"What brings you to my neck of the woods, Detective?" Marcotte asked. "Aside from incredible nerve, that is."
Elbows braced on the arms of his executive's chair, he pressed his fingertips into a pyramid and swiveled the chair slowly back and forth. "I'd say it might be the party I'm throwing tonight, but I'm afraid your name is not on the guest list. Can't be official business: You are far out of your jurisdiction. Besides, I understand you've had a little professional setback recently."
"What do you know about that?"
"What I read in the papers, Nick, my boy. Now what can I do for you?"
Marcotte's calm amazed him. The man had ruined him and he sat here as if there could be no hard feelings, as if it had meant nothing to him.
"Answer me a question," he said. "When did you first discuss the possible sale of Bayou Realty with Donnie Bichon?"
"Who is Donnie Bichon?"
"You're reading the papers, you know who he is."
"You have some reason to believe I've spoken with him? Why would I be interested in some little backwater real estate company?"
"Oh, let me think." Nick touched two fingers to his temple to emphasize the effort of concentration. "Money? Making money. Hiding money. Laundering money. Take your pick. Maybe your friend Vic the Plug, he's looking for a little lightweight investment. Maybe you got some senators in your pocket, ready to bring riverboat gambling to the basin. Maybe you know something the rest of us don't."
Marcotte's face went flat. "You're offending me, Detective."
"Am I? Well, hell, what else is new?"
"Nothing. You are as tedious as ever. I'm a well-respected businessman, Fourcade. My reputation is above reproach."
"What kind of money does it take to buy a reputation like that? You pay extra depending on what crooks you wanna consort with?"
"Mr. DiMonti owns a construction firm. We're developing a project together."
"I'll bet you are. You gonna bring him and his goons out to Bayou Breaux with you?"
"You're mentally deranged, Fourcade. I have no interest in some snake-infested swamp town."
Nick lifted a finger in warning. "Ah. Watch what you say, Marcotte. That's my snake-infested swamp town-the one you drove me to. I don't wanna see your face there. I don't wanna smell the stink of your money."
Marcotte shook his head. "You don't learn, do you, swamp rat? I've been a perfect host to you, and you abuse me. I could have you arrested if I wanted to. How would that look in your file? Like you've lost your marbles, I'd say. Beating up suspects, driving all the way to New Orleans to harass a well-known businessman and philanthropist. You annoy me, Fourcade, like a mosquito. The last time I swatted you away. Don't pester me again."
The door swung open, and the secretary carried in a silver tray set with a small coffee urn and bone china demitasse cups. The dark aroma of burned chicory filled the room.
"Never mind the coffee, Evan," Marcotte said, never taking his eyes off Nick. "Detective Fourcade has worn out his welcome."
Nick winked at the secretary as he moved toward the door. "You drink mine, mon ami. I hear it's good for a sore throat."
He went back down the side stairs and let himself out through the solarium to avoid the crowd in the kitchen. The florist's van was gone. Vic DiMonti's thugs were not.
One stepped out from behind a potting shed to block the path to the gate. Nick pulled up ten feet from them and assessed his options. Stand his ground or run back the way he'd come, though he had the sinking feeling Meathead Number Two had already eliminated the second choice. The scuff of large feet on the brick path behind him confirmed the reality. Then DiMonti himself emerged from the potting shed with a hickory spade handle balanced in his thick paws.
"I got no quarrel with you, DiMonti," Nick said. He kept his weight on the balls of his feet and his eyes on the thug in front of him. He could see the reflection of the twin in the man's sunglasses.
"I remember you, Fourcade," DiMonti said. His accent was the near Brooklynese of the Irish Channel part of town, befitting a movie mobster. "You're some kind of head case. They threw you off the force." He barked a laugh. "That's gotta take some doing-getting thrown off the NOPD."
"It was nothing," Nick said. "Ask your friend Marcotte."
"That's a good point you bring up, Fourcade," DiMonti said, tapping the spade handle against his palm. "Mr. Marcotte is a close personal friend of mine and a valued business associate. I don't want him upset. You see where I'm going with this?"
"Absolutely. So tell Tiny here to step aside and I'll be on my way."
DiMonti shook his head sadly. "I wish it were that simple, Nick. Can I call you Nick? You see, I think you got what they call a pattern of behavior here. You maybe need a little lesson from Bear and Brutus here to break you from that. Make you think twice before you come back here. You see what I'm saying?"
He saw Brutus behind him looming larger in Bear's sunglasses.
A spinning kick caught Brutus in the face, broke his nose and sunglasses, and sent him down on the brick path like a felled tree. Nick spun the other way, blocking a roundhouse right and popping Bear hard in the diaphragm. It was like hitting brick.
The thug caught him with a solid jab, and blood filled Nick's mouth. He brought his right foot up and hit Bear square in the knee, forcing the joint to bend in a way nature never intended. Howling, clutching at the knee, the thug doubled over, and Nick hit him with a combination that split his lip and sprayed a fountain of blood.
All he needed was Bear to go down and he could break for the gate. He didn't want to pull the Ruger. DiMonti hadn't come here to kill him and he wouldn't want the complications, but neither would he hesitate to do it. The Plug had dumped his share of bodies in the swamp. One more punch and Bear would be gone. But before Nick could draw back, DiMonti swung the spade handle like a baseball bat and caught him hard across the kidneys.
DiMonti swung again and Nick staggered forward, struggling to keep his feet under him, to keep moving. If he could run-
The thought was cut short as Brutus tackled him from behind and he went down face-first on the bricks. Then the world went black, and Nick's final thought was that it was probably just as well.
26
Annie blew out a sigh and dug through the stacks of paperwork, unearthing a packet of microcassette tapes labeled RENARD in Fourcade's bold caps. Interview tapes, no doubt made in his pocket. The official tapes would never have been allowed out of the sheriff's department, but Fourcade lived by his own set of rules-some of which she condoned, and others…
It made her uneasy thinking about it. Where would she draw the line? And where would he? She was breaking rules by involving herself in this case, but she felt it was justified, that she owed her allegiance to a higher authority. And was that what Fourcade had been thinking when he'd confronted Renard in that parking lot? That justice was a higher power than the law?
Where the hell was he? she wondered as she dug through her purse for her tape recorder. For a man who had been suspended and warned off the case, he certainly got around.
"Maybe he's out planting evidence for you to find, Annie," she muttered, then chided herself for it.
She didn't believe he had planted the ring just because he'd been accused of doing it before. No one had proven the allegations made during the Parmantel murder investigation. Fourcade had resigned from the NOPD before anyone got the chance. The hoopla had died down and the case had gone away.
That right there made Annie think something was hinky about the charges. The case had gone away and no civil suit had been filed. Anybody with half a beef against the cops these days filed a civil suit. Allan Zander, the man Fourcade had accused of killing the hooker, Candi Parmantel, had just faded back into anonymity.