

"How do you plan to contact him?"

"Who, Duvall? You got it all wrong, Dredd. He'll contact me."

"How's he going to do that?"

"That's for him to figure out. In the meantime, I'm endangering you by staying here. So back to my original question: When can I safely move her?"

Doug Pat slowly lowered his feet from the corner of his desk and set them on the floor. At his elbow, his mug of coffee began to cool.

He reread the story three times.

It was an insignificant insert, the text using up no more than six inches of the Times Picayune's page twenty. It was a brief account of a fight that had broken out in a roadside cafe in Jefferson Parish.

Involved were two Catholic priests, the wife of a famed New Orleans attorney, and her bodyguard. According to a sheriff's office spokesman, the incident was resolved without any arrests being made.

Two aspects of this seemingly innocuous story attracted Pat's attention: How many famed New Orleans attorneys' wives had body guards?

Second, witnesses noted that one of the unidentified priests had a quirky habit of flexing his right hand.

Pat depressed a button on his intercom."Can you come in here a minute?"

In under sixty seconds, Mac Mccuen strolled in with his characteristic jauntiness."What's up?"

"Read this."

Pat pushed the newspaper across the desk and pointed out the story.

After reading it, Mac looked up."So?"

"So, do you know someone with a quirky habit of flexing his right hand?"

Mac lowered himself into the chair facing his superior's desk.

He scanned the story again."Yeah, but he for damn sure isn't a priest."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"I told you about it, remember? A couple nights ago, he came to my house for dinner."

' "How did he seem?"

"The same old Basile."

"The same old Basile carrying the same old grudge against Pinkie Duvall?"

Mccuen glanced down at the newspaper."Oh shit."

"Yeah." Pat rubbed the top of his head as though worried about his spreading bald spot."Did Burke drop any hints about what he's been doing since he resigned?"

"He didn't say much. But, hey, he never did. Always played his hand close to his vest. All he said was that he planned to go away for a while and do some thinking."

"Alone?"

"That's what he said."

"Where?"

"Said he didn't know yet."

"Do you know how to contact him?"

"No." Mccuen laughed nervously."Look, Pat, this is crazy.

The guy with the funny hand action was a priest. And it doesn't specifically identify the woman as Duvall's wife. It couldn't be her.

Bodyguard or not, Duvall wouldn't let her within fifty yards of Burke Basile."

"True. They're sworn enemies."

"Even if they weren't. From what I've heard, she's a dish and a lot younger than Duvall."

Pat raised his eyebrows, signaling Mccuen to complete his thought.

"Well, Burke's the strong, silent type that women go nuts for.