As we trudged up the drive dawn gave way to morning. Though I could see my breath, I knew the day would warm with the sun.
Gravel crunched underfoot, and now and then a pebble dislodged, skittered across the uneven roadbed, and rolled into a side trench. Birds twittered and scolded, announcing their displeasure over our arrival.
Suck eggs, I thought. My morning began before yours.
Don't be a baby, Brennan. You're annoyed because Quickwater is a Ierk. Ignore him. Do your job.
Just then he spoke.
"I need to find my new partner He's just been loaned over to Carcajou."
Though Quickwater didn't offer a name, I felt sympathy for the unlucky cop. I took a deep breath, hiked up my pack, and looked around as I followed his back.
One thing was clear. The Vipers were never going to win Landscaper of the Year. The front of the property was a good example of what nature preservationists in the U.S. Congress had fought to protect. The bottomland that stretched to the highway was a sea of dead vegetation splayed against the reddish-brown spring mud. The scrub forest behind the house had been left to the decorating of its quadrupedal inhabitants.
When we crossed the asphalt and entered the courtyard, however, a design plan was evident. Inspired by the better prisons of America, the enclosure had all the essentials, including twelve-foot brick walls topped with surveillance cameras, motion detectors, and floodlights. Wall-to-wall cement covered the ground, with basketball hoops, a gas barbecue, and a doghouse with chain-link run. Steel doors had replaced the original courtyard gate, and the garage entrance was steel-reinforced and welded shut.
On the trip out, the one time Quickwater had spoken was to give me the basic history of the property. The house was buiit by a New Yorker who'd made his fortune running booze during the days of the Volstead Act. In the mid-eighties the Vipers bought it from the smuggler's heirs, put four hundred thousand into renovations, and hung up their logo. In addition to the perimeter security system, the boys had installed bulletproof glass in all first-floor windows, and steel plating on every door
None of that mattered this morning. Like the gate, the clubhouse door stood wide open. Quickwater entered and I followed.
My first reaction was surprise at the lavish outfitting. If these guys needed to make bail or hire an attorney, all they had to do was hold an auction. The electronic equipment alone would have netted them F. Lee Bailey.
The house was built on multiple levels, with a metaJ staircase twisting up its core. We crossed a black-and-white-tiled hallway and started to climb. To my left I got a glimpse of a game room complete with pool and Foosball tables and a full-length bar. On the wall above the liquor collection a coiled snake with fleshless skull, fangs, and bulging eyeballs grinned down in orange neon. At the far end of the bar, a bank of video monitors provided sixteen views of the property on small black-and-white screens. The room also held a large television and a sound system that looked like a NASA control panel. A patrolman from the St-Basile PD nodded as we passed.
At the second level I noted a gym with at least half a dozen pieces of Nautilus equipment. Two weight benches and an assortment of free weights sat in front of a mirrored wall to the left. The Vipers were into body image.
On level three we crossed a living room done in late-millennium biker bilious. The carpet was deep red plush, and locked horns with the gold on the walls and the blue in the fabric of the oversized couches and love seats. The tables were brass and smoked glass, and held an assortment of snake sculptures. Wood, ceramic, stone, and metal serpents also lined the windowsills, and snarled from the top of the largest TV I'd ever seen.
The walls were decorated with posters, enlargements of snapshots taken at club soirees and runs. In shot after shot members flexed sweaty muscles, straddled cycles, or held up bottles and cans of been Most looked like they came from a point on the IQ curve that sloped low and very gently.
We wound our way past five bedrooms, a black marble bath with a sunken Jacuzzi and open glass shower the size of a squash court, and finally into a kitchen. There was a wall phone to my right, with an erasable message board bearing numbers, gibberish in alphabetic code, and the name of a local attorney.
To my left I noticed another staircase.
"What's up there?" I asked Quickwater.
No response.
A second uniform from St-Basile stood on the far side of the room. "It's another rec room," he said in English. "'With an outside deck and ten-person spa.
Two men sat at a wooden table framed by a small bay window, one disheveled, the other pressed and groomed to perfection.
I looked at Quickwater, who nodded. My heart sank.
Luc Claudel was the nameless unfortunate newly partnered with Quickwaten Great. Now I'd have to work with Beavis and ButtHead.
Claudel was speaking, now and then tapping a document that I assumed was the search warrant.
The man he was addressing looked less than pleased with his morning. He had fierce black eyes, a hooked nose that did a sharp left just below the hump, and more hair on his upper lip than a bull walrus. He scowled at his bare feet as he clenched and unclenched the hands that dangled between his knees.
Quickwater nodded at the walrus.
"The Neanderthal is Sylvain Bilodeau. Luc is explaining that we're here to do a little gardening."
Bilodeau glanced at Quickwater, then at me, his eyes hard and unsmiling, then refocused on opening and closing his fists. A tricolor serpent wound the length of his arm, and appeared to sway as the muscles tensed and eased. I suspected Quickwater's metaphor had done our Paleolithic cousins an injustice.
After a few more words Claudel stopped talking and Bilodeau shot to his feet. Though he couldn't have been over five foot three, he looked like a poster boy for steroids. For a moment he said nothing. Then, "This is shit, man. You can't just bust the fuck in here and start digging the place up." His French was so heavily accented with backcountry joual that I missed a lot of the words. But I definitely caught his drift.
Claudel rose and looked Bilodeau in the eye.
"That's exactly what this little piece of paper says we can do. And, as I explained, you've got two choices. You can show class and just sit tight like a good little boy, or we can haul you out of here in handcuffs and treat you to free accommodations for an indefinite period of time. It's your choice, Nose."
Claudel pronounced the nickname in a mocking tone. Good handle, I thought.
"What the fuck am I supposed to do?"
"You're going to reassure your friends that it's in the best interests of their continued good health not to drop by here today. Aside from that, your day is going to be leisurely. You'll do absolutely nothing. And Caporal Berringer is going to stay here to watch you do it."
"I'm just taking care of business here. Why the fuck do you have to show up this morning?"
Claudel reached out and clapped Nose on the shoulder "Life is timing, Nose."
Bilodeau shrugged free and stomped to the window.
"Fucking son of a bitch."
Claudel held up his hands in a "what can I do" gesture. "Maybe you've got bigger problems than we do, Nose. Guess the brothers won't be thrilled about you sleeping on watch."
Bilodeau crisscrossed the room, pacing like a caged animal. Then he stopped at the counter and pounded it with both fists.
"Fuck." His neck muscles bulged with rage and a vein throbbed like a tiny stream in the center of his forehead.
After a moment he turned, scanned from face to face, then pinned me with a look of Charles Manson intensity. He uncurled one fist and pointed a trembling finger in my direction.
"That motherfucking turncoat prick of yours better get it right the first time." His voice quivered with rage. "Because he's a walking dead man."
The turncoat prick in question had been waiting one hundred yards away in the backseat of an unmarked Jeep. As part of his plea bargain he'd agreed to take us to the grave site. However, nothing would persuade him to get out of the car until we were well clear of the house. He would be driven, or the deal was off.