by Day Keene
He attempted to take her in his arms. Olga stood up and pushed him away from her. For a moment he thought she was going to slap him.
“Now you call me darling. Now you call me sweetheart. In a cell. When you are accused of murder and rape.”
“I didn’t kill Lacosta. I never even touched the girl.”
“I don’t care,” Olga said. “I don’t care what you are accused of doing. I am not thinking of that.” She cried harder. “I am thinking of what you have done to us, to me.”
Latour made another attempt to take her in his arms and again Olga evaded his embrace.
“No,” she said coldly. “Please. I would much rather you did not touch me. So I am not being a dutiful wife, I am sorry. But there are times when even a wife has to express the normal feelings of a woman.”
She turned and left the cell, her heels making small clicking sounds as she walked down the long corridor without once looking back.
Latour watched her until De la Ronde opened the steel door separating the cell block from the office and closed it behind her. Then he returned to his bunk and sat studying the prison bars.
If Olga’s anger welled from the source he thought it did, he’d been an even bigger fool than the dead Lacosta.
More important to both of them, he’d wasted two years of their lives.
“Now you call me darling. Now you call me sweetheart. In a cell.”
The fault was his, not hers. Olga had reason to feel the way she did.
Chapter Fifteen
EARLY AFTERNOON passed and the evening shadows began to lengthen. Olga didn’t bring him his supper. Latour ate the jail fare, hard fried bream and the inevitable soggy grits. He washed it down with a tin cup of weak coffee, eating not because he was hungry, but because he wanted to conserve his strength.
It could be he would need it.
If what he was thinking was correct, night would bring a mob to howl around the old jail, perhaps to do more than howl.
If time was of the essence, and he was beginning to believe it was, whoever had tried to kill him and, failing that, had framed him couldn’t afford to allow him to live to be tried by due process of law.
The hell of it was he still couldn’t figure how anyone could possibly gain by his death. If Olga felt the way he thought she felt, she didn’t want to remarry. That eliminated Georgi.
Sheriff Belluche and Tom Mullen had eliminated themselves. And when he died wouldn’t matter to some punk he’d pushed around.
Despite the reporters and mobile television unit that Tom had mentioned, business went on as usual. There was the usual blare of brass and tinkle of pianos on Lafitte Street. The cells around him began to fill with the lesser offenders. There was nothing else Sheriff Belluche and the deputies under him could do. They were caught up in the vicious circle of their own making. From now on, anything they did was wrong.
None of his fellow prisoners were friendly. The drunks and brawlers despised him for having, in their opinion, been two-faced, for talking one way and acting another. The arrested hustlers and good-time Mabels hated him for another reason. To them sex was something to be sold or given away, not taken. Rapists undermined the very foundation of their business.
A hard-faced brunette with a long page-boy bob best summed up their opinion. Locked in the cell across the hall, the cell in which the other girl had been, she asked:
“Why didn’t you spend ten dollars and have yourself a good time? Girls like me spend twenty years growing what we have.” To her it was purely an economic problem. “Then guys like you come along and take it for nothing. If you were so damn hard up, there isn’t a girl in town who wouldn’t have given you credit. Or maybe you’re one of these unnatural guys who’re queer for pain. I had a guy once who offered me fifty dollars if I’d let him whip me. But at least he offered to pay for it.”
Latour didn’t bother to answer her.
The hot night of the delta pulled moist, black shades over the high, barred window of his cell. It was almost eight o’clock when Bill Ducros opened the door and locked Jean Avart in with him.
The attorney looked strained and worried. He was profusely apologetic. “I’m sorry, Andy. I’ve been working all day trying to get a lead on why someone might want to frame you into a situation like this. I’ve talked to every barman and pea-eye in town.”
“With what success?”
“None.”
Avart sat on the bunk beside him and put his brief case on the floor. “According to the men with whom I’ve talked, you’ve been a pain in their necks by trying to enforce law in a town in which there is no law. But none of them stand to gain a thing by framing you. In fact, in view of the stink that’s been created, they’re wondering just how long it will be before they have to lock their doors and move on.”
“How’s the situation on the street?”
“You want me to be frank with you?”
“Of course.”
“Not so good,” Avart said flatly. “The boys are beginning to gather on the corners and in the bars. To hear them talk, you’d think it was the first time a girl had ever been raped.” He was again apologetic. “And it seems they’re afraid that because you and I are members of the two oldest families in the parish, a fix is in the making.”
“You know better than that.”
“I know and you know, but they don’t.” The lawyer spread his hands. “Not that it does any good now, but I’m beginning to wish I had told our side of the story at the hearing. It may be that we won’t get a chance to use the ammunition we saved.”
A hard lump formed in Latour’s stomach. His throat felt constricted.
“They wouldn’t dare.”
Avart continued to be frank. “I wish I could think that. But the statement that Mrs. Lacosta gave to one of the reporters this afternoon hasn’t helped things any. According to her, you’re a fiend. According to her story, you used every part of her body but her ears.”
Latour fought a desire to be sick.
