Jana DeLeon - Miss Fortune 06 - Soldiers of Fortune

by Jana DeLeon

  I shrugged. “Hard to say, but I’m going to guess they are. If the trace had produced the answer they wanted, why would they give me the information?”

  “True,” Ida Belle said. “Who are the known associates?”

  I looked back at the papers. “Known associates include Rip Salazar, Conrad Fredericks, Lynne Fontenot, and Benedict Granger.”

  Ida Belle and Gertie both perked up. “You recognize any of those?”

  “Benedict Granger is from Sinful,” Gertie said. “Still lives here.”

  “Really?” I said. “I didn’t see that one coming. Benedict is sorta an odd name for these parts, isn’t it?”

  Ida Belle rolled her eyes. “His mother was stuck on the whole British thing. Even flew a British flag outside of her house.”

  “South of the Mason-Dixon line?” I asked. “Did she have a death wish?”

  “People kept shooting holes in the flags,” Gertie said. “After she went through ten or so, she gave up.”

  “And he still lives here?” I asked.

  “Yeah. He’s not exactly a model citizen,” Ida Belle said. “He works as a roughneck, but I think he only does jobs long enough to accumulate drinking money. From what I hear, he spends more time in the Swamp Bar than he does on an oil rig.”

  I sighed. “And we’re back to the Swamp Bar. You know, Gertie, if you wanted to do the whole town a favor, the next time you’re in pyromaniac mode, why don’t you pay them a visit?”

  “I’m not even going to be offended at that statement,” Gertie said, “because you’ve got a good point.”

  “That matchbook Gertie found at the lab site seems to fit with this Benedict character,” I said.

  “You know what this means?” Ida Belle said.

  I flopped back in my chair. “That we have to go to the Swamp Bar and see if we catch this Benedict doing something suspicious.” I pointed a finger at them. “But I’m not dressing like a hooker again, and I’m definitely not doing a wet T-shirt contest.”

  “Oh!” Gertie sat upright. “I just remembered. At the festival yesterday, some of the usual Swamp Bar crew were talking about a crawfish boil that the bar was hosting tomorrow. It starts at noon.”

  “That might not be too bad,” Ida Belle said. “And all of the regulars will come out for a free meal.”

  “Do we really want to see the Swamp Bar in daylight?” I asked. “Because it looks pretty seedy in dim light.”

  “The regulars probably look even worse,” Gertie said.

  “Something else to look forward to,” I said. “It’s one thing for me to dress like a hoochie and show up there after dark and sit in the dim light of that bar, but if the three of us show up in broad daylight, won’t it look strange? I mean, I can’t imagine those people would volunteer information to any of us.”

  “That is a problem,” Ida Belle agreed.

  “Sure,” Gertie said, “the way we look now it wouldn’t work, but we can rough it up.”

  Ida Belle and I stared at her.

  “Okay,” she said, “so maybe it would be easier if all three of us didn’t go.”

  “I’m really tired of being the token bar slut,” I said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Gertie said. “Ida Belle can drive us over in the airboat. That way, if we need a quick escape, we have one.”

  I wasn’t convinced that Gertie could pull off Swamp Bar attire and even less excited about the prospect of needing to get away quickly, but I knew I was the best option for getting information. Unfortunately, the men at the Swamp Bar seemed to respond to my bar slut persona. I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or dismayed.

  “Hey,” I said, “if the guy lives here, why don’t we just watch his house?”

  “Last I heard,” Ida Belle said, “he lived on his boat.”

  I stared. “Seriously? That must be some boat.”

  “No. It’s complete crap,” Ida Belle said, “but when you don’t pay your rent or utilities, you run short on options. I doubt anyone in Sinful will do business with him.”

  “Great,” I said. “So when he’s not drinking, or working a couple of days to pay for the next round, he’s floating in a drunken stupor around the bayous of Sinful.”

  “That’s pretty much it,” Ida Belle said.

