The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do (2 page)

“Yeah,” Jewel said. His jaw jutted defiantly, as if this were a commonplace enterprise for him. “Don’t be tellin’ me what’s wrong with me, Dunc. You know and I know why I’m in on this.”

“Run that by me again.”

“ ’Cause I shoot to hurt and I come to shoot, that’s why.”

Duncan stared at Jewel, then smiled proudly.

“You ain’t smart, Jewel, but I can’t say as you’re dumb, neither.” He opened the car door. “Let’s go.”

Ledoux’s house was a sturdy, winterized weekender’s cottage bordered by screened-in porches. From the rear door a planked walkway curved down to the dock about fifty feet away.

Duncan knocked on the door.

A woman with a pretty face that had begun to bloat and tousled blond hair swung the door open, revealing a porch overrun by fishing poles, milk cartons, and sporting magazines. She had the expression of one who is intent on being constantly disappointed, and held a can of beer in her hand. She looked at Duncan, then Jewel.

“My word,” she said. “We don’t often get encyclopedia salesmen out here.”

“I expect not,” Duncan said. “I’ve come to see Pete.”

“I wouldn’t’ve bought none anyway, just cut out a few of the pictures.” The woman gestured with her head, snapping it toward the light that shone on the water. “Saint Francis of the Marais du Croche is down there rappin’ with the fishes.”

Duncan smiled at her. She was a drinker with good looks picking up speed downhill, which was his usual game, but she was Pete’s woman.

“Thanks.”

“You fellas want a beer, or anything?”

“No thanks.”

“That’s good, ’cause we ain’t got enough to share, anyhow,” she said as she closed the door.

The walkway swayed underfoot as they crossed it to the dock. The needle of light was playing on the water, illuminating a great bog of murk and brackish water.

“Say, Pete,” Duncan called. “I got my cousin, Jewel, here to meet you.”

“Hiya,” Pete said, then stuck the beam of light in Jewel’s face.

Jewel tried to screen his eyes, then turned his face away.

“Say, hey, man! You learn that trick in the cops, or what?”

Pete aimed the light between himself and Duncan.

“Nasty lookin’ pup, ain’t he?” Pete said.

These fellas aren’t handing me much respect, Jewel thought. He’d whipped two men at a time who were bigger than them before. That time in Memphis there’d been three bargemen on a spree and he’d come out of that one pretty good, too, once his tongue had been stitched back together.

“I ain’t a pup,” Jewel said. He raised his shirttails and exposed the handle of the pistol. “See that there? That’s what says I ain’t. It can say it six times, too.”

Ledoux exchanged glum glances with Duncan. He then walked to a pillar of the dock and flipped an unseen switch. Lights lit up the dock and the men. Ledoux motioned for the others to follow him as he ambled to the edge of the dock.

“I got some catfish to tend to,” Ledoux said. He was a short man, well into middle age but still supple and quick. His skin was tanned to match mud, and his brown hair had fingers of gray running through it. He bent to one knee and reached over the edge of the dock to the water. When he stood he pulled a stringer of channel cat and bullhead up. The fish made a weighty, wet splat when he tossed them onto a wooden bench beneath the brightest light.

Without looking away from the fish, he asked Jewel, “You know what you’re supposed to do?”

“Sort of. I’m gonna cool out some kind of a porn king.”

Ledoux slowly swiveled to face Duncan. When their eyes met he nodded once, then grinned snidely, as if some little-believed prediction of his had come true.

Duncan lowered his eyes, inspecting the toe of his shoe. “He ain’t king of his own cock, Jewel. He just owns a theater.”

Ledoux spat on the dock near Duncan’s feet. “What you’re supposed to do, which you ‘sort of’ know, is kill a nigger and get away with it. ‘Sort of’ gettin’ away with it used to be good enough, back in ’37 or so, but the Kennedys and ol’ Johnson done shit in that bowl of soup. So, you see, mon ami, ‘sort of’ wasn’t the way I’d planned it to be.”

“I went over it with him,” Duncan said. “He’s game. More than game, ain’t you, Jewel?”

“I’m a Cobb, ain’t I?” Jewel replied with tremulous bravado.

Ledoux had taken the fish off the stringer and now, one by one, he began to drive nails through their heads, tacking them to the bench. There were a few odd grunts from the fish, which Ledoux seemed to echo. He then raised a knife and inserted the tip beneath the tail fin of each, and, with short, gentle strokes, gutted them. The guts drooped over the side of the bench and hung toward the deck.

