He'd never seen a 300-pound man move so fast.
The rest of the story soon became famous throughout St. Genevieve and even beyond. How the sheriff dragged Deputy Garmish out of the john and ordered him to fire up a growler. How the three of them took off, with JJ still gripping Teddy. How Garmish essayed one scornful remark, only to be met with Chew's rejoinder, “Shut yore friggin’ mouth and drive."
How they wended in and out among the tangle of narrow blacktop roads crisscrossing St. Genevieve Parish, JJ muttering, “Left here. Right there.” How they wound up facing the Dry Branch Dump. How they were all temporarily baffled, until the sheriff—his small, slanted hunter's eyes darting over the ground—spotted a nearly invisible trail circling the dump with SUV tracks in the mud.
How JJ tumbled, Garmish leaped, and Chew rolled out of the police car. How they followed the tracks into possibly the most godforsaken bit of scrub forest in the Western world. How they fought their way through thickets of thorny vines and brush and found, projecting from a patch of disturbed and sunken earth, a piece of garden hose marking Sarah's grave. How a backhoe hastily summoned by the sheriff unearthed the little girl lying inside her coffin—a stout packing crate—still alive, though just barely.
The rest of the story unfolded while Sarah, holding Teddy to her heart, recovered in a Baton Rouge hospital. The SUV tracks led to blacktopped LA 1313 and vanished from sight. An APB was already out on the vehicle, sightings of which had been reported from Nome to Patagonia, so there was nothing more to be done along that line. Then a fisherman idly floating in a pirogue on nearby Lake Bocage—one of the oxbow lakes left behind when the ever-restless Mississippi changed its course sometime in the Pleistocene Epoch—noted unusual activity in a school of croakers. He paddled closer and found the well-named fish flickering in and out of a submerged SUV, where they'd been lunching off what remained of Alferd W. Finch.
A week later the parish coroner reported that the corpse had lost its eyes and hair, but as compensation had acquired a 9 mm slug that lingered in the gooey remnants of its brainstem. The phrase “execution style” leaped to the lips of a dozen TV talking heads, as did the obvious follow-up question: Who was Alferd's homicidal accomplice?
Wade Garmish gave JJ his thoughts about this loose end during a confidential chat at headquarters. How, the deputy asked, did JJ know where to find Sarah? Obviously, because he was the accomplice. Then why did he lead the sheriff to her? To grab the reward money as well as the ransom. JJ was beginning to wonder uneasily where this line of thought was leading, when he detected in the deputy's tobacco-colored eyes a glint of—was it possible?—admiration.
Laying a heavy hand upon his shoulder, Wade said, “JJ, you fuller of shit than a constipated pig. But Ah gotta tell you, son—you are some smart. Now, next time you decide to pull a job, you lemme in on it, okay? But no bullet in the back of the head, okay? Ah ain't no Alfie Finch, and Ah ain't a-goin’ out that way."
JJ left headquarters thinking, So that's what's wrong with fan clubs. You never know who might join.
* * * *
One morning a week or two later, he was home in the locked Winnebago, lolling on his bunk with Aloe Vera and a clean towel beside him, when his Daddy used a key JJ'd unwisely given him to enter unannounced. Noting with a frown what his son was up to, he said, “JJ, you drop that damn thing of yours rat now and put on some pants and come in the office. The FBI wants to talk with you."
JJ was unhappy over the intrusion, and not only because he had to finish what he was doing in a hurry. He'd intended that very day to take off, both to see the country and to escape the consequences of fame.
All he really wanted from the world, he now realized, was privacy so that he could do what he, uh, did privately. But ever since he found Sarah, people just wouldn't let him alone. Sheriff Chew's story of the small-town mystic who'd helped him save a kidnapped child had proved irresistible to the media. The Times-Picayune and the Baton Rouge Advocate had written JJ up. Bloggers debated ESP on the Net. Sarah's dad, though he noticeably avoided shaking JJ's hand, gave him fulsome thanks and a five-thousand-dollar check at a ceremony in Sheriff Chew's office, while a young black man hefting an enormous camera recorded the scene for Channel 4 News. Sarah's stepmama bestowed a raspberry kiss upon him, and Sarah—a solemn young lady with a pale face, neatly divided brown hair, and large Madonna eyes—took his rejected hand in both of hers, saying in a clear, cool voice from which almost all traces of the local accent had been laundered out, “Thank you so much for saving my life, Mr. JJ."