  “Well, he’s perfect for a middleman,” I said. “No one’s going to question him lounging around in the bayou all day when he lives there.” I sighed. “Okay, so Gertie and I will go to this crawfish boil—but I’m not eating anything—and we watch for this Benedict and see if he appears in cahoots with anyone else, right?”

  Ida Belle nodded.

  “That doesn’t sound like we’re doing much,” I said.

  “I know,” Ida Belle agreed, “but that’s what we have to work with.”

  “At least the kids were clean,” Gertie said as she rose from the table and started serving up the stew.

  “That part is encouraging,” Ida Belle said. “It would be nice to put a stop to this before it ever gets started.”

  I nodded, also happy that it appeared the meth hadn’t made its way to the teen market, but my conscience was weighing heavily on me. So many lies. Even though the current ones were by omission, that didn’t make me feel any better.

  “What’s wrong?” Gertie asked as she put a bowl of stew in front of me.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Everything.”

  “There’s a bit of a gap between those two words,” Ida Belle said.

  “You want to tell us about it?” Gertie asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “And no.”

  “Well, at least you’re consistent,” Ida Belle said, and smiled.

  Gertie placed two more bowls of stew onto the table and slid into her seat. “Eat, and talk. You’ll feel better after you do both.”

  I took a bite of the stew and I had to admit, I did feel a little better. It had a rich, slightly spicy broth with chunks of beef, potatoes, and carrots and went perfectly with my beer. “The stew is great, but I don’t think talking can fix anything.”

  “We may not have a solution for whatever is bothering you,” Ida Belle said, “but Gertie’s right that sometimes just talking about it brings some level of peace.”

  I took another bite and nodded. “Okay. It’s getting harder to lie to everyone. And I know that sounds incredibly stupid, especially to you guys since you know who and what I really am. I mean, my entire career hinges on my ability to lie often and well and without conscience.”

  “Certainly,” Ida Belle agreed, “but those lies aren’t told to people you care about.”

  I sighed. “Yeah.”

  “Is there any lie in particular that’s bothering you at the moment?” Gertie asked.

  “It’s a bunch of them,” I said. “Take tomorrow for example. I’m pretty sure Ally is working at the café, so I don’t have to make an excuse to get off without her to do this Swamp Bar thing, but I will probably have to come up with some excuse to avoid Carter.”

  Ida Belle nodded. “Our side projects were a lot easier when he was working.”

  “And there’s the whole finger thing,” I said. “What if we don’t come up with something? How long do we wait before we turn the evidence over to the cops? Two days? Until Carter goes back to work?”

  Gertie and Ida Belle frowned.

  “I’m embarrassed to say,” Ida Belle said, “that I hadn’t gotten that far in my thinking, but you’re right. Due to Nelson’s incompetence, law enforcement is unaware of the presence of the meth lab. And no one but us and the Heberts know the identity of the cooker. If Carter gets back to work, we have to tell him about the print.”

  “How do you think that’s going to go over?” I asked.

  “Like a turd in a punch bowl,” Gertie said. “Jesus, we’ve made a mess of this.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Ida Belle said. “If we can run down the rest of Dewey’s partners, then the easy answer is we turn it all over to the Heberts and rest well in the knowledge that it won�
�t be a problem going forward. Then no one has to know anything beyond what they know now.”

  “But will you really rest well?” I asked, leaning forward to look at them. “I know you guys had your run in Vietnam. We haven’t discussed the details and don’t need to, but I’m sure you did things then that you wouldn’t think of doing as a regular civilian. I made peace a long time ago with what I do. I know it’s for the greater good, and to protect the innocent, even if no one else could understand that. But if we turn the Heberts loose on people…”

  The kitchen was so quiet, all I could hear was the clock ticking on the wall. Ida Belle’s and Gertie’s expressions were both contemplative, and I knew they were thinking about their service and trying to put what we were doing now into perspective—weighing their own moral code against the safety of Sinful. It was a difficult thing to do, even when the target in question was clearly the bad guy.

  Even when you weren’t the one to pull the trigger.

