The Marauders (19 page)

For a few days Lindquist gave the twins’ island wide berth, but then one night without the kid he ventured southeast toward their part of the bayou. The brothers followed his avocado-green shrimp boat from a distance, their lights off and their motor at half speed.

When Lindquist anchored, the brothers anchored too. Reginald watched through the binoculars as Lindquist lowered the pirogue from the shrimp boat and oared toward the little chenier, an isolated figure in the dim orange glow of his Coleman lantern. After a while he shored his boat and hauled out his machine and began to swing the metal-detector coil back and forth along the tideline. Every now and then he set the machine on the ground and dug a hole with the shovel-scoop. Prodded through the overturned dirt with the tip of his boot.

Reginald saw that Lindquist wore camouflage cargo pants, army surplus. A hooked prosthetic arm. And he kept taking something out of his pocket and fiddling with it, popping peppermints or gum into his mouth.

The guy was persistent, Reginald had to give him that. And thorough. A warning or two wasn’t going to ward him off. Maybe not even a gunshot. Something more persuasive was required.

Not murder, not yet. That was an absolute last resort. Besides, the swamp already held too many of their secrets. If one was discovered, others were likely to follow. One mistake begot another, one suspicion led to the next. While the swamp had always proved their greatest alibi and accomplice, it would hold only so many bodies before they started washing up bone by bone.

The present body count was up to three, all belonging to overambitious and undertalented loudmouths who’d tried to poach on their marijuana trade. None of them heeded the Toup brothers’ warnings and ended up dead, secreted in the farthest reaches of the bayou, sunk into the mud and murk with stones in their pockets, one with his throat slit ear to ear, two with bullets through their hearts.

Lonny Brewbaker, a redoubtable ne’er-do-well, owed the Toup brothers five hundred dollars for drugs. Money they’d likely never see, but they let him accrue the debt nonetheless, knowing that sooner or later he’d have to make good with a favor instead. One night Victor called Brewbaker to collect this due, said he needed the biggest live alligator he could find, never mind for what.

Brewbaker told Victor to give him a day.

Next night the Toup brothers went to Brewbaker’s, a rust-ruined doublewide with a briar-choked yard and a Scotch-plaid sofa on the porch. Victor pounded on the door and Reginald stood behind him as June bugs thumped against the bug zapper.

A bent-backed man with sunken cheeks answered the door. He had on Bermuda shorts and a New Orleans Saints Drew Brees jersey and fluorescent orange Crocs. He jutted his chin in greeting and hobbled down the steps.

The twins followed Brewbaker to the backyard. Under an enormous oak tree was a chain-link cage, inside it a crouching alligator six or seven feet long. Brewbaker took the flashlight out of his pocket and shined it into the fencing. The alligator’s eyes caught the light and flared like rubies. Its snout was muzzled with duct tape.

“Look at the size of this thing,” Reginald said.

“Fuck you pull this off?” Victor asked Brewbaker.

“Shit,” Brewbaker said. He set the flashlight on the ground, angling the beam so it shined into the cage.

“This might be extreme,” Reginald said.

Hands on hips, Brewbaker hesitated. Maybe hoping the brothers would call off whatever crazy scheme they had planned.

“Extreme, shit,” Victor said.

“Let’s just get this fuckin’ thing in the truck,” Reginald said.

Brewbaker unlatched the gate and swung it open and stepped inside. The alligator hissed and backed up in the corner. Reginald and Victor
stepped into the cage with Brewbaker and the men moved toward the alligator in a wide-kneed crouch like Sumo wrestlers. Brewbaker lunged and got the alligator into a headlock and then Victor closed in, wrapping his arms around the tail. Reginald joined the fray, bear-hugging the middle.

“Hold on,” Brewbaker said. “Holy shit, hold on.”

They sidestepped out of the cage, slip-sliding in mud, clinging onto the alligator, its three hundred pounds of thrashing muscle. They went through the side yard toward Brewbaker’s truck.

Twenty minutes later, the alligator in the cab, they sat inside Brewbaker’s truck, reeking of mud and reptile piss. Their clothes and faces were filthy, and in the dim glow of the dome light the whites of their eyes looked crazed.

Brewbaker laughed, then the twins.

“Now what?” Brewbaker said.

“Drive,” Victor said. “We’ll tell you.”

At Lindquist’s house Reginald and Brewbaker waited in the truck while Victor stepped onto the porch and pressed the doorbell. He glanced at his watch, then over his shoulder. After a minute he took out his snake-rake pick and jimmied the lock and stepped inside and turned on a light. Then Victor came back outside and gave them a thumbs-up.

The men hauled the alligator into the house and down the hall into the master bedroom, where they pinned it to the floor. Brewbaker gripped the alligator’s neck while Victor took out a pocketknife and sliced off the duct tape. Then the men leapt away from the alligator as if from a bomb, scrambling out of the room, Victor switching off the light and slamming the door.

In the hallway the three of them listened. Soon came the
thunk, thunk, thunk
of the alligator’s tail against the walls. The scrabbling of its claws.

Brewbaker grinned and shook his head. Then the twins grinned and soon they were all laughing.

Brewbaker said, “We even?”

Again Lindquist visited Trader John’s with his purple velvet Crown Royal bag full of cheap jewelry, the dregs of his emergency cache. He was bleary-eyed and stubble-faced, his fatigues dirt-caked at the knees. He saw three other men at the counter, local trawlers he recognized, and his eyes bugged. Then he noticed the men’s eyes on the bag in his hand and figured his jig was up. Reluctantly he went to the counter.

“How you, fellas,” he said.

“There he is,” said one of the men. “Blackbeard the pirate.” This was Michael Franklin, a little pigeon-chested guy who always reminded Lindquist of a lawn jockey.

