Gator Aide (14 page)

“She’d been living with my son at one time. Dale was quite a boy. Best poacher in the bayou. I always planned for him to work with me when he grew up. Even as a boy, he could catch and skin gators as well as any man. But Dale decided to strike out on his own. At least that’s what he said.” Trenton reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a tissue, spitting what was left of the tobacco in it.

“Then his plans changed. He started working for a local prick dealing gator skins big-time. The guy was shipping the skins to his partner up North. They had organized a racket that was making them a fortune, hauling gators out of the swamp by the ton. Dale was working nights killing the gators and spending his days skinning them. He was a gold mine, doing the work of three men for the price of one. Damn fool kid was letting them take advantage of him, and for what? Nose candy. When he got tired, they’d dole it out and he’d keep going. Took no time at all to get the kid hooked. Roped him in and made a damn coolie out of him. That’s what they did. Soon enough, Valerie was on the stuff, too.

“Problem was, those two kids began wanting more than they were getting, and in no time at all, Dale was in deep debt to those scum and working it off for free. That’s when he and Val started on crack. It was cheaper and easier to get hold of. Hell, that shit’s all over the bayou.” Treddell stared out the window. A gator came into view but he barely seemed to take notice.

“Next thing I know, Dale’s stealing from his own home. Taking Dolly’s jewelry, the TV, stereo, VCR. Anything he could get his hands on to sell. Dolly was ready to kill him. Val tried hooking to raise some money, but didn’t have much luck at that. Never could get her prices down right.”

The only image I had of Valerie flashed in my mind, lying in a pool of her own blood. She hadn’t had much luck in New Orleans, either.

“I finally kicked both of them out. Told them not to come back till they were clean. I hadn’t raised a son of mine to become a damn junkie. Problem was, they never could seem to get straight.”

Trenton took an idle potshot at an egret as the bird unfurled its wings, disappearing against the glaring rays of the sun. “Next thing I know, Dale’s stealing from the scum he’d been working for. Then one day, he just up and disappeared. Valerie came around looking for him. I did some snooping myself, even threatened to kill anyone who had done him in. But I never knew for sure. I beat up his boss real bad—nearly killed the son of a bitch. But I didn’t find out a thing.

“Meanwhile, Marie was beating Val black-and-blue. Seems Val had been selling information to Dale’s boss in exchange for drugs. Telling him where to find the caches of gators caught for Marie. Val was whittling it out of the few local peckerwoods that slept with her. Got them to bragging about how many gators they’d killed for Marie, and where they’d hidden their stashes. Then Val would run right over and sell the information for a few hits of snow. When Marie found out, Val ended up with two black eyes and a broken rib before she got away.

“The girl came crying to Dolly and me. Dolly still held a soft spot for her, so I gave her some money and arranged for her to go away. Try and make a fresh start. I felt it was the least I could do for Dale, so I set it up for her to stay with friends of mine in Bogalusa. But she never got that far. She stopped in New Orleans and never left.”

“How did Valerie end up calling the gator you gave her Hook?”

Pulling a pack of sugarless gum from his shirt pocket, he handed me a piece. “I asked her that once. I thought it had to do with Captain Hook, at first. I told her she’d have to get herself a nice loud clock so she’d always know where the damn thing was.”

Trenton stuck four sticks of gum in his mouth, taking a moment to chew.

“She said
Peter Pan
had nothing to do with it. That was just fantasy, her gator was real. She had named the thing Hooked, but then shortened it. Said she named it after her own bad habits of being hooked on dope and hooking for a living, and that no amount of time would ever change that. So she’d just as soon skip getting the clock.”

Something struck me as all too familiar about Dale’s boss. “The man that your son worked for. Whatever happened to him?”

Trenton gave a low, mirthless laugh. “He moved away from the marshes. Got out of business right before the feds came down on him. Interesting timing, don’t you think? He suddenly decided to go straight, right before the cops beat down his door. Hell, he’d made enough money to go on to bigger and better things. I hear he’s running for mayor of New Orleans these days, and he’ll probably end up getting the damn job, too. He’s got the money and contacts to buy all the votes he needs. The bastard is Hillard Williams.”

