“Pieced that together yourself, huh?”
“I’m not saying I have it all right. All I know is Marceline got caught in the crosshairs of whatever’s going down between you and Guillory. I’m bringing her home, and then I’m getting an assurance you’ll never bother her again.”
“Is that right?” Abellard said. Despite speaking calmly, Rusty could see the casino boss was inwardly going nuclear. “Just how you plan on getting an assurance like that?”
“Think about it, Joseph. I got to you once, I can do it again. And next time I’ll have more than a goddamned wooden knife in my hand.”
• • •
Night had fallen by the time the Escalade approached the end of Guillory’s driveway. Rusty kept track of their course as far as Route 17 outside Maurepas but couldn’t identify the two-lane road they’d been on for the past several minutes. As Abellard slowed to turn left, Rusty noted an elaborate mailbox with a mounted brass fleur-de-lis.
“We here?”
“Home of Professor Bitch,” Abellard grunted. “Let me do the talking or we won’t get so far as the door.”
They traveled down the winding, wooded driveway and pulled to a stop in front of the iron gate. Abellard reached out to press the button on the callbox.
A crackle of static was followed by Pierre’s voice.
“Is that you, Mr. Abellard? We’ve been expecting you for some time.”
“It’s me. Open the damn gate.”
The gate swung inward with a clang. Abellard gassed through until the house’s dark peaks came into view against a starry nightscape. The Escalade pulled all the way around the circular drive and came to a stop.
“I’ll follow your lead until I don’t,” Rusty said quietly. “When I make my move, don’t try to stop me.”
Abellard looked Rusty in the eye for the first time since they’d left the casino.
“Put that fucking blade down and listen to how this is gonna go.”
Rusty retracted the knife a few inches, still close enough for a quick slash.
“You got the drop on me, fine. You wanted to come out to where they been keeping her, you’re here. But pay attention to what I say now. If you want this to go the right way, sit here and let me deal with it.”
“Can’t do that.”
“Goddamnit, what do you think’s gonna happen when I walk in there with some dude they never seen before?”
“Tell me. You know these people, I don’t.”
“It’s a delicate situation, motherfucker. Not the kind of play where you want to throw a curve ball at the last minute. Understand what I’m saying?”
Rusty nudged the blade closer to Abellard’s neck, drawing his eyes down for a fraction of a second. He used that tiny misdirection to pull a pair of plastic “Cobra” handcuffs from his jacket and snap one end on Abellard’s right wrist. Less than another second was required to close the other cuff around the Escalade’s steering wheel.
In the blink of an eye, the big man had been shackled to his vehicle.
“What the fuck?! Did you listen to a goddamn thing I said?”
Abellard bucked in the driver’s seat and wrenched his arm back, trying to free himself.
“Don’t waste your energy. Cobra Cuffs aren’t metal—I couldn’t get them into the casino if they were—but that plastic’s got a tensile strength of three hundred pounds. They used to stop a huge cinderblock from crushing me onstage, so I figure they’ll keep you snug. Just calm yourself.”
Abellard thrashed wildly in the seat, jerking his arm like a piston. If he couldn’t snap the cuff he’d settle for ripping the wheel from its housing.
“Can’t leave you like this, Joseph. Too much of an unknown variable.”
Rusty took aim and jammed the Marrow Seeker’s flat teak handle into the base of Abellard’s neck. The big man bellowed and his body shook with a surprised spasm, but the blow appeared to have little effect. Rusty swung again, digging the handle’s hard edge directly into the patch of skin covering the medulla oblongata.
Pretty much a guaranteed knockout spot, if properly struck. Rusty knew as much from painful personal experience. It took a third and fourth blow to yield the reaction he was looking for. Abellard’s eyelids fluttered and his head drooped forward. Rusty gave him another for good measure. Then he pulled the keys from the ignition and got out.
He approached the house, passing a row of columns on the front portico. Monday answered his call on the first ring.
“Where are you? I’ve been going crazy.”
“Inside the property line, at Guillory’s. Got a handle on my coordinates?”
“Yup. This GPS app is the shit. Says you’re about twenty miles northeast of a town called Maurepas, in Livingston Parish.”
“Sounds right. We passed through Maurepas a while ago.”
“Doesn’t look like you’re on a marked road,” Monday said. Rusty pictured her biting her lower lip the way she did when intently focused. “Closest I can see is Route 17, a bit to the south.”
“Yeah, we turned left off 17 onto an unmarked road. About five miles after the turn there’s a private driveway leading to Guillory’s place.”
“That’s where I’ll be.”
“You can’t miss the entrance, there’s a mailbox with a fancy brass flower on top. Pull around and park a little past it. The driveway’s gated, you won’t be able to get through. Which is fine. The property might be surveilled so let’s lean toward caution.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll text you as soon as I know she’s here. Keep the engine warm, we may be coming out in a hurry.”
“Copy that,” Monday said, ending the call.
Rusty pocketed his phone and took a last buttressing breath. The front door opened just as he was about to raise the knocker.
“Where’s Mr. Abellard?” Pierre said, his wide frame filling the doorway.
“Sleeping it off. I’ll take it from here.”