Lindquist shifted his weight and breathed an uneasy half-laugh through his teeth. For a moment the only sound was the bubbling bait wells, the electric hum of the drink coolers. The other two men, Jarred and Ricky, watched Lindquist, eyes simmering with menace.

“What you got today, Lindquist?” Mrs. Theriot asked.

Lindquist put the bag on the counter, kept his hand protectively on top.

“Sell any of that stuff?” he asked.

“About that,” the old woman said. “Somebody came in claiming the watch. Garret? The pastor?”

Lindquist watched her, chewing air. Was there one person on earth not trying to fuck the next sideways?

“Would’ve called you,” the woman said, crossing her arms over her chest, her billowy pineapple shirt, “but didn’t have any number. And I figured you’d make the same decision I did. A pastor, probably honest.”

“Well, hell. He have any proof?”

She gave Lindquist a look: proof?

“A receipt?” asked Lindquist. “Anything?”

“What, you got to carry around a license for a watch now?” Jarred said. “Greencard if it’s foreign?”

“He didn’t have any receipt,” Mrs. Theriot told Lindquist. “He pretty much just looked at the thing and made this face and went, ‘Hey, that’s my watch.’ His face, I just knew.”

Lindquist’s eyes roved the merchandise in the glass case. “How about that ring?” he said.

“You know Tracy Bascombe?”

Lindquist pulled at his chin.

“Tracy Bascombe, George’s kid?”

Lindquist waited.

“Married that Marshall boy still in Afghanistan? Organized all that sandbagging stuff?”

“Million rings in the world look like that,” Lindquist said.

“That’s true. But before she even touched the ring she told me to check if there was one of those little inscriptions written inside. You know how people do with the dates and all? No way she could have seen it from where she was.”

Lindquist looked away and stared at the hotdog rotisserie. Behind the grease-scummed glass the desiccated sausages turned lazily on their spits.

“Where you finding this shit, Lindquist?” Michael asked. “You breaking into people’s houses?”

Lindquist ignored him. “Did anything sell?” he asked. “Any damned thing that wasn’t claimed?”

“That pocket watch,” Mrs. Theriot said.

“How much.”

“Five dollars.”

“Five dollars?”

“I’m going to tell you something, Lindquist,” Jarred said.

Lindquist’s eyes settled hard on Jarred.

“People don’t care none for you digging up their shit and trying to sell it.”

“Listen. That’s bull. I’m just looking for stuff. What I find it’s on land that don’t belong to nobody. Nobody that ain’t a corporation.”

All eyes were on him.

Lindquist’s face twisted. “And it just so happens to be theirs? Well, hell. Then there’s got to be a statute of limitations.”

“A what,” Jarred said.

Lindquist hesitated. Said, “Look, pretty much everything belonged to someone else at some point, didn’t it?”

The men traded glances.

“You want to show us what you got today, Lindquist?” Mrs. Theriot asked.

“Got to admit, I’m curious,” Michael said. He looked at the others.

“I’m curious,” Ricky said.

“Damn right you’re curious,” Jarred said.

Lindquist upturned the bag and spread the loot deftly, like a flimflam artist performing a shell trick. Then he looked up with a tight poker face. Or what he thought was one.

“Look at all that,” Michael said. “Gotta take me up this metal detecting shit.”

This time Lindquist’s pile was even bigger than before. Most of the pieces were crudded with dirt, but a few gave off a newish gleam.

“Goddamn,” Michael said, “my class ring.”

He reached into the pile and snatched the ring away before Lindquist could make a move.

“Bull,” Lindquist said, grabbing air.

Michael took a step back with the ring clutched in his fist. “I’m telling you. Popped my cherry wearing this ring.”

Jarred reached into the pile and plucked something out and Lindquist whirled. Jarred drew back and turned and held the jewelry piece to the light. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “My grandmother’s locket.”

“Bull,” Lindquist said.

“Everybody hold on,” Mrs. Theriot said.

Then Ricky snatched something out of the pile, a gold necklace with a dewdrop pearl pendant, and scuttled sideways. “I swear on Holy Christ this is my wife’s. Where’d you find this, Lindquist?”

Jaw agape, Lindquist looked around at the men. Before anyone could take more he scooped up the remaining trinkets and shoved them back into the bag.

“I want proof,” Lindquist said.

“I’ll prove it,” Jarred said. “With my boot to the back of your fuckin’ head.”

“Hey,” Mrs. Theriot said. “None of that in my place now.”

Lindquist glimpsed something in the glass display that made him pause and furrow his brow. A thin gold necklace with a heart pendant. “Where’d you get that?” he asked Mrs. Theriot. “The one with the heart?”

“Why?” Jarred said. “You gonna say that’s yours now? That you lost your little heart necklace?”

The men chuckled.

“If you’re gonna keep that stuff you stole from me, I want compensation,” Lindquist said.

“Compensation? Matlock all of a fuckin’ sudden.”

“A finder’s fee,” Lindquist said.

“You ain’t getting goose shit.”

“Screw ya’ll,” Lindquist said.

“Lindquist,” Mrs. Theriot said, but Lindquist had already turned and was stalking toward the door.

Once outside he jeered through the glass and shot out his middle finger. He let loose a wild spate of obscenities and saw the men laughing
through the glass, the old woman chiding them with a wigwagging finger.

In a pill-and-beer stupor Lindquist got home late from Sully’s bar, stumbling out of his clothes in the hallway, tossing them willy-nilly about. In the dark room on the way to the bed, he tripped over something large and heavy and went flying face-first into the carpet. For a moment he lay stunned and spread-eagled on the floor, wondering if he’d had a stroke. Yes, he was fucked up on pills. Yes, he’d had a little too much to drink. But Lindquist prided himself as a man who knew where his own goddamn furniture was.