by John Oakes
He took the bone delicately in both hands, making a face, then placed it in his pocket.
SIXTEEN
After a stop in Metairie at a CheapValue, Winton had a new set of socks, sneakers and a belt that kept an ill-fitting pair of children’s jeans snug to his waist. Julius offered him a plain t-shirt, but Winton decided to keep with the purple “French Quarter” tee with the saxophonist on it. He’d gotten it nice and broken in. While Winton changed in the shadow of the truck, Julius took bags from a cart and piled them into the back. They’d also bought food that could travel well, a pair of binoculars, two pocket knives, rope, duct tape and a detailed map of central Louisiana.
Next to that map, Julius unfurled the map they’d taken from Maroulis’ house on the hood. He traced a finger down it, counting twenty three spots along the Port of South Louisiana that were clearly marked. Some were clustered close together, some were scattered.
“One of them, I suspect, is where we could find the Chinese ship Lucas took a photo of,” Winton said.
“One chance in twenty-three,” Julius said. “What’s that, a four percent chance we pick the right one?”
“If we pick at random, yeah. But we might be able to eliminate some.”
“How so?”
Winton bit his thumb. “In the picture, the sun was hitting the ship from a certain angle. Side on so that the rear was in shadow.”
“But you could still read the stern?”
“Clearly enough.”
“What side was getting the most sun?”
“Looked like the left side.”
“It’s still technically winter.” Julius said. “So the sun comes up south of where it does in the summer. If the sun was coming up, then the ship was facing south on the right bank.”
“I see what you’re saying. And if the sun was going down…” Winton pulled the map closer to his face. “Then it would have been facing north. But then sun would have hit the stern, full on.” Winton looked up. “So there you go. We know that the ship is pointing south on the right bank. We’re already on that side of the river.”
“And we know the picture was taken in the morning,” Julius said. “Do you know what day?”
“No idea.”
“Well, he went missing how long ago?”
“Three days maybe,” Winton said. “But they found his cruiser just yesterday evening.”
“If your brother had wanted to send a message,” Julius said, leaning on the hood, “bet he coulda found an easier way than leaving a gold bone and a cell phone in his abandoned cruiser.”
“Right,” Winton said.
“That means someone took him, then ditched the cruiser.”
“It’s highly possible, but I just don’t get why.” Winton bit his thumb again, then when nothing became clear in his mind, he screwed his palms into his eyes.
“You say this Remus cat wants that little gold baby bone,” Julius said.
It wasn’t really a question. Winton nodded again.
“Kind of a fucking weird thing to want.”
“Yeah.”
“Seems like this Remus was into some dark shit along with Maroulis. You say Remus worked in Baton Rouge a long time. I bet we hit up the internet machine and we find a connection, easy.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“Be nice if we could just search that mess on a smart phone.”
“Sorry, Julius,” Winton said, feeling guilty.
“I hear you. Just saying.”
Considering the ubiquity of computing and the web, without a smart phone or a computer, it was hard to find a portal open to the public. To even use the library computers, one had to have a library card. Winton decided there was only one option. He marched into a coffee shop chain and held a crisp twenty in the air. “I need one of you dweebs to let me use your laptop for a few minutes.”
Winton knew the effect his stature had on the normals, so he wasn’t surprised to be greeted by blank stares and whispering.
“Yo. I’ll take it.” A young bespectacled guy by the windows raised his hand.
“We have a winner,” Winton announced. He marched over and handed the guy the twenty. “Go buy yourself something nice. My friend and I here just need to do a search for some stuff.”
“Oh. Okay. Watch my jacket?”
“You got it.”
The young man slinked over to the counter and surveyed the menu.
“Come on.” Winton wiggled his butt onto the guy’s chair and Julius pulled up a seat. “I bet he buys a scone,” Julius said. “White people love scones.”
First off, Winton searched for Maroulis and Remus’ names together. Winton finally found a result that made some sense. A local news article from five years previous mentioned a county court appearance by Maroulis for lewd conduct.
“However, based on testimony by a witness, Judge Baker has dropped all charges,” Winton read out. “Oh, and the witness?” He nudged Julius. “He happened to be a Baton Rouge Police Detective named Luther Remus. Hmm.”
“Here’s something else.” Julius leaned in. “It says Maroulis was having conflicts with the dockworker’s union.”
“I heard something about that,” Winton said. “Didn’t know this was the guy. Successfully kept the unions out of his docks.”
“I guess if you own some of the ships and the docks they’re unloaded on, then you have an easier time keeping a closed shop.” Julius bit on his lower lip and nodded. “Okay. I’m starting to see a little something coming together.”
“Maroulis’ enfador is gone from his little temple shed. And Remus wants the last piece of it.” Winton chopped a hand down into his palm. “Yeah. That empty case at the temple has been bugging me. Why would someone take the bones but not the case? Of course! Remus had his own case, because he’d been getting them piecemeal.” Winton unfurled a hand. “Like as payment.”
“So, what’s the connection between these two dudes doing dark magic and the ship?”
Winton looked up. “Remus is part of the joint DEA-Homeland drugs task force.”
