Page 41

The bayou is active, but peaceful, with its cacophony of chirping, croaking, and grunting sounds over the distant hoot of an owl from the woods behind the boat. Leaves of surrounding cypress trees rattle with a light passing breeze, and only the lone light on the foredeck of my houseboat offers any illumination by which to see the shadows of where they’re perched like age-old sentinels in the surrounding water.

The wooden deckchairs creak as they rock gently back and forth, as if occupied by ghosts that greet me at the door. When I was young, living along the coast in a stilt shack, my mother would sit out on the deck at night, drinking her whiskey and bitters, while having a cigar. It was because of her that I developed a taste for the drink and learned how to balance just enough ice to liquor for a smooth flavor. For a hard, unyielding woman, she enjoyed her quiet moments, and sometimes I think she might be rocking in these chairs, staring out over the peaceful bayou.

I enter the door of the foredeck and get hit by a blast of cool sixty-eight degree air, where the open living space and helm stands empty. With dark blue walls and rich cherry-wood trim, brown leather furniture and hardwood floors, it’s as posh as any apartment in the city.

The ceiling converges into a skylight at the center of the room. A fifty-inch TV is mounted to the wall above an electric fireplace, all powered by both generator and solar panels that line the canopy of the top deck. Beyond the helm stands a fully equipped gourmet galley, which I’ve only used a handful of times, and I dump my bag onto the granite countertop, as I pass through towards a narrow hallway that breaks off into three separate rooms and a door that leads to a stairwell to the top deck, or the aft deck. One of these rooms I’ve turned into an office, and the other is something of a hobby room, where I keep all my fishing supplies and exercise equipment. The top deck has a jacuzzi and grill, but like everything else on the boat, I can’t say I get much use out of those, either. Time is something of a luxury in my line of work, and there never seems to be enough.

I make my way toward the third room, the master suite, which boasts a king-sized bed, walk-in closet, and bathroom, where I quickly undress.

The shower is an elaborate contraption, with three sets of knobs that control the three different showerheads. I set the one behind me to pulse, and step inside, allowing the cool water to rinse away the sweat. Wearing a suit inside the air-conditioned club is one thing. Having to wear it on the ride back to the houseboat is unbearable, with humid temperatures reaching almost ninety degrees.

I rest my forehead against the tiled wall and let the punishing force of the water massage away the ache in my muscles. A life of solitude isn’t necessarily one I chose, but it’s a life I’ve come to appreciate and accept. Though there are times I’ve fantasized what it would be like to walk through that door and find a woman warming my bed, those thoughts tend to be fleeting. Quickly followed by a bloody fucking massacre, the likes of which I’ve seen a few times. Entire families wiped out by the cartel in acts of revenge. Women always suffer the most, as punishment to whomever crossed their leader. It’s why I moved my own sister two hours away from me, to care for her at a distance. Because anything close to me risks the most vile destruction.

The worst I witnessed was four years ago, when Julio sent me to El Paso to retrieve a guy named Pedro Juarez, an ally to the Matamoros cartel. Pedro had come home to find his wife and two daughters brutally tortured and murdered by his enemies. The attackers had smeared their blood everywhere, and when I entered the house, there were few places I could step, or touch, without getting it on me. Balled up on the living room floor, his pregnant wife lay naked, hogtied, and cut open at the belly. The children had been dismembered, their limbs scattered around her in a way that seemed taunting. And the man I was sent to retrieve sat slumped over on a chair with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. They’d left him alive to find his family slaughtered, perhaps a punishment more tortuous than the mercy of death. Since then, every fantasy I’ve ever had about a woman has ended with that blood-soaked memory.

My head tends to be a fucked place, sometimes. As a result, the women I take to bed are nothing but a brief moment of detached and mindless sex. Nothing but a brutal rut to ensure that no feelings are involved. No cuddling, or coddling. No kissing.

No misconceptions.

Because no woman in her right mind would choose to be hogtied and butchered in an act of revenge by my enemies, and I’ve surely made enough of them over the course of the years.

13

Céleste

Having brushed away all of the debris into a pile, I lay my sleeping bag out onto the still-gritty hardwood floor of the would-be living room. Nine years isn’t really such a stretch of memory that I should forget having grown up in this place, and yet, I don’t recall much of this room. Could be that it’s so rundown and abused by vandalism, but aside from some vague recollections of Christmas and playing checkers on the floor, it’s all somewhat bland and almost cold. No laughter, or watching movies, with my father while eating TV dinners. Things I remember vividly from growing up with Russ.

There is no warmth here. No comfort.

This room is no different to a night sleeping in the shack, in the woods, with the propane heater running. Except here, there is no heater, only the battery-operated Coleman lantern that I bought at a hardware store back in Michigan.

Untucking the key from my shirt, I swipe up the lantern and wander toward the library. Before I even slip the key into the lock, I can tell the shape of it is different, confirmed by a tight nudge before I remove it. On to the next, I try the cabinet in the room, the closet, the credenza that now sits dilapidated against the wall. Nothing. I move onto the other rooms in the hallway, fumbling around with the key to no avail.

Nothing fits, and while attempting to try the key on the pantry in the kitchen, I nearly have a heart attack when it gets stuck for a second. Once loose, I stare down at the curious piece of metal in my hands, and shake my head. “What did you want me to find, Dad?” I whisper, and exhaling a resigned breath, I make my way toward the staircase.

Shadows cast by my lantern flicker on the wall of the second floor, the bright glow illuminating a passage from the Bible: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

How strange, the way religion winds itself around this crazy little island, like twisted vines that somehow creep into the most unexpected places. Even the strip club earlier today, once a church. And what about this particular house scares the locals so much? One article I read told of a woman who was arrested for showing up on the premises with a sledgehammer she claimed she brought for the walls, after months of hearing them speak to her. According to the article I read prior to coming here, voices told her to destroy the place.

At a tickle across my neck, I scratch and rub the sensation away. Chills coil around my spine. I don’t know what it is about this level of the house, why it affects me so profoundly. Physically.

I enter each of the rooms, testing the locks, just as I did on the first level. From one of the rooms in the left wing, I stare through the broken glass of a busted-out window, down onto the yard that’s now overgrown with weeds. Beyond it stands the dilapidated gates of the Charpentier Cemetery, and when I angle my lantern through the hole in the window, I can just make out the tops of elaborate headstones and stone angels scattered about the unkempt and timeworn graveyard. No one has been buried there since the last Charpentier, which, if I’m not mistaken, was back in the early forties, and it’s probably the most neglected part of the property.

A flicker of movement nearer to the house draws my attention toward a tall patch of grass, swaying as if something moves through it. I sweep the light closer and see something white, almost ghostly, within the cluster of narrow stalks. A step nearer, and I squint with my intense stare, gaze searching for a particular shape to its paleness.

That’s when I see eyes.

Red and glowing against the light. Evil.

“Minou, minou, I see you …”

Gasping at the voice inside my head, I jump back from the window.

The weeds rustle.

A white rabbit leaps out from the stalks onto a clearing of trampled dead grass, and I exhale a sigh. It rises up to its hind legs and nibbles at its paws, then lowers itself to graze. Scanning over the surrounding darkness of the trees and sky beyond, I frown again at the stark white of its fur. Seems strange that such a vulnerable creature would stick out so profoundly in a place like this, where so many predators lurk in the shadows. White rabbits seem more fitting for snow.

Nature is odd sometimes, though. Almost cruel, in a way.