and well lit and masked by the rain. Just another dreary southern evening in paradise.
Milt rang the bell, and Edith Boudreaux answered. The mustache pushed past her into the house, and as quickly as that they were bringing Lucy and Edith across the lawn to the highway car. Lucy was struggling, and the mustache had to keep a hand over her mouth. You never expect the bad guys will come to the door. You never expect that they'll ring the bell. When Rossier climbed back into the car, he was smiling. "We'll see what ol' Jo-el does, now. Yes, I guess we will, won't we?" I'm not sure he was saying it to me or to Bennett. Maybe just to himself.
They brought us to the crawfish farm, driving through sequined curtains of rain, and put us in the processing shed. Escobar's BMW was already there, René standing in the rain and mud like some great oblivious golem. When Milt Rossier saw him, he shook his head and made a tsking sound. I guess you never get used to it. They taped Lucy's and Edie's wrists with duct tape and made the three of us sit on the floor beneath the gutting tables. Rain hammered in through the big, open front of the processing shed, but we were well back and protected. The rear of the place was open, too, and more rain dripped there. Milt and Prima and Bennett gathered together, then Bennett got back into his Polara and drove away. Going to give the news to Jo-el Boudreaux. Edith looked pale and drawn, and Lucy looked scared. After Prima and the mustache finished with the taping and left us alone, I said, "Fancy meeting you here."
Lucy didn't smile. The beautiful tanned skin was mottled, and her nostrils were white. Her eyes moved from Rossier to the mustache to LaBorde to Prima, like something might happen at any moment and in that instant she must be ready or it would be forever lost.
I said, "It's not over. There's Pike, and there's me. I'll get you out of this."
She nodded without looking at me.
"Did I tell you that I'm an irresistible force?"
A smile flickered at the edges of her mouth, and her eyes came to me. She said, "You really know how to show a girl a good time, don't you?"
"Irresistible," I said. "Unstoppable. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound."
She relaxed the tiniest bit and nodded.
I said, "A moment will come. When it does, I want you to move back under these tables. You, too, Edith. Did you hear me?"
Edith was as waxy as a mannequin, and I couldn't be sure that she heard me. Then Rossier came over and kicked me hard in the leg, twice. "Shut up that talk!" He tore off strips of the duct tape and covered our mouths.
We sat on the damp cement floor and watched Rossier and Prima and the mustache move around the processing shed, making their plans. René followed Rossier like a dog after its master. Rossier went up to the main house and came back with a couple of pump shotguns and a thin, weathered man with mocha skin. Another thug. He gave one of the shotguns to the mustache and the other to Donaldo Prima. They talked for a while in the doorway, Rossier pointing and gesturing, and then the black man and the mustache went out into the rain. Setting up a field of fire. I worked at the duct tape with my tongue and rubbed it against my shoulder and the gutting table's leg, and it began to peel away.
Milt stayed in the sliding doors, looking out, and in a little bit lights appeared and LeRoy Bennett's Polara came toward the sheds. It wasn't alone. Jo-el's highway car was behind it, but he wasn't coming in with sirens wailing and light bar flashing. He came slow and easy, like he was trying not to make things worse than they were. LeRoy put his Polara on the side of the processing shed, then came inside. He was soaked, but he looked excited. He said, "I got'm. I told'm what you said and they came just like you said they would, goddammit! I got their goddamned guns. I busted their goddamned radio." He was smiling a crazy grin, like we were kids and all of this was some kind of summer-camp game. Blood simple.
Edith straightened to see, and so did I. From where we sat you could see