Julius gave Winton a sidelong glance. “Well, Monsieur Chevalier. If you’ll allow just a small leap of imagination on my part…”
“Drugs.” Winton bumped two fists together. “That’s it.”
“Not to mention other sorts of wacky exotic shit for their ceremonies.”
They rested on that realization a moment.
“We’re assuming Remus is after Lucas just because he had the baby bone,” Julius said. “But Lucas having it means he may have details about Maroulis’ death.”
“Lucas would have been doing what we’re doing now,” Winton said. “Trying to figure out why Remus killed Maroulis. Building a case.”
“And his answer partly lay in the drugs coming off that boat.” Julius sucked at his teeth. “Man, your brother might have turned out to be an all right detective.”
“God, if we can just find him, he could probably fill in bits we don’t yet understand.”
The young man returned holding a coffee and a pastry.
“That a scone?” Julius asked.
“Yeah. They’re really good here.”
Julius got up and hummed to himself.
Winton closed out his window and thanked the young man. They stepped out to the parking lot and took another look at the map of Maroulis’ ports.
“I got a sinking feeling, though.” Julius pointed at a spot on the river. “No pun intended.”
“Maybe,” Winton said. “Maybe Lucas is dead.” He said it, girding himself to the possibility by speaking the words. “But wait. Now that Maroulis is gone, who are the smugglers working with?”
“Good question,” Julius said. “Remus doesn’t control Maroulis’ operation. No one except Maroulis did. Almost a shut in, that guy. Not many close associates. You can see why. He was into some shady stuff.”
“You’re saying Maroulis dies — for whatever reason — and these smugglers now find themselves suddenly exposed.”
�
��I think that’s what I’m saying,” Julius said. “And that means they’d want to keep their options open, especially when dealing with Remus.”
“They need his cooperation now more than ever.” Winton looked up at Julius. “Am I just kidding myself, or is there a solid chance they’re keeping Lucas as some sort of bargaining chip?”
Julius considered it. “I don’t know enough about this underworld shit to say either way. Don’t see any reason to assume hope is lost, though.” His eyes narrowed. “The way I see it, if your brother is alive, he’s our best shot at getting these dirty cops behind bars where they can’t hassle us.”
“He’s on that boat,” Winton said. “We have to get him off. That simple.” He breathed deep through his nose, accepting the knowledge in its full gravity.
SEVENTEEN
Using their map, they found their way down the western bank of the mighty Mississippi, moving from one shipping facility to the next, navigating winding roads full of run-down old factories and warehouses. Each dock facility was similarly apparent in the distance because of the cranes and gantries, but up close each was varied and laid out differently. Most had no ship at all in port, to Winton’s increasing chagrin.
Continuing the hunt, they crested a big culvert and sighted the red and grey cargo ship on the river over. For Winton the sight was more sobering than exciting. They parked as close as they could get without alerting anyone.
“That’s a lot of boat,” Julius said lowering the binoculars.
“It is a very large vessel indeed.”
Toward the rear of the ship rose a four story tower, ringed with walkways and festooned with dishes, sirens and antennae. On the top level, wide windows looked out in a hundred and eighty degrees.
“Lot of places a guy could be hidden in there,” Julius said.
“Yep.”
“You know port and starboard?”
“Looking forward, port is left, starboard is right.”
“Just in case.”
“But in this case the starboard side is on the actual dock. Is that normal? That like parking your car opposite traffic?”
“You got me.”
“Where’s the poop deck?” Winton asked.
“I don’t know that either. Doubt it has one. Listen, my nautical terminology is pretty thin. Basically you got the bridge up top with all them windows. That’s the driver’s seat. Then there’ll be rooms for the workers below that. But these ships don’t need big crews anymore. Might be six dudes in bunks is all. Plenty of other rooms for keeping a prisoner. Cargo bays and an engine room, I’d expect.”
“There’ll be some sort of kitchen with a dining area too.” Winton took the binoculars, and trained them on the ship. “We really won’t know what’s in there until we see for ourselves. I’m not even sure how you’re supposed to get aboard.”
“There’s a set of stairs up the side of the ship. They can raise and lower it onto the dock from controls on the deck.”
“So we walk right in the front door?” Winton asked.
“Don’t see another way, ‘less you wanna climb up the side with suction cups or some shit. Besides, I’m not sure who’s home.”
“Maybe a guard. Think we should wait until night time?”
“I dunno.” Julius’ eyes narrowed. “I think I wanna get closer, scope things out better.”
“Allow me.”
It wasn’t the largest unloading facility Winton had seen in their tour of the Mississippi River port system. In some ways that worked to his disadvantage, giving him less to hide behind as approached. He crossed the road and ducked between some bushes with big broad leaves. He crossed a set of train tracks and took a knee behind a piece of broken concrete with twisted, rusting rebar sticking out of it. The binoculars showed even more detail now that he was fifty yards closer. A man in black strode out of the bridge down a set of stairs to the next level, then disappeared inside again.
