Fat Tuesday(68)

"But who are they?" Bardo asked, as he swerved to avoid hitting a delivery truck."Who would do that to Remy?"

Remy. His Remy. His property. Snatched from him. Whoever these motherf*ckers were, they had nerve, he'd give them that. Too bad such courage was squandered on someone who was going to die so soon. And they would die. Slowly. Painfully. Begging for mercy, then pleading for death. For taking from him what was his, what he had created, they would die.

When they reached Lafayette Cemetery, the two cars screeched to a halt and disgorged six men. Duvall and Bardo were in the lead as they entered through the tall iron gates. Pinkie didn't wait for Bardo or the other men. He went in search of the row specified in the note, weaving his way through the avenues of tombs until he reached the one he was looking for. He ran along the path, the crushed-shell gravel crunching beneath his shoes, his breath fogging in front of him.

What he would find he couldn't guess. Remy's remains zipped into a body bag and dumped here? A recently opened tomb, her blood sprinkled on an altar of stones? A shoe box with ashes inside? A voodoo sacrifice?

Once he'd ordered Bardo to cut off a woman's face and deliver it in a pizza box to her husband who had ignored previous, more subtle warnings.

Pinkie expected this message to him to be just as jolting.

No longer would he underestimate this unnamed enemy. The man was smart, devious, and he knew Pinkie Duvall well enough to know the right buttons to push. He'd sent Pinkie on this macabre treasure hunt that would end with his finding what?

His feet skidded in the gravel as he came to a sudden stop, recognizing it the instant he spotted it.

It wasn't a body or blood he found, but the message was just as bold.

Temples throbbing, hands balling into fists, he read the name engraved on the tomb. It was the resting place of Kevin Michael Stuart.

"Is he going to kill me?"

J Dredd spooned soup into Remy's mouth and, when he dribbled some, made a fuss of blotting her lips with a paper napkin. He muttered self-deprecations about his clumsiness, but he didn't respond to her question.

"Stop pretending you didn't hear me, Dredd," she said, stilling his hand when he tried to ladle another spoonful of soup from the bowl.

"I won't panic. I'd just like to know. Is he going to kill me?"

"No."

Reading nothing in his expression to cause doubt, she relaxed once again against the cushions he'd placed behind her back so he could feed her more easily. She had claimed she could feed herself, but he'd insisted on doing it, and now she was glad she had consented. The wounds on her back weren't as painful as before, but her head was muzzy from her long, drugged sleep. She would have lacked the energy to lift more than a few spoonfuls to her mouth, and she was surprisingly hungry.

The soup, court-bouillon according to Dredd, had been made with a fish stock to which tomatoes, onions, and rice had been added. It was hot and flavorful.

"Is it ransom he's after?"

"No, cher'. Basile doesn't care overmuch for worldly goods." He glanced around the room, which had been furnished and decorated out of a junkyard. Winking at her, he added, "He and I are alike that way."

"Then why?"

"You know about Basile's friend, Wayne Bardo's trial, all that?"

"Revenge?"

The old man answered in Cajun French, but his eloquent shrug spoke volumes.

"My husband will kill him."

"He knows that."

She looked at him inquisitively.

"Basile doesn't care if he dies, so long as he takes Duvall with him.

I tried to talk sense into him this morning, but he wouldn't listen.

Devils are driving him."

Hoping that she might enlist Dredd's help, she reached for his hand and clutched it tightly."Please call the authorities. Do this, Dredd, not just for me, but for Mr. Basile. It's not too late for him to turn himself in. Or forget the authorities. Call my husband. Basile can disappear before Pinkie gets here. I'll persuade Pinkie not to press charges against him. Please, Dredd."

"I'd purely love to help you, Remy, but Burke Basile is my friend.

I would never betray his trust."

"Even if it was for his own good?"

"He wouldn't see it-that way, cher'." Gently, he pulled his hand free.

"To Basile this is a ... a mission. He made a covenant with himself to avenge Kev Stuart's death. Nobody could talk him out of it now."

"You know him very well."

"As well as anybody, I guess. He's not an easy man to know."

'"What kind of man is he?"

Dredd thoughtfully scratched his chin through his dense gray beard.

"This ol' boy up in Rawlins used to beat his wife and three kids. I mean, he really worked them over whenever he was drunk, which was most of the time. But his white-trash family and friends finagled him out of jail every time he was arrested.

"One night, nine-one-one gets a domestic disturbance call from a neighbor, says he must be killing them all this time because you could hear the kids screaming all over the neighborhood. The first cop on the scene doesn't wait for backup, because the kids're in danger, and besides, he doesn't figure he'll need help containing one mean drunk.

He goes in alone.