Then he saw Eddy towing the boat from behind the pile of downed limbs, giving up their natural cover, an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth. Andre and Kevin were outside the boat, too, steering it around obstacles in the water, all them now in full view of the house from which Bertrand had just stolen the jerry cans of gasoline.
“What the fuck you doing, man? Why didn’t y’all stay put?” Bertrand said.
“What took you so long? You stop to flog your rod back there? Fill her up and let’s go,” Eddy said.
He sparked his Zippo, the tiny emery wheel rolling on the flint—once, twice, three times.
“Eddy—” Bertrand heard himself say.
The Zippo’s flame flared in the darkness, crisping the end of Eddy’s cigarette, lighting an inquisitive smile on his face, as though he had not understood what his brother had said.
Bertrand heard a single report behind him, but he could not coordinate the sound with the event taking place in front of him. A red flower burst from Eddy’s throat and a split second later, right behind Eddy, the cap of Kevin Rochon’s skull exploded from his head, scattering his brains on the water like freshly cooked oatmeal. Chapter 10
I N ANY AMERICAN slum, two enterprises are never torched by urban rioters: the funeral home and the bondsman’s office. From Clete Purcel’s perspective, the greatest advantage in chasing down bail skips for bondsmen like Nig Rosewater and Wee Willie Bimstine was the fact their huge clientele of miscreants was sycophantic by nature and always trying to curry favor from those who had control over their lives. Big-stripe Angola graduates who would take a back-alley beating with blackjacks rather than dime a friend would ratfuck their mothers in order to stay in Nig and Willie’s good graces.
From the moment Clete Purcel had been run down in the Quarter, his porkpie hat stenciled with tire tread, the word was out: Bertrand and Eddy Melancon and their asswipe friend Andre Rochon were shark meat.
While the Melancons and Rochon and his nephew Kevin were powerboating all over uptown New Orleans, eating white speed boosted from a pharmacy, drinking warm beer and eating rotisserie chickens courtesy of Winn-Dixie, laughing at the unbelievable amount of loot they were amassing, they were dimed on at least two occasions by fellow lowlifes who had ended up in the chain-link jail at the airport, where Nig and Willie’s representatives were doing fire-sale amounts of business.
But ironically it was not betrayal by his colleagues that brought about Bertrand’s undoing. For probably the first time in his life he acted with total disregard for his own self-interest and loaded his brother into the boat while Andre bag-assed down the street and Eddy hemorrhaged cups of blood from his throat.
Bertrand’s hands were trembling as he fueled the boat engine. He was sure the shooter was still out there, either in one of the yards or inside one of the houses that fronted the street. He was convinced the shooter was taking aim at him, moving the scope or the iron sights across Bertrand’s face and chest or perhaps his scrotum, taking his time, enjoying it, softly biting down on his bottom lip as he tightened his finger on the trigger. The image caused a sensation in Bertrand that was like someone stripping off his skin with pliers. His hands were not only slick with Eddy’s blood and saliva but shaking so badly his thumb slipped off the starter button when he tried to depress it.
When the engine caught, he twisted the throttle wide open and roared across the floodwater, Kevin’s body bobbing in his wake. He thudded over a dead animal at the intersection and heard the propeller whine in the air before it plowed into the water again. He was almost sideswiped by an NOPD boat loaded with heavily armed cops. He slapped across their wake and veered up a cross street into an alley, pausing long enough to wedge the garbage and laundry bags inside a garage rafter. Up ahea
d, he could see the lights of a helicopter that was descending on a hospital rooftop. He reduced his speed and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. He and Eddy had found safe harbor, a place where someone would care for his brother and save his life. It was the building in which they were both born. It was almost like coming home.
Bertrand had never heard of Dante’s Ninth Circle. But he was about to get the guided tour.
THE FIRST FLOOR of the hospital had three feet of water in it. The corridors were black, except for the beams of flashlights carried by the personnel. The heated smell of medical and human waste in the water made Clete pull his shirt up over his mouth so he could breathe without gagging. Twice he tried to get directions, but the personnel brushed by him as though he were not there. He gave it up and went back outside, sucking in the night air, the sweat on his face suddenly as cool as ice water.
A black NOPD patrolman who must have weighed at least 275 pounds shined a flashlight in Clete’s face. In his other hand he held a cut-down twelve-gauge Remington pump propped on his hip. His unshaved jaws looked filmed with black grit, and an odor like moldy clothes and locker-room sweat emanated from his body. His name was Tee Boy Pellerin, and as a state trooper he had once lifted a cruiser with his bare hands off his partner’s chest.
“What you looking for, Purcel?” he said.
“A gunshot victim by the name of Eddy Melancon,” Clete replied.
“Is he alive or dead?”
“I wouldn’t know. The hospital is storing dead people?” Clete said.
“I wish. I got four of them in a boat. I been trying to dump them all over town. Nobody’s got any refrigeration. You talking about Eddy Melancon from the Ninth Ward?”
“Yeah, Bertrand Melancon’s brother. Nig Rosewater heard Eddy got capped looting a house this side of Claiborne.”
“Try the third floor. The trauma victims who made it through the ER are getting warehoused up there. You got a flashlight?”
“I lost it.”
“Take this one. I got an extra. You haven’t been upstairs?”
“No.”
Tee Boy gazed into space, as though a long day and a long night had just caught up with him.
“So what’s upstairs?” Clete asked.
“The geriatric ward is on the third floor. If it was me, I wouldn’t go in there,” Tee Boy said.