Pierre’s eyes darted toward the Escalade. The door started to close. Rusty stopped it with his right foot, confident in the manufacture of his steel-toed boots.
“I’m the one you want to talk to. The deal’s changed.”
The pressure on his foot increased as Pierre pushed harder on the door.
Rusty held up his phone. A 504 area code number was visible on the dial pad, his thumb hovering over the Send button.
“See that? Direct dial to Detective Dan Hubbard with the New Orleans Police Department, Sixth District. He’s waiting to hear from me. He’ll reach the Livingston Parish cops with one call, if I tell him to. They take a fairly serious view on kidnapping, I’m told.”
“What do you want?” Pierre demanded.
“I want to meet the vanishing entomologist.”
29.
Pierre told him to wait in the great room, a wide rectangular space separated from the entrance by a dimly lit foyer. The great room was lushly furnished, with a baby grand piano framed by a set of French doors at the far end. It had seen many festive gatherings since the house’s construction in 1849.
Rusty was the sole occupant now. He stood in a corner nearest to the foyer, trying not to bounce on the balls of his feet with pent-up adrenaline. Pierre had offered him a seat but he declined.
He heard floorboards creaking above his head and a brief murmur of conversation, the number of voices impossible to decipher. Waiting to see what happened next, Rusty sent Monday a text.
IN HOUSE. BE READY.
He saw a reply pop on the screen just as footsteps echoed down the main staircase.
ENGINE RUNNING. BE CAREFUL.
Rusty pocketed his phone as Pierre reentered the great room, followed by a woman of striking features and regal bearing.
“The last time this house had an uninvited guest,” she said with a smile, “I was just a child. A vacationing couple from Maine broke down on Highway 22 outside Maurepas. My parents were hosting a crawfish broil and asked them to join us while they waited for a mechanic. I think
it may have been the highlight of their trip, actually.”
“Was Marceline Lavalle invited? I got the impression she was brought here kind of suddenly.”
Guillory let the remark pass, taking a curious look at him.
“I suppose it’s unnecessary to say you’re not who I was expecting.”
“Abellard’s been detained. I’m here to close the deal.”
“You have his proxy?”
“Hardly. I gave him two options, take me to where she’s being held or bleed to death on the floor of his office. He made the sensible choice.”
“Joseph, sensible? First time for everything, I suppose.”
Guillory seated herself on a sofa near the French doors, passing by Rusty as if his presence in her home was of no greater concern than a fluttering moth. He took a few steps toward her but remained standing.
Pierre positioned himself off to one side, halfway between them. It felt to Rusty like a Mexican standoff performed with an absurd level of decorum by three participants who didn’t all know what they were playing for.
“If you won’t sit,” Guillory said, “I won’t bother Pierre with bringing in refreshments.”
“I’m not gonna be here long.”
“Maybe you’ll stay long enough for me to correct a few erroneous impressions you seem to have formed.”
Rusty didn’t have a quick response to that. Whatever he’d been expecting, this wasn’t it. He’d seen Anne Guillory’s photo in the Gambit, taken on the day of her promotion to head of Tulane’s Entomology department. The photo showed an attractive if somewhat stern woman with thick-framed glasses and dark hair pulled back tightly over her high forehead. Rusty had envisioned a kind of mousy asexuality totally unlike the study in elegant angularity and poise seated before him.
“Should I call you Professor? I’ve heard Abellard use that term, but I thought he was just needling you with it.”
The irritation produced by that remark wrote itself across Guillory’s face and quickly passed.
“Why don’t you call me Anne. And if you give me your name, we’ll be able to have a cordial discussion.”
“You don’t need my name. I’m the guy who might not turn you in for felony kidnapping and false imprisonment, if you play your cards right.”
“That sounds ominous. Or it might, assuming I had any idea what you’re talking about.”
“Just to be clear, I don’t have whatever you’re expecting to get in exchange for releasing her. You can work that out with Abellard when we’re gone.”
Guillory and Pierre traded a glance Rusty couldn’t decipher.
“At first,” he ventured, “I thought it had something to do with VECTOR.”
“Ah. I haven’t heard that name in a while. VECTOR made for some lurid fiction disguised as journalism, but don’t believe everything you read. In truth, our little group was no more than a bit of wide-eyed idealism gone astray. It bore scant resemblance to the boogeyman created in the pages of the Gambit.”
“It was serious enough to ruin your career.”
Rusty saw her posture stiffen. He’d made contact with a patch of sensitive tissue beneath the buffed exterior.
“My involvement was…well, perhaps it’s a bit much to call it a folly of youth. Let’s say a product of misguided naiveté. In any case, VECTOR has been defunct for years. It was only my limited patronage that kept it afloat for its short, fruitless existence.”
“Getting mixed up with terrorists on the FBI watch list is your idea of naive?”
“Terrorists,” Guillory parroted with a dismissive wave of her hand. “VECTOR’s goals had nothing to do with terror, and if we garnered federal interest it was only from those ludicrous articles. Our sole purpose was restoring some shred of natural order to the Gulf region.”
“How about getting mixed up with a hood like Joseph Abellard?” Rusty asked, tiring of the conversation. “Chalk that up to youthful naiveté?”