Ledoux looked up from his work. “I like fish,” he said.

Jewel’s head bobbed. “No shit,” he said.

Duncan gave Jewel a rough shove. “Tell him what you’re going to do, boy! You can come up tough on your own time, but now you’re making
me
look bad, hear?”

After straightening himself, as if considering revolt, Jewel relaxed slightly.

“Right,” he said. Reality seemed to hug his thoughts and he smiled at the comfort of the embrace. “Sure. This is business. I’m
all
business.”

Ledoux was bent over the fish, sticking his hands into their body cavities and ripping out the clinging organs.

“Now you’re talkin’, mon ami,” he said as he flipped a handful that splashed in the darkness beyond the arc of light.

“Duncan told me everything. About twenty-seven times, at least. I got it down, man.”

“It really ain’t all that involved,” Duncan said. “Point it and go boom. He ought to have it down.”

“That’s very comforting,” Ledoux said. “That is very comforting. I’ll have that to cherish, for about a quarter-to-life over in Jeff City, there. ‘Point it and go boom.’ It’s good to know we got us such a simple murder, ’cause I can name eight or ten other fellas I know who must’ve drew tougher jobs. Mon Dieu, if they only saw it as clear as you do, they wouldn’t be pressin’ boxer shorts for the state.”

“Geez, Pete,” Duncan said, his voice flat, with only his lips moving. “You don’t have to make a speech out of it. You got concerns, then you mention ’em.”

“Why, thank you,” Ledoux replied, as if honored by some rare privilege. “I do believe I have a concern or two, there, Judge Cobb.” He pointed a finger at Jewel. “For instance, does he know this deal cold?”

“No,” Jewel said, and swaggered forward. “Look at my ears, buddy. They’re too small to be on a dog, see? That means I can talk for myself. And now you bring it up, there is one important thing I don’t know cold.” He jabbed a finger at Ledoux’s chest. “What’m I gettin’ exactly? Duncan here, cousin Dunc, he’s been a little confusin’ with the numbers.”

“Well,” Ledoux said, “this is beginnin’ to make some sense. You’re just getting started with us. Fifteen hundred bucks is what you get. That’s about ten times what I got when I decided to grow up. It’ll all be hidden on the Micheaux Construction payroll.”

“I won’t do any of that kind of work, though,” Jewel said. “I didn’t bus up here to strain and sweat for no paycheck.”

“This
kid,
” Ledoux said, tapping a finger to his temple, “he’s really ready for a step up from stealin’ eggs from chickens?”

Duncan shrugged, impassive and bored. Ledoux turned back to Jewel.

“You. You’re a tough kid, right, mon ami? I’m just curious about the generation gap, you know, that sort of thing. I was wonderin’—what’ve you ever
done?
”

“Nothin’ that ain’t strictly my own business, that’s what. Mainly.”

After nodding, Ledoux returned to the task of cleaning the fish.

Duncan walked over and stood next to Jewel, then began to jab him in the short ribs with his finger. Jewel walked away.

“Okay,” Ledoux said. “I’ve got instincts that it don’t pay to fight. You could be right for us, Cobb. Everybody deserves a chance, you know.” Ledoux sat on a bloodless section of the bench. “Now the reason you get a payroll check is so we can all run fakes on the taxman, see? He’s worse than any cop you ever saw. Any
six
cops you ever saw. I ever get got, it’s goin’ to be some Kraut with an addin’ machine, not some Mick with a badge who does it to me.”

Slowly, Jewel nodded. He’d seen that on TV. IRS. Capone, seems like they did it to him. And most of the other big boys went up when their math became criminally inaccurate.

“That’s smart,” Jewel said, finally. The sophistication of such financial transactions increased his attraction to this line of work.

“I want to tell you one thing first,” Ledoux said. He picked up a squat flashlight and began to shine it across the water. The outlines of trees, tips of floating logs, undulations of green scum that roiled on the water’s surface, and phantom eye reflections were caught in the beam. “That there—you know what it is?”

“I just hit town,” Jewel said. “I ain’t learned every backwater.”

“That’s a hell of a backwater, mon ami. It’s the Marais du Croche. That means ‘Crooked Swamp’ in the tongue. It’s a big, endless black bugger, too. Full of sinkholes and slitherin’ things and sloughs that go in circles, and every part of it looks so much like every other part of it that most folks, they can’t remember which is which, or which way is out, or nothin’. So they get confused. Many times they get confused unto death, mon ami, then in the spring they wash down and land at the dam, bone by bone.”

