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“You asked if I wanted to talk to Helen Soileau,” I said to Pierre.
“I insist that you do,” he said. “Maybe you’ll finally understand how self-deluded you are and how minuscule your importance is. However, I don’t know if you’ll be up to the shock. What do you think?”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“You’re uneducable, Mr. Robicheaux,” he said.
“This isn’t necessary, Pierre,” Varina said.
“Stop hectoring the man and let him have a little fun,” Alexis said.
“Excuse me for saying this, Alexis, but I hate both of you,” she said. “When this is over, I’m going to—”
“What?” Alexis asked.
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “Look at it this way. How much longer do you have to live? Think of me having a glass of champagne at your graveside. Think of me living in this house. Your grandson is incompetent and can’t run a business by himself or paint his way out of a paper bag. How long do you think it will be before I own everything in your possession?”
“The only woman I’ve ever known like you was Ilse Koch,” Alexis said.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“The Bitch of Buchenwald, you silly girl,” he replied.
“What did you mean about Helen?” I said to Pierre.
He removed a remote control from his coat pocket and clicked a button several times. There was a bank of television monitors at the top of the wall by the entrance, most of them showing the grounds and the bayou and the two-lane highway in front of the plantation. The image on one of them changed to a scene inside a kitchen.
“That place you’re looking at, Mr. Robicheaux, is just beyond Tee Jolie’s bedroom,” Pierre said. “The figure on the floor is Helen Soileau. She’s quite unconscious right now, and I don’t think she can feel very much pain. I also doubt that she’s aware of her surroundings, so don’t be too alarmed by what you’re about to watch.”
“What did you do to her?” I asked.
“She was chloroformed, that’s all,” he replied. He took a small walkie-talkie from his pocket and pushed a button and spoke into it. “Put her inside, fellows.” Then he turned to me. “Watch now. You should enjoy this, since I suspect she’s a pain in the ass to work for. It’s oopsy-daisy time for the lady from Lesbos.”
Helen was bound hand and foot and lying on her side, and I couldn’t see her face. Two men walked in front of the camera and lifted her into the air and opened the top of a deep-freeze chest and set her inside. One of them looked back at the camera, then shut the lid.
“I give her about fifteen minutes,” Pierre said. “How much did you tell her about us, Mr. Robicheaux?”
“She never believed what I said about you,” I replied. “No one will. You’re killing people for no reason.”
“It’s getting late,” Alexis said. “Start with the girls, Mickey. Be fast about it, too. I’m tired.”
“I want to do the one called Gretchen,” the fleshy man said.
“Oh, that’s right, Harold, she broke out your front teeth, didn’t she?” Alexis said. “By all means.”
“Look, you guys, it’s obvious you make use of people inside the system,” Clete said. “That’s me and Dave. Maybe we can work something out. Look at our record. I don’t know how many guys we’ve cowboyed. You don’t believe me, check my jacket.”
“You’re not in a seller’s market, Mr. Purcel,” Alexis said.
“Dave already said it,” Clete replied. “What’s the percentage in snuffing people nobody believes?”
“And Sheriff Soileau?” Alexis said, an amused gleam in his eye.
“That’s the breaks, I guess,” Clete said.
“I knew others like you,” Alexis said. “When we locked them inside the showers, we told them we were creating a special dispensation for those who could prove their mettle. They beat and strangled one another while we watched through a peephole, and after a few minutes we dropped the gas containers through the air vents in the roof.”
“Shut up and get this over with,” Varina said.
