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Fifteen minutes later she brought them fried slabs of catfish and hush puppies, wrapped up in old wanted posters. They read the greasy bills as they ate. "Wanted on Suspicion" seemed to be the most frequent crime, followed by theft and fraud.
When they were finished she added another oily wrap to their table. "Now that you're done, you can take Hoffy his dinner. Saves me the bother."
"I thought he was sleeping," Valentine said.
"I saw his tracking Grog up and around. Means he's up. The boathouse is at the end of the dock, just follow the ferry line. You can leave your weapons. No one's going to touch them. Shack rule."
Valentine picked up the still-warm bag and found the back door. What had been an extensive cypress patio now looked like a piece of modern art made of bird droppings. An assortment of canoes and motorized rowboats lined the bank of the inlet protected by the finger of land.
"And outhouses hanging over the river. Nice," Duvalier observed, looking at the shacks at the end of the deck.
"Could be worse. Could be upstream," Valentine said.
They walked down the dock, boots clomping more loudly than usual on the planking. If anyone wanted to sneak up on Price, they'd have to do it in a canoe.
A raft ferry built out of an old twenty-five-foot pontoon craft was attached to lines stretching to a piling in the center of the river. Another set of lines linked it to the other side. Valentine saw a turned-over rowboat there. Some kind of sign stood over the rowboat, but it was too far away to read, even with the binoculars.
Two great wet hands rose out of the river near the boat shack. A Grog, the simple gray variety distantly related to Ahn-Kha, climbed out. It was a female. She rapped something against the dock and then stuck it in her mouth. As she chewed she watched them approach.
"Hello," Valentine said.
The Grog hurriedly whipped a second crayfish against the dock, then dropped it in her mouth. She chewed and looked at them as if to say "you're not getting it now, flatface."
She let them pass to the door, which sat crookedly on its hinges. Valentine knocked. "Mr. Price?"
God, something smells terrible. Is that the Grog?
"Yeah," a clear tenor voice answered.
"My name's David. Greta gave me your lunch. Can I have a word ?"
"Door's not locked, son."
Valentine opened the door to the little shack, got a good view of river through the open door, saw a tied-up canoe-
-and was hit by a wave of odor that almost brought him to his knees. It was BO, but of an intensity he'd never experienced before.
He saw a man standing at a workbench, a disassembled Kalashnikov spread out on an oil-smeared towel. Smoke rose from a short pipe with a whittled bowl.
Duvalier stepped in behind. "Oh, Jesus," she gasped. She backed out and Valentine heard retching. Her stomach had never been the strongest-
The filthiest man Valentine had ever seen stepped away from the bench. Hairy shoulders, black with dirt, protruded from mud-stained overalls that seemed clean by comparison. Two bright eyes stared out of a crud-dark face.
Dumbstruck by the man's hygiene pathology, Valentine could only stand and attempt to forget he had a nose.
"I always enjoy the reaction," Hoffman Price said, putting down the pipe. Valentine tried to fixate on the faint odor of the tobacco, but failed. Price smiled. His teeth were a little yellow, but clean and fairly even. Valentine tried breathing through his mouth. "Greta used to call me 'breathtaking.' "
Valentine counted blood-gorged ticks dangling from the region about Price's armpits and ears and stopped after six. "Everready sent me. From the Yazoo."
"How is that old backshooter?"
"Same as always," Valentine said, not sure if he'd be able to make it across the river, let alone across two states, with this stench.
"Haven't seen him in . . . it's three year now. You looking for someone?"
The Grog hooted outside, and Valentine heard Duvalier say, "No, thanks. I like them cooked."
"Just a guide," Valentine said.