“Just the opposite,” she answered with a smile. “Mature necessity.”
When Rusty didn’t respond, she said, “I found a market for a product I can’t acquire on my own. I needed someone with the kind of resources to handle supply while I oversaw demand. Simple as that.”
“You know what? I don’t give a shit. I’m just here to bring home someone I care about.”
“My. This young lady certainly doesn’t lack for guardians. Has it occurred to you that Miss Lavalle might be staying here as my guest, by her own choice?”
“Sure. She disappears, doesn’t tell anyone at her job, leaves her father in a state of total panic. Just so she can enjoy your hospitality. Makes a lot of sense.”
“Can you consider the possibility I’m offering her the one thing she can’t find in New Orleans?”
“And that would be?”
“Protection, from the crude thug whose child she’s carrying.”
Rusty absorbed that. It was pretty much the last thing he’d expected to hear. Even though it ran contrary to a long list of logical reasons, he couldn’t dismiss it immediately. If Marceline wanted to escape Abellard, was it impossible to believe she might have sought refuge here?
He shook the idea from his head, angry to have been lulled by this woman’s commanding presence.
Pierre inched forward across the carpet.
“Keep your distance,” Rusty said without turning his head.
“Do you know what I’m doing right now?” Guillory asked. “I’m trying to piece together the tortured logic that brought you here. You seem to think Miss Lavalle is being held against her will. If that were true, why would I release her to you?”
“Because it’s the only way you avoid jail. Like I said, I don’t care what you’ve got cooking with Abellard. Marcie’s a pawn in it, maybe by her own doing. If you’ve kept her safely away from him for the past week, I might even thank you for it. But she’s leaving with me.”
Anne Guillory rose briskly from the couch.
“Why don’t we let Miss Lavalle decide that?”
She gave Pierre a nod and then walked toward the French doors, again brushing past Rusty as if his presence barely registered.
The two men stood facing each other, both wondering if the suppressed violence that permeated the room was about to break loose. Rusty had moved the Marrow Seeker into his right boot in case he’d had to submit to a frisk before entering the house. Unarmed, he’d have his work cut out for him with this musclebound individual.
Take him low, he’s top heavy. Upset the balance and slam a palm into his throat.
Both men tensed.
Guillory’s voice halted their next movements.
“Are you coming or not?”
Rusty rotated his gaze away from Pierre to see her standing by the French doors with an impatient frown.
“Where?”
“To see the lady in question. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
30.
A cobbled path stretched out behind the main house, tracing a curve around an ancient stone well. Anne Guillory led the way, Rusty and Pierre following and keeping a guarded distance from each other. Copper electric lanterns in the style of antique gas lamps stood at intervals, lighting their progress across the grounds. The grass grew thick, not looking to have been mown in some time.
At the end of the path stood a two-story, red brick building. It looked to Rusty like a barn or stable, but as they drew closer he saw a matching set of doors and windows clearly designed for human habitation.
“The carriage house,” Guillory said. “Oldest structure on the property.”
Rusty glanced back over his shoulder. His mind captured an image for future reference. He assessed the distance separating the carriage house from the main building. Roughly a hundred feet, with the stone well at a midway point.
He turned back to find Pierre glaring at him.
“I had it refurbished for guest quarters when I took ownership of the estate,” Guillory said, speaking as if Rusty was an interested buyer. “Partia
lly refurbished, anyway. There’s still quite a bit of work to be done.”
“Let me guess. Used to be the slave quarters.”
“My family gave considerable thought to demolishing it over the years,” Guillory replied. “I gather the idea was to wipe away ugly memories. My father came quite close to tearing it down in the sixties but fortunately had a change of heart. You can’t erase the past by destroying its material vestiges.”
“So you’ve kept it standing as a place to hold someone against their will. Sounds like real progress.”
“What an asinine remark. Why don’t you come in and see just how wrong you are.”
Pulling open the unlocked door, she stepped into the carriage house. She flicked on a light switch by the door, illuminating a narrow antechamber.
Pierre waited for Rusty to follow.
“You first,” Rusty said, having no intention of turning his back on the man.
Pierre shrugged like it wasn’t worth debating and stepped into the carriage house. Rusty took a last look behind and followed. The antechamber led to a bannistered stairway. Guillory had already walked up to the second floor landing, where she turned on another overhead light.
Rusty paused before going any further. None of it made sense, but he couldn’t exactly describe this building as a prison. It did look like a tastefully appointed guest house—shiny fixtures, unblemished wallpaper, the scent of clean wood in the air. The stairs gleamed under the light of an overhead lamp wrapped in a frosted glass sconce.
“Are you coming or not?” Guillory asked. Rusty could no longer see her from where she stood on the second floor.
He ascended the stairs rapidly, pushing past Pierre. Any shred of patience he’d been maintaining was gone. He needed to see, now.
Reaching the landing, he turned left at a gesture from Guillory. At the far end stood a wooden door, secured to the adjacent wall by a bulky padlock on a brass hasp. Carved into the door at eye level was a square Judas window with bars crisscrossing over the embedded glass.
Blind Shuffle Page 21