Later, when the camera was gone, she added confidentially, “You're just like I pictured you when I was in that awful box. I felt you in there with me, and I knew you'd help"—a fantasy that he found touching.
The reward check gave him the means of escaping. JJ figured that he could stop and gamble at Indian casinos from time to time, cautiously replenishing his assets by winning just a little money, but not enough to get himself banned (or scalped). It seemed like a good plan, but now the damn-blam FBI wanted him. Sighing deeply, he washed his hands, got decent, and appeared as commanded in the trailer park office.
The federal agent was as neat and anonymous as he'd expected, but much shorter. JJ reckoned that if he happened to be standing on a corner when a fire truck pulled up, he'd be in real danger of having hoses inserted into his ears. This nubbin of authority displayed his ID and introduced himself as Agent Hickey.
"You are James John Link?” he inquired, peering with small round brown eyes, which diligent training at the FBI Academy had rendered almost perfectly expressionless, like well-worn pennies.
"No, suh. Mah official name is Jimmy John. People most generally call me JJ."
Agent Hickey frowned. Nobody was supposed to be named Jimmy John officially. “The media have reported that you gave Sheriff Chew valuable assistance in the discovery and recovery of Sarah Louellen Rapp. Is that correct?"
"Uh ... rat."
"I've spoken at some length to Miss Rapp, and her description of Finch's accomplice—we call him Suspect Alpha—doesn't match you.” His gaze flickered over JJ's lank knobby frame and long narrow feet. He frowned. “What I'd like you to tell me is this: Exactly how did you know where the victim had been buried?"
JJ felt the jaws of a trap beginning to close because, just like at the casino, he knew too much for his own good. Voice trembling a bit, he proceeded to lay the truth on Agent Hickey who, of course, did not believe him.
"I must tell you, Mr. Link—” that seemed more formal, and therefore better, than saying Jimmy John “—you've just handed me the biggest load of hogwash I've encountered since the last time I attended a session of the U.S. Senate. You better think of something more likely to convince a rational man, or accept the fact that you're a person of interest in the abduction of Sarah Rapp."
"Ah spose you tryin’ to scare me."
"Yes,” said Hickey, obviously believing he'd done a good job of it, in which he was dead right. So JJ blurted, “Spose Ah he'p you find Suspect Alpha—would that git me off the hook?"
"I'm not authorized to make any deals, Mr. Link. However, your cooperation with the authorities may well be viewed positively by the U.S. Attorney's office in New Orleans. Exactly how,” he continued (the man loved the word exactly), “do you propose to help us?"
"Bring me somethin’ belonged to Suspect Alpha, somethin’ he had some kind of connection with, and Ah'll lead you to him."
Hickey looked at him like a medical researcher gazing at a lipid-coated virus, then—tightly smiling—drew out of his right-hand coat pocket a small tape-wrapped package and placed it on the table.
"There's an object inside this, Mr. Link. Since you have preternatural powers, you won't need me to tell you what it is."
Feeling he'd just been called when bluffing with four hearts, JJ reluctantly touched the box, and—wow! Messages began to tickle his fingertips. Surely he couldn't have done this even a week ago? Yet now he knew—didn't just think but knew—
that the object was ... hard ... cool ... round ... hollow ... smooth.
"It's a ring,” he said, and didn't need ESP to pick up Hickey's reaction. “Not a weddin’ ring. Too big. An athaletic ring? Oh Lord, it's a Useless ring, one of those things they give the jocks after a good season."
Hickey cleared his throat. “That's a rather remarkable trick,” he admitted.
JJ ignored him. The ring's owner was bothered. Knew he'd lost it, but didn't know where. Surely not at the ... the excavation? JJ felt his stab of fear.
"So,” he murmured. “Where was it at—buried in the mud at the bottom of the hole? Maybe y'awl went over the crime scene with a metal detector, and that was how you found it?"
This time Hickey merely stared. Talking mostly to himself, JJ continued teasing the story out of the flickering wi-fi messages that he alone could snatch from the firmament. His drawl became thicker with excitement.
