Fat Tuesday(74)

Placing his hand on Remy's head, he pushed it forward and down toward her lap so she wouldn't be struck by the low branches. As soon as they were beneath the limbs, he stopped the engine again and caught hold of one of the cypress knees to keep the craft from drifting. Luckily the mist camouflaged their wake.

Remy strained against his hand, trying to raise her head.

"Be still."

He kept his palm firmly in place on the back of her head, his eyes on the sky. As he'd guessed, a helicopter appeared above the treetops, flying low. It was too small to be one of the choppers that transported oil workers to offshore rigs, and not distinctive enough to be a police helicopter. If it was a traffic helicopter, the pilot was lost because there wasn't a car for miles. It could be an instructor giving his student a bird's-eye view of the swamp, but on a foggy day what was the likelihood of that?

A closer guess was that it was a rogue outfit hired by Pinkie Duvall to look for his wife and her captor.

Reaching above her head, Mrs. Duvall tried to dislodge his hand.

"It's gone now. Let me up." She made herself heard even though her voice was muffled by the fabric of the shapeless clothes Dredd had given her.

"Stay put." He strained his ears to hear if the chopper was retreating, or if it might be coming back for a second pass.

"I can't breathe." She began to struggle in earnest."I said stay put. Just for " ...

"Let me up."

Sensing her panic, Burke released her. She tried to stand but bumped her head on a tree limb and fell back. The boat rocked dangerously, which only caused her to grab for the sides and increase the danger.

Burke took her by the shoulders."Be still, damn it. Unless you want to capsize. And I don't think you do."

He pointed his chin and she turned. A gator was gliding past not ten yards from the boat, cleaving the mist silently and malevolently, only the reptilian slits of his eyes visible above the surface.

She stopped struggling but sucked in short, rapid gasps."I couldn't breathe."

"I'm sorry."

"Let go of my arms."

Watching her warily, Burke gradually withdrew. She stacked her hands on her chest as though trying to contain its rapid rise and fall."Do. do anything else to me, but don't smother me."

"I wasn't trying to smother you. Only to keep you from hitting your head on a branch."

She looked at him retiringly."You were trying to keep me from signaling the helicopter. I'm not stupid, Mr. Basile."

"Okay, true. I pushed your head down to keep you from signaling the chopper. But don't fight me like that again. You nearly caused this damn thing to capsize. Next time we might not be so lucky."

"The last thing I want to do is wind up in the water. I can't swim."

He snorted skeptically."I'm not stupid either, Mrs. Duvall."

"That's him! That's the one. Father Gregory." Smiling triumphantly, Errol tapped his finger against the mug shot of Gregory James. For hours, he had been looking through the illegally obtained files of the N.O.P.D.

Pinkie was still skeptical, believing that Errol might have invented that part of the story to reinstate himself."Gregory James," he read from the file."No aliases. A history of arrests for public indecency.

One plea bargain and one probation." He turned to an idle gofer.

"Find out what his status is now."

"He's with Burke Basile and Mrs. Duvall," Errol said when the clerk left to do Pinkie's bidding.

"You didn't recognize Basile from the Bardo trial. Why should I think you can identify Father Gregory?"

"I'd only seen Basile from a distance. And anyway, he looked different as Father Kevin. I'm positive that's Father Gregory. He even used his own name."

Pinkie remained noncommittal."We'll see."

Errol sweated buckets before the gofer returned."It checks out Mr. Duvall. Gregory James served some jail time a few months ago. He's on probation."

"See, I told you!"

"Well, I guess I owe you an apology, Errol. Thanks to you, it seems that Father Gregory's identity is no longer a mystery."

Errol cast smiles all around. Pinkie dismissed him, but asked him to hang around in case he was needed. Errol practically bowed on his way out of the inner office, just as Bardo came in."Del Ray is driving everybody nuts. He's been here for an hour. Says he's got some vital information, but he'll only talk to you directly. Can you see him now?"

Unenthusiastically, Pinkie told Bardo to send him in.

Del Ray Jones was a crook of all trades, but his main gig was loansharking. With the advent of riverboat gambling in New Orleans, his business had boomed, elevating an ego that was already disproportionate to the man's worth.

He was a vicious, mean, weaselly little bastard who was very handy with a knife. One night he'd gotten a little carried away with one of his clients who was late on a payment and had slit his throat. That was his first and, to date, only murder. Scared spitless, he'd run to his lawyer for advice.

Pinkie had told him to keep out of sight for a few weeks, assuring him that the disappearance of one small-time gambler would create hardly a ripple in New Orleans' underworld. He'd been right. The crime remained unsolved. Meanwhile, Pinkie knew where the body was buried.