Avart put a cigarette in his mouth. “The hell of it is, her story coincides in almost every detail with the stories told by the other three girls who were abused during the past two years. Which means, when we do go to trial, we’ll really be fighting four cases instead of one. Do you happen to remember where you were on April fifteenth and November second of last year? And March sixth of this year?”
Latour shook his head. “Unless a man needs and is planning an alibi, how would he remember where he was on any given date?”
“True.”
“Mullen stopped in for a few minutes this noon and said you’d suggested that he and Jack check on Rita in Ponchatoula.”
“That’s right. On her morals. Her reputation for veracity. The possibility that either she or some former lover might have killed Lacosta and be trying to palm off the killing on you.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Possibly.” Avart stood up and paced the cell. “But I have to have something to work on. You know I consider myself a fairly capable attorney. But the way things stand right now, your trial is going to be a farce.”
He ticked off the items on his fingers. “An old man makes an open confession that he is unable to satisfy his young wife sexually. He gets so drunk he passes out and you are obliged to drive both of them home. The young wife admits that during your first visit, while she was changing into something cooler, you accidentally saw her in the nude.”
The big vein in Latour’s temple began to throb. “Where did you learn that?”
“It was in the statement she gave to a reporter.”
“Did she tell him she practically offered herself to me? That we made a tentative arrangement to drive up to Grand Isle this morning?”
“Not in the statement I read.”
“Well, she did and we did.”
“That’s interesting if we can prove it. But I don’t see how we can. All we have to go on are the known facts.” Avart continued to enumerate them.
“Some hou
rs after you drove her home and left, at two o’clock in the morning, she was awakened by a knocking on the screen door of the trailer. A man’s voice she recognized as yours demanded entrance. Because she was sleeping in the nude, she hesitated long enough to put on a robe. A moment later the knocking awakened her husband. He staggered out, demanding to know what was going on. Before she could inform him, the screen door was wrenched open and two shots were fired. Then you, presumably, ripped off the robe she was wearing and threw her down on the floor and abused her.”
“But the man wasn’t me.”
“I’m just detailing it the way the prosecution will outline the case.” Avart stopped pacing and stood with his back against the wall. “Sometime during the trial, the state will put her on the stand, showing plenty of cheesecake and wearing a tight dress that will emphasize those big pear-shaped breasts of hers. She’ll tell the same story she told in her deposition, with details. Not a very pretty prospect, is it?”
Latour forced the words past the constriction in his throat. “No, not pretty.”
Avart resumed his pacing. “Then, too, we’ll be confronted with this story your brother-in-law is telling all over town.”
“What story?”
“He says you and his sister aren’t sexually compatible and that relations between you have been very strained. Is that so?”
Latour studied Avart’s face. “No. Sex isn’t our problem.”
“What, then?”
“Money. I’ve felt she resented the fact that I wasn’t able to keep all the big promises I made her. But now I’m beginning to wonder if I wasn’t mistaken. I’m beginning to wonder about a lot of things.”
“Such as?”
“I’d rather not go into that right now.” Avart shrugged the subject aside as immaterial. “Look at me, Andy.”
Latour looked at him.
“You swear you didn’t kill Lacosta?”
“I do.”
“And you didn’t assault his wife?”
“I did not.”
“I believe you.” He sat back on the bunk beside Latour. He threw away the cigarette he was smoking and lighted a fresh one. “Now, as I see the case, the only thing we can do is to go back to the very beginning, attempt to locate and identify this man who you say tried to kill you.”
“How do we do that?”
The attorney picked up his brief case and opened it. “I’ve given the matter considerable thought. My services will cost you nothing. Forget it. I know that since those test wells on your place turned out to be dry holes, all you’ve had is your deputy’s pay. But there will be certain expenses.”
“Such as?”
“For one thing, I think we should engage the best firm of private investigators in New Orleans.”
“To do what?”
“Have some of their men circulate through the town and see if they can get a line on this man who tried to kill you. Both Mullen and Belluche mean well, but neither of them is overbright. And if we can establish that someone did try to kill you, that there is someone in the parish who thinks he has reason to see you dead, it may be we can prove that he deliberately framed you into this mess.”
“That sounds good to me.”
Avart sucked his cigarette into a red glow. “Unfortunately, the services of good firms come high. And as good a friend of yours as I am, I don’t feel morally obligated to assume the expenses. So I suggest you raise the cash the best way you can.”
“How?”
The attorney took some papers from his case and laid them on the steel webbing of the cot. “I’ve thought of a way. You still have the house and some six hundred and forty acres of land.”
“Of dry mud.”
“I’ve considered that. But the old Latour homestead is a choice residential location, or could be. Once French Bayou recovers from its growing pains, it’s bound to spread out even more than it has, possibly in that direction. And so, after due deliberation, because we’re friends, I’ve decided to take a chance. What was the last offer you received for your land? I mean, after it was proved there was no oil on it.”
“Eight thousand dollars.”