"He uh, uh, uh, uh, took it off when they was wrasslin’ the box into the hole. He put the ring in his shirt pocket. He must of bent over—he don't remember this, he's guessin’ too—and it fell out, and they dropped the box on top of it. Then they went to grab Sarah, and in all the excitement he forgot about the ring until after he'd done Alferd in. Finally he remembered and looked in his pocket, and it wasn't there. Now he'd give his left nut to find it again, and that's the reason for the pull Ah'm feelin'."
Hickey sat there with his small round eyes as blank as the two worn buttons with which Teddy gazed at the world. Then abruptly he surrendered.
"Can you take me to him?” he whispered. “I have to tell you, Mr. Link, the Bureau's up a tree in this case. There's nothing to go on except this ring, and it hasn't led us anywhere. Mr. Rapp's a prominent Republican contributor, and we've got the Governor, two congresspersons and a particularly nasty Senator on our backs."
At last understanding the reason for this whole charade, JJ replied coolly, “Well, suh, Ah guess Ah can try."
* * * *
In the agent's bland tan Ford, Hickey took the box from JJ, opened it with a penknife, and extracted the ring—a garish lump of gold-washed pewter and blue bottle glass encircled by the proud words USLS 2005 Champoins. (JJ figured the misspelling had gone undetected because the athletes to a man were functionally illiterate, and the coach nearly so.)
"Put it on,” Hickey said. “This is unofficial, of course, but if you lose it, I'll shoot you. Now: which way do we go?"
"Thataway,” said JJ, deliberately playing the rustic, and pointed down Huey toward the I-12 on-ramps.
While they drove, Hickey filled him in on the crucial clue. “That ring went to sixteen guys on the basketball team in ‘05, after they won the championship of whatever piss-ant league they play in."
JJ nodded. “The Cottonblossom League. That was the year our guys beat Hattiesburg Tech, 107-106. Ah seen it on TV. There was a big fight on the court and twelve people got tasered. It was a great game."
"Sounds like it,” Hickey said dryly. “Well, we've tracked down fifteen of the athletes, including a couple who are in jail for drug-related offenses. We headed out to pick up the sixteenth guy, only to learn that a tree fell on him during Hurricane Katrina. His mother states that the ring was not recovered with the body, so a looter stole it off the corpse. Another dead end."
He sounded bitter.
The interstate consisted of two concrete ribbons with clumps of trees in the median and clotted traffic surging east toward Florida and west toward California. JJ indicated the eastbound side, and Hickey inserted the Ford into a gap between two roaring double tractor-trailers with the contemptuous ease of a man trained to conduct high-speed chases. Exits flicked past—Hammond, Pontchatoula, Madisonville, Covington, Mandeville—with the glories of Slidell yet to come. They whisked by shopping centers, Best Buy after Best Buy, Petco after Petco, the endless ‘burbs of the White Homeland, safely separated by twenty-five-mile-wide Lake Pontchartrain from black-and-tan New Orleans to the south.
"Off next exit,” JJ commanded, happy to issue orders to the FBI.
Here urban traffic clogged what had been a back road as recently as JJ's teen years. Behind a thin screen of surviving trees, gated communities with names like Forestview and Bois de Boulogne appeared, each inhabited by tract houses of daunting similarity. JJ ran down his window and sniffed the rich odor of toasting Bunny Bread. The ring was buzzing like a captive bumblebee.
Signs appeared at roadside directing those who were lost—and, more important, those who were willing to lose—to the Shore-Win Casino. To JJ, this was familiar territory, and he ordered Hickey to turn onto an arrow-straight four-lane ribbon of concrete that went slashing across the marshlands to the lake's verge, where a faux riverboat lay moored. Hickey steered into a spacious parking lot, half full even at noonday, and a uniformed rent-a-cop directed him to a vacant slot.
Inside the riverboat, all was flash and glitter from banks of slot and video poker machines where pensioners were depositing their Social Security checks a dollar at a time. The ceiling winked with multicolored stars, and crude murals portrayed Rhett Butlers in white suits gambling their way to fortune while hoop-skirted Scarletts looked on admiringly. Neon signs directed the thirsty to the Bourbon Street Bar and the hungry to a seafood buffet called We Got Crabs. In the center of the casino a plastic oak tree dripped plastic moss.
