The Rebel's Revenge Read online

  The highway thinned out to an arrow-straight blacktop that carried him between fields and tracts of swampland and forest, past rambling farmsteads and abandoned gas stations and along the banks of a bayou with a waterside shanty restaurant signposted Mickey’s Crawfish Cabin – come inside! Ben hadn’t eaten a bite since his early breakfast with Jude and Rae in Chicago. However hungry he might be feeling, the delights of Mickey’s Crawfish Cabin were something he could live without. The roadside banner advertising FRESH COON MEAT, ½ MILE didn’t do much for him, either.

  At last, a sign flashed by: ENTER CLOVIS PARISH, as though it were a command. A few miles later, the Villeneuve town limits appeared ahead, and Ben had reached his destination.

  The afternoon had turned even sultrier, a threat of rain from the darker clouds drifting on the hot breeze. Ben had a room booked at the only Villeneuve hotel he’d been able to find online, called the Bayou Inn, which happened to be just a short stroll from the Civic Center where the Woody McCoy Quintet would walk on stage the night after next.

  The directions he’d been given took him on a tour of the town. Villeneuve’s more affluent neighbourhoods were gathered on the south side, with ancient oak trees laden with Spanish moss, and old white wood colonial homes with all-around verandas. A mile north was the town square, featuring a pretty little parish courthouse with Georgian columns and a clock tower. The street was lined with a hardware store, a grocery market, a gun shop called Stonewall’s that had a Confederate flag displayed in the window, a pharmacy, a gas station and a bar and grill with a sign that said CAJUN STEAKHOUSE and seemed a lot more appetising than fresh coon meat or Mickey’s crawfish.

  Off the square were narrower residential streets shaded by elm trees and lined with small clapboard shotgun houses, some well tended, others rundown with beaten-up old cars and rust-streaked propane tanks in their front yards, along with the obligatory chicken netting and tethered dogs prostrated by the heat. Every house had a mesh screen door to ward off insects, and sat up off the ground on brick pillars to protect against flood waters, with several steps up to the front entrance.

  Ben found the Bayou Inn after a bit of searching, and checked in. The small hotel was owned and run by an older couple called Jerry and Mary-Lou Mouton. They greeted him with welcoming smiles and a ‘How y’all doin’? Travellin’ kinda light, aintcha?’

  Which was true enough, out of long-established habit. His green canvas army haversack was a recent acquisition, to replace its predecessor which had been blown up inside a car in Russia. Another had been lost in a tsunami in Indonesia. He went through bags a lot. This one contained his usual light travelling kit – black jeans, a spare denim shirt and underwear, and a few assorted odds like his mini-Maglite and compass. When he got to his first-floor room he flung the bag carelessly on the bed.

  The room was small and simple and basic, which was how he liked things to be. A tall window opened out onto a tiny balcony, where he pensively smoked a cigarette while gazing down at the quiet street below.

  After a shower, Ben dug out his expensive smartphone with the intention of sending a couple of text messages to people back home, only to find that the damn thing had died on him. Terminal. Kaput. He’d had it a week. The joys of technology. He trotted downstairs and asked Mary-Lou where he might be able to buy another one, and she told him about a little store down the street that she thought might be able to help.

  As it turned out, the only phones the store had were of the cheap, prepaid ‘burner’ variety. No names, no contracts, no frills. That suited Ben fine, and the untraceable anonymity of such a device appealed to the rebellious streak in him that objected to government surveillance agencies prying into the personal affairs of innocent citizens. The burner even had decent web access. He shelled out two ten-dollar bills for the phone itself, two more for credits, and was back in business.

  By now it was early evening and Ben’s hunger was sharpened to the point where he couldn’t ignore it any longer. Remembering the Cajun Steakhouse he’d passed earlier, he set off at a leisurely pace in the direction of Villeneuve town square. The Moutons had given him a front door key to let himself in with, so he was free to take all the time he wanted and return as late as he pleased.

  It felt strange to be so relaxed and at a loose end. He could get used to it, maybe, with a little practice.

  The Cajun Steakhouse offered a baffling range of local fare like filé gumbo, eggs with shrimp and grits, Creole jambalaya and something called Louisiana-style crawfish boil. Ben decided to play it safe and ordered a T-bone with fries and a Dixie beer.

  ‘You jes’ sit tight, handsome, and I’ll bring you the best steak you ever tasted in your life,’ promised his teased-blond hostess called Destiny, who kept flashing eyes at him. But she probably treated every tall, fair-haired stranger who walked into the bar and grill just the same way.

  Destiny’s promise was no empty claim. The T-bone was the biggest and most delicious he’d ever had, thick and succulent. After two more Dixie beers, Ben was definitely feeling at home. So much so, that he suddenly had a hankering for a glass of good malt scotch, the kind he’d occasionally – or more than occasionally – enjoy during quiet evenings at Le Val, sometimes over a game of chess with Jeff, or in front of the fire with his German shepherd dog, Storm, curled at his feet. At the bar, he asked Destiny what she had, and with an alluring smile she produced a bottle.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. It was the colour of stewed tea.

  ‘This here is Louisiana Whiskey, hon. Or else, we got Riz.’

  ‘Riz?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Made from rice.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘Not exactly what I had in mind.’

  ‘How about rum?’ Destiny suggested. ‘Folks round here drink a lot of rum. But you ain’t from around here, are you, sugah?’

  ‘Is it really that obvious?’