I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car. “Did you ever hear from Valerie after she settled in New Orleans?”

Trenton gave me a strange look that led me to believe he knew more than he was telling. “I heard from her once. Seems she had hooked up with a flunky of Hillard’s for a while. A guy by the name of Buddy, who helped him run his gator business. After Buddy got tired of paying for her bills and dope, she panicked and called me. But I know a lost cause when I see one. She’d already burned me once. That was the last I heard from her.”

“You’ll be interested to know she found someone else to bail her out.”

“Anyone I know?”

I had a feeling that Trenton didn’t even have to ask.

“Hillard Williams.”

Trenton sank into a reflective
silence as I played with fitting more pieces of the puzzle together. I hadn’t heard from Santou since our evening out last week, and wondered if he was having any more luck than I was. I tried to come up with a dozen reasons why he hadn’t called since then, but they all left me feeling like a fool. It was at times like this I wished there was no such thing as a biological urge.

The day was steaming up. Hot tar bubbled beneath my tires, and gators and snakes sought out scraps of shade for a few minutes of relief. Perspiration stained Trenton’s neatly pressed shirt, while Gonzales’s stringy hair clung tightly to his head. I was used to the shabby conditions I traveled under, and generally thought little of it until others were forced to suffer with me. Stopping at the first convenience store along the way, I let the two men stretch while I sprang for three bottles of Nehi and a box of Moon Pies. The
Times-Picayune
caught my eye with its headline about the race for New Orleans mayor. I bought a copy and handed it to Treddell as we piled back into the car. With three more weeks to go, Hillard was leaping ahead in the polls. An editorial credited this to his plan for bringing foreign investment into the economically depressed city.

Lifting a pair of wire-rim glasses out of his pocket, Trenton carefully adjusted them on his nose as he studied the article.

“Listen, darlin’, this sonofabitch isn’t doing anything that politicians haven’t done here for years. New Orleans is a witches’ brew of drugs and crime. Hillard’s coming in promising to change all that. Hell, people know the man has made a lot of money in some shady ways. But they figure maybe he has the gift. Maybe he can help them make money, too. What they don’t understand is that Hillard is part of the damn problem. He’s smart enough to hit people where they hurt.” Trenton punched at an ink-smeared blurb with his finger. “He’s saying here that all New Orleans is gonna be wiped out from this AIDS epidemic, and that it’ll cost us millions unless we do something about it right now. And you know what? People are scared enough, they’ll elect the old bastard thinking he’s gonna solve the problem for them. That he’ll ship all the gays up to New York or Miami or anywhere else but here.”

It was true. Hillard was smart enough to tie every issue into money and what it would cost, giving it all the lethal power of a barrel of fertilizer and diesel fuel mixed together just waiting to blow. A volatile mix of rednecks and liberals, skinheads and gays, New Orleans was reminiscent of Berlin in the thirties.

“But New Orleans doesn’t have a lock on hard times and bad luck, Trenton. Take a look at New York—just walking in Central Park has become a crapshoot. And when was the last time New Orleans dealt with international terrorism? Most cities are melting pots overflowing with homelessness, drugs, and rampant unemployment.”

As Trenton turned the front page with a flick of his wrist, the paper snapped in the air like a gator latching onto its prey. Gonzales fanned himself with the second section as Trenton swallowed the remainder of his Moon Pie before bothering to respond.

“Times may be hard everywhere,
chè
re
. But they’re harder here. We’ve always depended on what God set down in the ground to make our living, whether it be gators or sugarcane or oil. When oil went belly-up on us, so did the whole damn state economy. You think Washington, D.C., has got it bad? Sugar, we got a billion-dollar deficit in this state and no way of paying it off. That’s why I’ve always relied on gators. They haven’t dried up yet, and I don’t expect they ever will. No matter what Charlie Hickok says.”

McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s flashed by as I turned into the Fish and Wildlife lot, pulling in next to Hickok’s dilapidated Pontiac. My fingers sizzled against the hot metal of the trunk as it opened, and the stench of rancid fish flew out. Holding my breath, I hauled out our cache. Decomposing rapidly in the heat, the flaccid skins glistened with a heavy coating of oil. Four stray cats appeared out of nowhere, leaping high in the air and purring seductively in hopes of a handout. Before I could get the trunk closed, two of the felines jumped inside. Grabbing the shocking machine, I left the trunk open and let them have their way. Gonzales and Treddell held the strings of fish at arm’s length as we struggled to make our way to the building past a rapidly growing number of furry bodies. Erupting into loud howls, their gentle rubs against our legs became more frantic, and the frenzied pack began to eye us much in the same way as three large bags of cat chow.

Slipping inside, I slammed the door behind us to face a different kind of crowd. A few disembodied heads poked out of doorways as the smell of rotten fish hit with all the force of a bombshell. The heads disappeared just as quickly, catching sight of our group. None of the usual dude calls sounded to announce my arrival. Instead, the hall was as quiet as the swamp in the middle of a sweltering July day.

I was left with mixed feelings. On one hand, I was reveling in my success. On the other, I knew that Treddell was out to embarrass Charlie, making him the laughingstock of the bayou. Word would travel fast that Hickok had been done in by a greenhorn girl and a Northerner to boot. It was the ultimate low blow. Trenton and Gonzales traipsed through enemy territory with little concern, secure in the knowledge that they’d be free to walk out in just a few hours. But I was here for the long haul.

By now the situation was out of my control. In reality, it had been ever since I’d set out this morning in search of Trenton Treddell. Nothing could stop this from taking place now. Not even Enid Moore.

A reed-thin woman with steel grey hair and deep blue veins like road maps on the back of her hands, Charlie’s secretary spent her time stationed directly in front of the air conditioner knitting thick wool sweaters, which were piled high like dead sheep behind Hickok’s desk. Having been in Charlie’s employ for longer than anyone could remember, Enid was as much a piece of the office furniture as Charlie’s well-worn desk. Predatory when it came to what she considered her private domain, Enid ruled with an iron fist. She even controlled Charlie on occasion, when no one else could. She’d been around long enough to watch numerous rookie agents come and go. I had the sneaking suspicion that, in most cases, she had even contributed to their demise. Having already informed me that being an agent was an inappropriate job for a woman, she pumped this opinion into Hickok daily. Not that he needed much reinforcement. Her usual greeting to me was a withering gaze that seemed automatically to mark off the number of days I had left in Charlie’s employ.

Enid skipped the usual formalities today. Grabbing her handkerchief, which reeked of English Lavender, she pressed it tightly to her nose and mouth, attempting to block out the stench that was headed her way. Putting a hand up to stop me, she quivered as she caught sight of Trenton Treddell. The look of sheer terror in Enid’s eyes hammered home the realization that I might be about to blow my career to smithereens all on my own, without her help.

I stuck my head inside Charlie’s office, where he sat twirling the lead tip of a pencil in his ear, gloomily contemplating the pile of paperwork rising before him.

“You got a minute?”

Charlie appeared not to notice the offending smell of rotting fish. I cleared my throat, but he didn’t even bother to look up. In a bad way since our run-in with Trenton, nothing had taken place to improve his mood. I didn’t expect this would make him feel any better.

“What the hell are you doing here, Bronx? You’re supposed to be out catchin’ me some damn poachers.”

Trenton’s voice boomed out from the hall behind me. “That’s exactly what she did, Hickok. If I were you, I’d congratulate the girl.”

Charlie’s head snapped up as he sniffed the air, a bloodhound who’d just received a whiff of its prey. Slowly removing the tip of the pencil from his ear, he sat stock-still, staring over my head.

“Who the hell is that?”

Trenton grinned broadly as he pushed past me and strolled into Hickok’s office to plunk himself down in a chair. He casually threw his shocking machine and strings of rotting fish on top of Charlie’s desk.

“Your agent here caught me red-handed shocking fish and brought me in. Wasn’t much I could do about it. She caught me fair and square. Got Gonzales, too.”

Gonzales shuffled past me with a smirk. “Sure did, Wild Bill. No doubt ’bout dat.” He added his string of fish to Trenton’s pile as a circle of rancid oil worked its way through Charlie’s papers.

Charlie sat in silence, finally letting loose a whistle as he leaned back in his chair.