  “I think,” Ida Belle said, finally breaking the silence, “that if it comes down to the Heberts settling the score, I wouldn’t have a problem with it because it would have eventually come around to that regardless of whether we provided them information or not.”

  Gertie nodded. “I agree. They were already onto the meth problem because of their hospital snitch. All they had to do was wait for business to start up and go after them then. They have enough ears to the ground that they could have ferreted them out without our help.”

  “And the result would have been the same,” I said.

  They both nodded.

  “Okay,” I said. “I can accept that.”

  “Good,” Gertie said. “So do you feel better now?”

  I did to some degree, but my biggest problem still lurked in the back of my mind, pricking at me like damaged nerves in an old wound.

  “Carter asked me what my plans were for the end of the summer,” I said.

  Gertie’s eyes widened and she looked over at Ida Belle.

  “What did you say?” Ida Belle asked.

  I shrugged. “What could I say? I don’t know what my plans are. Ahmad is off-grid and there’s still a price on my head. I don’t know what will happen by the end of summer. I don’t know what will happen by the end of next week.”

  Gertie gave me a sympathetic look. “It’s a lot for you to deal with. I think sometimes Ida Belle and I get so wrapped up in what’s going on in Sinful that we forget why you’re here in the first place.”

  “And that no one else knows the truth,” Ida Belle said. “I mean, we know no one else knows who you really are, but I don’t think we give much thought as to how difficult it must be for you to live a completely duplicitous life.”

  I nodded. “With you guys, I get to be myself, but with everyone else I have to live the lie. And it gets harder and harder not to slip.”

  “The more comfortable you get with people,” Gertie said, “the harder it is to maintain the facade. I can see that.”

  “What did Carter say about your noncommittal answer?” Ida Belle asked.

  “He didn’t like it,” I said, “but then I pointed out that he could hardly expect me to change my entire life after being here a month.”

  “Which would be a perfectly reasonable statement,” Ida Belle said, “even if you were the real Sandy-Sue.”

  “I know,” I said, “and he agreed.”

  “So how did you leave things?” Ida Belle asked.

  “The same as they were before, I guess. He seems to think that if we’re still together at the end of the summer, the answer will be apparent.”

  “But he doesn’t know the truth,” Gertie said.

  “Exactly.” I slumped back in my chair. “This is the very reason I avoided seeing Carter that way. Sure, I’ve been attracted to him since the beginning, but look at what a mess it is. And continuing on this path until the end of summer is only likely to make things worse.”

  “You could always tell him the truth now,” Gertie said.

  “No,” I said. “Assuming the truth didn’t make him run for the hills, he’d try to protect me, and that would be worse.”

  “She’s right,” Ida Belle said. “He’s already invested in her, and if Carter is anything, he’s the hero type. Despite her real identity, he’d take it as his personal mission to save her.”

  I nodded. “And he has no idea what that entails. Even if I tried to describe just how horrible the man is who’s after me, I don’t think there’s good enough words.”

  “And if you tried to explain that he needed to stay out of it because he’s not qualified, then you’d insult him.” Gertie sighed. “Being single is so much easier.”

  “Men are a bit of a handful,” Ida Belle agreed.

  “Well, anyway,” I said, “I told you that you wouldn’t have answers because there aren’t any. So that’s what has been on my mind—some of it for a while, but it’s gotten worse the last couple of days.” I gave them both a small smile. “But I do feel better for telling you.”

  Gertie reached over and patted my hand. “It always feels better when someone understands that you’re standing in a shit storm holding a broken umbrella.”

  That pretty much summed it up.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I awakened early the next morning, or maybe I just never quite went to sleep. I heard Ally milling around her bedroom around 5:00 a.m. getting ready for work, but I stayed in bed, hoping I could finally get some shut-eye. I finally gave up at seven and made my way down to the kitchen.