“All right.” That gave Winton a little better idea how to move around the ship. He spotted the big set of metal stairs now, allowing workers to easily climb up twenty-five feet of hull and onto the mostly empty deck. Whatever cargo the vessel had been carrying when it arrived had been moved off already. Winton imagined the cranes awakening and pulling containers off the ship and onto train cars, and the gantry sliding back-and-forth and side-to-side like a giant claw game, setting cargo on truck beds to be hauled away, one by one. Between the two cranes sat a two story structure. Winton had no idea what it was for, an office space perhaps. With all the regulations and business records needing to be kept, it might take a surprising amount of paper pushing to load or unload an international vessel.
He could see through a window where an interior light was on. Though the cranes were sleeping, the work in the office building went on. Tall chain-link fencing prevented easy access to the ship. There seemed to be three entrances to the facility. Big rolling fence gates were closed and chained, one on either side of the office building. The third entryway was the front door to the office building itself. If Winton and Julius couldn’t find a way through one of those three spots, they needed to cut their way through the fence. Clear signs angrily warned any trespassers of the bevy of state and federal laws they’d be breaking, but Winton smirked to himself reading them. “Methinks thou doth protest too much.”
Movement on the ship caught his eye, and he trained the binoculars on it. Another man exited the third level and took the stairs up to the bridge and went inside. He wore jeans, a stylish jacket and designer shades. Not exactly a salty sea dog, Winton thought.
Winton hustled back over the train tracks, up a gravely slope and across the road.
Julius had both hands on the hood, looking at a map.
“I think we should move the truck,” Winton said. “The guys in the bridge. Maybe they can spot us here. Doubt they have, but…”
Julius nodded and gathered up the map. Winton hopped in, and they moved up the road a piece until out of sight.
“What’d you see?”
“Two men in the ship. And they didn’t exactly look like Horatio Hornblower. White guys. One with light colored hair and shades, one a little thicker, all in black.”
“See any weapons?”
“Too far to tell. Also, there are people in that office building, I think.”
“They probably go home at a normal hour.”
“You’d think,” Winton said. “But if this operation is what we think it is, they may not be worried about getting home in time for Wheel of Fortune.”
“Who’s to say the bean counters even know what’s coming off that ship?” Julius asked.
“They know something. That’s how Maroulis did things. He kept his operations insulated for a reason. Might be business as usual, but when the Chinese boat comes to call, you avert your gaze.”
“Wonder if it’s just this ship, or if it’s others too.”
“No wonder he didn’t want union dockworkers. No way he could have kept his smuggling a secret without being able to control his own workers.”
“Why hang around?” Julius asked. “They offloaded their drugs first thing, I bet.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Winton shook his finger in the air. “They can leave anytime, but they don’t know what sort of Louisiana they’re coming back to.”
“They know their buyers. It’s these dockworkers that are the problem. Who’ll take over managing them for Maroulis?”
“He was an excellent control freak,” Winton said. “It made him rich and kept him out of the courts, but his business will crumble into nothing without him.”
“Leaving no heir, like some guy who thought he could live forever with help from the devil.”
Winton nodded, looking wistfully at the ship. “They certainly need Remus’ help and connections, now more than ever.”
“But Remus just wants that little baby bone?” Julius lolled his head. “This is the dumbest shit I ever got sucked into.”
“Wait, wait.” Winton swallowed. “R
emus knows I have the bone.”
“Yeah.”
“If he’s worked with these people in the past, maybe he’d be willing to trade with them, to do a deal.”
“What sort of deal?” Julius asked.
Before Winton could answer, vehicles approached from either direction. They braked to a stop and penned the truck in. A few men and a woman rushed out and trained automatic weapons on Winton and Julius.
Julius and Winton shot their hands in the air.
An eerie silence followed, after which a blond man in a tight black shirt and shoulder holster appeared at the passenger window and knocked on it.
“Roll this window down, nice and slow.” The man’s accent wasn’t from South Louisiana. “That’s right. Hands in the air.” Winton did as told, and the blond man leaned into the window, peered around and took a casual pose. “Was told to keep a look out for you. Didn’t expect the black fella, just the midget. Reckon that’s a bonus.”
Australian. The man was Australian.
“Oh look,” the Aussie said. “Here’s a couple fellas need a quick word with you.”
Winton blanched. Up ahead, a civilian vehicle rolled to a stop, the shapes of Rabelais at the wheel and Elgin in the passenger seat clear enough through the glass.
“Fuck,” Winton muttered. He looked about, wondering how — in front of six people with guns trained on him — he could sneak the bone out of his pocket and hide it somewhere. Despite his skill at sleight of hand, there wasn’t a clear option.
Rabelais was first out of the car, wearing a denim jacket and jeans. Elgin wasn’t far behind, and called out, “I get first licks, Rab.”
The blond Aussie stepped back, and Rabelais pulled Winton down out of the cab. He threw him to the damp earth, and pinned him there with a foot on his neck, turning his head painfully to the side.
Elgin saw no need for preamble, as he marched up and stomped his boot down onto Winton’s testicles. Louisiana went blurry, and Winton was lost in a land of breathless agony. None of the next kicks registered much pain in comparison, until he heard a pop and pain in his side sent him arching backward.