The lawyer threw away the cigarette he was smoking and uncapped his fountain pen. “I’ll take a big gamble and give you twenty thousand dollars. In cash. That will be sufficient to pay the firm of investigators and, if we win the case and pry you out of this mess, leave you with a substantial backlog. Sufficient for you to stop playing policeman and support Olga in a reasonable facsimile of the manner in which she expected to live, while you go back to school and get your law degree. Once you’re admitted to the bar, I’ll take you into my office until you feel you’re in a position to establish your own private practice.”
It was a generous offer. Latour was tempted.
On the other hand, what was left of the old plantation had been in the family for a long time. He’d hoped that if he and Olga had children, one of them would be a boy. A boy who would carry on the family name. A boy who would inherit a rebuilt manor house and plantation that would approximate what the Latour house and land had been. Even in the spot he now found himself in, he still clung to what was left of his dream.
Avart misunderstood his hesitation. “I’m afraid I can’t go any higher, Andy.”
“I’m not thinking of the money. You’re very generous. But let me stew over it, will you, Jean?”
The attorney recapped his pen and returned the papers to his brief case. “It’s your decision, Andy. But don’t stew too long. Despite all the prattle to the contrary, a lot of innocent men have gone to the electric chair. And I’d hate to see your life snuffed out like — ” Avart tried to think of a simile and finally came up with one. “Like a dropped cigar, dying in the mud.”
The throb of the big vein in Latour’s forehead became more pronounced. “Yeah. So would I,” he said quietly.
Avart rapped on the door of the cell as a signal for Ducros to let him out. “Think it over tonight and give me your decision in the morning.”
“I’ll do that, Jean.”
Latour watched the lawyer walk down the corridor. Then he picked one of the half-smoked cigarettes from the floor and looked at it thoughtfully.
To think what he was thinking he had to be out of his mind. It wasn’t possible. It was too fantastic.
In the human jungle in which all men lived, the animals that inhabited it were constantly at war, the strong preying on the weak and the weak preying on those less capable of survival than they were.
Prattle was the word.
For all its prattle of civilization, the world hadn’t changed basically since man had first learned to walk on two feet. Men, all men, were still fundamentally beasts. They fought each other for food, for shelter. And once their basic needs, hunger and shelter, had been satisfied, they were faced with other appetites, chief of which was desire for a mate. This hunger was primitive, elemental. The younger and more desirable females of the species were at the same time the source of all life and the chief bones of contention.
In the jungle, anything went. And Olga was a very young, a very lovely, a very desirable bone.
Latour started to bang on the bars and asked to see Sheriff Belluche, then thought better of the idea. The old man would think he was crazy, either crazy or grabbing at straws.
It could be he was. What did he have to go on? Nothing. The description of a woman’s breasts. A dropped cigar dying in the mud. An overgenerous offer from a friend.
Even if what he was thinking was true, it didn’t explain the need for haste. Whoever had tried to kill him, whoever had framed him on the twin charges of murder and rape, was in a hurry, a big hurry.
He didn’t want him to die tomorrow or next week. He wanted him dead as soon as the matter could be arranged. Now. Possibly tonight.
Two years after his return to French Bayou.
Why?
It was a subject worth considerable thought.
Chapter Sixteen
THE FERAL SMELL of
the cell block became more pronounced as the cells and the drunk tanks began to fill with men brought in by the various deputies.
Latour had never known the lockup to be so crowded. He judged that the number of arrests stemmed from one of two reasons. Either Sheriff Belluche was putting on a good show for the visiting reporters, or he was attempting to get all potential troublemakers off the streets.
A few minutes after nine o’clock, Belluche visited him in his cell. The old man was sober and worried.
“I don’t like it,” he said.
“You don’t like what?”
“The feel of the town. We’ve been picking up every drunk who shoots off his mouth too loud about how a fix is in and what ought to happen to you. But I can’t arrest the whole town for talking. And someone is egging the boys on. I know of at least two men who are buying plenty of drinks for the crowd.”
“Who are they?”
“George Villere, for one. Your brother-in-law, for another.”
“You’re kidding. Georgi doesn’t have two dimes to rub together.”
“Then he got the money from someone. He’s sporting a roll that would choke a coon, and he’s telling everyone who’ll listen to him how you and his sister haven’t been getting along. He claims you haven’t lived as man and wife for a year.”
“But that isn’t true.”
Belluche fanned himself with his Stetson. “So you told me this morning. When you went out to the trailer you couldn’t have taken the red-haired babe if she begged you.”
“That’s how things were.”
“Not according to Georgi.”
“He wants me to get hanged.”
“Why?”
“Let’s say he was more disappointed than I was when the Delta Oil Company decided they were wasting their time drilling on my land.”
Belluche nodded in understanding. “I think I get what you mean. But the boys are sure lapping it up. Damn. I wish now I hadn’t sent Tom and Jack to Ponchatoula.”
“You’re afraid there’s going to be trouble?”
“I know there’s going to be trouble. I’ve seen these things build up before. The boys will talk and drink and bull around for maybe another hour or so. Then some of them, maybe only one hothead, will blow his stack and demand they do something more than talk, and I’m going to have my hands full trying to keep them from making damn fools of theirselves.”