  Ally had been waiting for me the night before, about to explode if I didn’t tell her everything that had happened. Between Gertie and her ride on the alligator and Celia’s flaming car, we spent an hour in the kitchen alternating between laughing and eating cookies. Sometime after midnight, Ally declared that if she didn’t get to bed she’d never make it through work the next day and headed upstairs. I followed shortly after, but even a long, hot shower didn’t bring on the sleep I’d really hoped for.

  Quite simply, I had too much on my mind. So much that it raced from one problem to another, in a vicious cycle that had me tossing and turning in between small bouts of sleep with vivid, strange dreams. I awakened feeling more tired than I had when I’d gone to bed, and that was saying a lot given the day I’d had before.

  As I scrambled some eggs, I tried to force everything out of my mind except for today’s agenda. If there was one thing I’d learned, trips to the Swamp Bar required all of my concentration if I planned on getting out in decent shape. So far, I hadn’t managed that, but I was determined that this time I was going to walk in and walk out. No running for my life. No wearing trash bags and nothing else. No clinging for life on the back of a motorcycle.

  I’d just sat down at the table with eggs and toast when my phone went off. I picked it up and saw it was a text from Carter. Looks like everyone was up early.

  Forgot I have MRI repeat at hospital this morning. See you this afternoon.

  I felt some of the tension ease out of my neck. That solved one of the morning’s problems. With Ally at work and Carter at the hospital, we were clear for our Swamp Bar excursion. With any luck, we could collect the information we needed and get back home before anyone was the wiser.

  And I was going to keep telling myself that.

  The festivities at the Swamp Bar were supposed to kick off around eleven, so Gertie and Ida Belle planned to be at my house at nine-thirty for Gertie and me to get in costume. I still had no idea what Gertie thought our costumes should consist of, and was more than a bit worried at the prospect, but she’d assured me I wouldn’t have to wear anything that exposed body parts I wanted covered or made it impossible to run. That should have made me feel better, but I was afraid that in that description, too much leeway existed that I just didn’t have the imagination to come up with. Gertie, on the other hand, was 90 percent imagination, 5 percent reality, and 5 percent alien.

  I polished off my breakfast and opened my laptop to see if Harriso
n had sent me an email. I didn’t expect anything so soon, and if anything big had happened, he would have risked a text, but I couldn’t help myself from checking. I was a little disappointed when I saw the empty in-box, but then shifted to work mode and decided to do an Internet search on Dewey.

  The search brought up several hits, all of them but one news reports listing recent arrests in which Dewey was listed. All of the news articles matched items listed on the information I’d gotten from Little Hebert. The last hit was a short blurb about the carnival and had a pic of Dewey and two other workers standing in front of a Ferris wheel. His name was listed in the photo caption. The names of the other two men didn’t match any of those listed on the information from Little.

  Nothing.

  I did another search, this time on the known associates. Rip Salazar didn’t produce any results, but that wasn’t surprising. I figured Rip was a nickname and not a legal one. I found one listing for Conrad Fredericks and it was an obituary. Thirty-two years old, former employee of the same carnival Dewey had worked for, and died of a drug overdose. Sounded like our guy. The obituary was dated a year before. One name off our suspect list.

  A search on Lynne Fontenot produced so many results that I couldn’t sort them out. I read through the first twenty or so, but couldn’t find enough details to tie any of the search results to Dewey. The name was too common. Maybe not anywhere else in the world, but in Louisiana, it was the equivalent of Mary Smith. I typed in the last name—the subject of today’s adventure—and a couple hits popped up. The first was a warrant listing and Benedict’s name was on it for outstanding speeding tickets. The second hit was an article from a New Orleans newspaper talking about arrests made in a bar fight. Benedict was one of the participants.

  Sounded like a really great dude. I couldn’t wait to spend lunch with him.

  I closed the laptop and headed upstairs. First, I was taking a cold shower to try to wake up. Then I was going to pick out jeans, a tank top, and tennis shoes. That was as bar-slutty as I was getting for a lunch event. And despite my commitment to strolling in and out, it never hurt to wear something I could sprint in.