JJ looked around and sighed. He felt like Adam gazing back at the Garden from which he'd been banned forever. As if in answer to his thought, a broad-shouldered man in a short-sleeved shirt and blue bowtie approached. He had black fur on his muscular forearms, a button mike stuck in one ear, and a palm-sized electronic box of some sort filling his breast pocket. He took JJ by the elbow.
"Out,” he said succinctly.
"Look at this,” said Hickey, slipping the leather folder with his credentials out of his pocket. The bouncer glanced down and released JJ.
"This man's not here to gamble,” Hickey assured him in a voice so soft that not even the closest players, who were probably hard of hearing anyhow, could have listened in. “He's assisting our inquiries in a case that involves kidnapping and murder. I assume you wouldn't want to be charged with obstructing the Bureau."
"You better talk to the boss,” said the bouncer, inclining his head slightly to the left. He and Hickey moved to a door overlooked by security cameras; it opened noiselessly, they passed inside, and the door closed behind them.
Meanwhile JJ circulated, guided by the throbbing of the ring. At this time of day, the action was slow but by no means dead; the roulette wheel lay immobile, but on three tables dice were bounding like frisky terriers across fields of green felt. Beyond the plastic oak tree one blackjack table was in use. The dealer's name tag said Phil; the sole player was a fat man displaying two fives and a deuce.
"Hit me,” said the fat man, and JJ—seeing what was coming—almost groaned aloud. The dealer flicked the guy a ten, and he busted out with twenty-two. He slipped off his chair, grunted, "You try the goddamn game,” and waddled away in the direction of the bar.
Phil paused in the act of sweeping the gambler's chips into a slot and stared transfixed at the ring, which responded by biting JJ's finger like a sand fly. He took the warm naugahyde seat and he and Phil looked at each other.
"I seen you on TV,” said the dealer. He had a flat, nasal Midwestern accent. “You're the guy found that kid."
He was wide and pudgy. He smelled of Brut. His fingers were nicotine-stained. JJ couldn't see his feet behind the half-moon table but felt pretty sure that they resembled a duck's. So this was the guy who'd buried a little girl alive! JJ didn't usually approve of torture, but decided to make an exception for Phil.
"Ah seen you admirin’ my ring,” was his opener. “Don't look like much, does it? But it's worth a lot."
"Oh yeah? How much you think it's worth?"
"About ten K."
Phil's eyes bulged. Maybe this was his first experience at being on the wrong end of extortion. JJ began to enjoy him
self. “But I don't suppose you'd want it,” he went on.
Phil, trying to sound casual, said, “I used to have a ring that was sort of like it. When I lost it, people noticed. Nobody looks at a dealer's face, but everybody watches his hands. ‘Where's your big ring, Phil?’ they say."
JJ nodded. “Ah guess if they ever knew where this one was found at, they might connect the dots. Maybe you better think about buyin’ it, after all."
"I don't have ten K."
"Sure you do. With this job, you could skim that money inside a week."
"Only if I wanted to end up in the crab cage. We gotta chef puts his soft-shells in there to fatten up. Most generally he feeds ‘em spoiled chicken, but crabs ain't particular eaters. They'll take anything, including me."
"Come on,” said JJ, lowering his voice confidentially. “Ah know you got all that money out of old man R—"
Suddenly he stopped. Gasped. He'd caught a glimpse into Phil's mind. “Damn blam. So she's the one that got it. Go and tell Marsha Rapp you need a loan."
Phil looked scared. “Jesus,” he whispered. “So you can do what they said on TV. Look, I don't have a chance of getting it out of her. She paid me two K and I took the one she gave Alferd, making three. I already spent most of it. Her husband's got the big bundle, and she's prob'ly on her way to meet him right now."
"Rapp had his own daughter kidnapped?"
Now Phil looked disgusted. “And here I thought you really had ESP! No, butthead, her husband. He lives in Grunj, Croatia, where she comes from. It's a town where all they do is raise goats and work Internet scams. He runs a bunch of these beautiful-Third-World-gals-hot-to-marry websites and peddles her off to the best offer. She marries the guy, figures out how to bleed him, finds local talent to do the dirty work, and her husband—guy named Slivovitch—manages the money transfers so nobody, not the FBI, not nobody, can trace where it goes to. He's a computer genius.
FSF, August-September 2009 Page 22