“I been in woods before, with big trees and hooty owls and all that shit, man.”

“Not like that.” Ledoux flashed the light high and low, slowly displaying a great meanness of which he had somehow grown fond. “You know who knows their way around over there, Cobb?”

Jewel looked at Duncan, then at Ledoux’s weathered face.

“I’m goin’ to guess
you.
”

“Très bien.” Ledoux shone the light on Jewel once more. “Me and two or three other old Frogtown boys. That’s it. You get in there, no one else can help you but them and me, and they don’t know you.”

Jewel folded his arms across his chest, then rocked back on his heels and squinted into the light.

“I ain’t got no plans to go in there.”

“I know. And as long as you do right, I won’t ever have to
put
you in there, either. Understand what I’m sayin’?”

Jewel nodded solemnly but did not reply.

“So you’re goin’ to cool that coon, Crane, on Seventh outside of his theater. Tomorrow afternoon, am I right?”

“As rain and mother-love,” Jewel replied.

“This is our special secret, right, Jewel?” Duncan said. “That juggy gal of yours ain’t clued in, is she?”

“Are you kiddin’? You got to be kiddin’.”

Duncan stepped up and heartily slapped Jewel on the back.

“Oh, yeah, now we’re in business. What say you run up to the car and break out that beer you been savin’, cuz? We’ll cement this deal.”

“That’s a hell of a notion,” Jewel said, and started up the wooden walkway to the car.

Duncan and Ledoux watched him. When the overhead light in the Mercury went on, Ledoux nudged Duncan.

“Him bein’ your cousin—that a problem for you?”

“No,” Duncan replied, shaking his head. “He’s an asshole.”

Ledoux began to pile the skinned fish in order to carry them to the house.

“Wonderful,” he said. “We’ve got to be on time and I think he might be one peckerwood who’s just barely dumb enough to pull the trigger when we want him to.”

“When it comes to dumb, bet on him,” Duncan said, as he watched Jewel coming back down the walkway. “If you had a Sears catalogue of dummies you couldn’t order a better one. I mean, the punk’s just perfect for us.”

2

D
ETECTIVE
R
ENE
Shade, dressed casually in a black T-shirt and jeans, sat on a stool in the corner of the room and contemplated the patrons of Tip’s Catfish Bar. He saw red-faced men with untamed cigarettes bucking their hands through the air; squinty-eyed men who huddled in booths and had professional flinches that drew their heads to the side; white-haired men with fists as gnarled as ancient roots and with expressions mutely wise and unafraid. Few women and no squeamish men gathered here.

Shade’s brother owned the bar, and this, too, was on his mind. It had sometimes been an embarrassment at Headquarters for Shade, having to admit that, yes, the Tip Shade who ran the Catfish Bar and welcomed felons, petty thieves, and their apprentices was his older brother. He had tried to explain that the bar was the center of the neighborhood in which they had grown up, and the regulars were neighbors first and threats to society second. It was more personal, not at all clear-cut, where the line could, or even should, be drawn. Such explanations were regarded as suspiciously metaphysical by his superiors. It did not help that his father, the regionally notorious John X. Shade, was prominent in what he insisted upon calling sporting circles, and others, with equal insistence, termed the gambling fraternity.

The bar was built of rough wood on a mound overlooking the river. Oak beams pressed the roof above their heads, while fishnets with cork floaters, a mystifyingly fey decorating touch, dripped down between the beams. The chairs and tables were all wooden, and squeaked with
use. There were athletic prints on the walls and photos of local champions. A large mural of Tip hung behind the bar. In it he was poised to hurl his two hundred and thirty some pounds into a spider-legged halfback; holding an intercepted ball aloft in the end zone; and snarling down at a shell-shocked fullback whom he’d crumbled on the one yard line. There was a team picture of the Saint Bruno Pirates, the local minor league baseball team, and a small picture of Eldon Berenger, who’d played one season of basketball in the Continental League. There were several boxers represented. Just to the rear of one stout oak pillar there was a small photo of Rene Shade, gloved hands held above his head as he celebrated a victory in the early, hopeful days of his former career. Near the entrance there was a larger picture of Shade, one taken near the end of the night that the Light-Heavy Champ, Foster Broome, had chased him with a posse of left jabs until his face split up and retreated in different directions to elude pursuit. Shade could not avoid looking at this reminder of his almost glorious past, but every time he did so his stomach tightened up. The picture was one of Tip’s attempts at rugged good humor, but Shade rarely managed to smile at it.