  Ben settled for a tot of local rum, which was probably made at one of the cane distilleries he’d passed on the drive up from New Orleans. It wasn’t single malt scotch, but he was in a forgiving mood, and the Cajun Steakhouse was definitely growing on him. He spent the whole evening there, watching the place fill up with local colour and listening to the diet of rock and country music that streamed constantly from the jukebox. He might even get used to that, too.

  Two more tots of rum, and he sat thinking about Jude, about life, about a lot of stuff. Such as his hesitant, awkward relationship with a woman called Sandrine Lacombe, who was a doctor at the hospital in Cherbourg a few kilometres from Le Val. Ben was drawn to her, and she to him, but it was as though neither of them could bring themselves to take the plunge. Like one of the stalemates that so many of his chess matches with Jeff ended in.

  The truth was that, however much they liked each other, Ben was never going to be the love of Sandrine’s life, nor she of his. No, he’d already had that, and lost it, and there was seldom a day when he didn’t reflect on it with regret and guilt.

  It was late when Ben finally left the bar and grill. He went walking through the warmth of the night, a little cooler and less sultry and far more pleasant. The stars were twinkling in an ink-black sky and the scent of magnolia trees was in the air. The streets of Villeneuve were quiet and peaceful. He didn’t feel like returning to the hotel just yet.

  And that, as he strolled around exploring the small town, was when Ben spotted the lit-up store front with the sign above the door that said ELMO’S LIQUOR LOCKER, and decided to take a look inside. Just in case. You never knew what you might find.

  Nine minutes to midnight.

  Chapter 4

  Of all the late-night liquor stores in all the sleepy little towns of rural Louisiana, he’d had to walk into the one where a couple of morons were intent on sticking the place up. And on all the nights the pair of armed robbers could have chosen to do the deed, they had to pick the very moment when someone like Ben Hope was lurking just around the corner, fifteen feet away out of sight in the far aisle behind a stack of Dixie beer.


  It had to be fate.

  On the count of three, Ben stepped out where they could see him, and said, ‘Hello, boys.’

  Ben was still clutching the bottle of Laphroaig Quarter Cask that he’d been about to carry over to the counter to buy. But at this moment, in his mind it ceased to be a vessel for seventy-five centilitres of one of the most venerable liquids ever crafted by human artistry, and became a usefully hefty club-shaped weapon weighing in at just under three pounds, perfectly balanced to inflict all kinds of damage to the human body. Ben’s mind often worked that way, especially at times like these. In the instant it took for the two robbers to lock eyes on the unexpected newcomer, before they could even begin to react, his brain was already calculating factors of distance, velocity, spin and drop.

  Most important of all, though, was picking the right target to aim for. The big guy might have been just a trigger pull of a sawn-off shotgun away from blowing the storekeeper’s heart and lungs out his back, but Ben made him for the slower mover. If the big guy was a bear, then his partner in crime was a fox, nervier, whippier and more twitchy, hence more potentially volatile. Though he stood a couple of steps further away on the other side of the counter where he’d been rifling through the cash register, and thus presented a more distant target, Ben knew the foxy guy posed the greater immediate threat and needed taking down as a matter of priority.

  True to Ben’s prediction, the foxy guy moved first. His lean right hand, marked by a faded blue star tattoo on the web between forefinger and thumb, let go of the bunch of mixed-denomination dollar bills he’d yanked from the cash register. The money fell like confetti as his hand dived down to close on the butt of the cocked revolver protruding from the front of his jeans.

  By then, the whisky bottle was already in the air. It completed a full 360-degree spin from leaving Ben’s hand to flying past the storekeeper’s nose, over the counter and impacting the foxy guy smack in the middle of the forehead with its heavy glass bottom.

  Being no kind of a physicist, Ben was dimly aware that the force of a thrown object was based on some complex formula involving vectors of mass and velocity, acceleration and momentum. Newton’s Second Law, if he remembered rightly. But however it measured up in scientific terms, it was plenty forceful enough to have a significant effect on its target.

  And yet, it wasn’t so much the high-speed collision between a full bottle of whisky and his cranial frontal bone that would forever change the foxy guy’s life. It was the reflex nerve contraction that ran through his whole body at the moment of impact and caused his index finger to jerk against the trigger of his .357 Magnum while still tucked pointing vertically downwards inside the front of his jeans.

  With the hammer cocked, the average Smith & Wesson revolver carries a very light trigger pull. A mere three or four pounds, requiring just a flick of a finger to release the hammer and drop the firing pin against the primer of a waiting cartridge. Which was exactly what happened within the confines of the foxy guy’s trousers at the exact moment the bottle whacked him in the forehead and knocked him sprawling backwards off his feet.

  The blast of the gunshot, even somewhat dampened by a layer of denim, was grenade-loud inside the store. Almost as ear-piercing was the shriek of agony that followed as the foxy guy realised that he’d inflicted some terrible damage to himself down there.

  To the sound of his buddy’s ululating wail, the big guy finally moved. He shoved the old storekeeper away hard and swivelled the shotgun one-handed towards Ben. The calm smile on his big moon face had creased up into a bared-teeth sneer of fury and hate. The twin muzzles of the shotgun pointed Ben’s way.

  But just as suddenly, they were pointing straight up towards the ceiling as Ben closed in on him and diverted the weapon with a flying high kick to the big guy’s right forearm that dislocated his wrist tendon and sent the gun tumbling out of his grip. It fell to the linoleum floor with a thud, unfired. By the time it had landed, Ben had got the big guy’s dislocated wrist trapped in a merciless Aikido joint lock. One that was so painful and debilitating, it didn’t matter how big or strong you were; you were going down.

  The big guy was on his knees in moments, helpless, head bowed, gasping. Keeping hold of the arm and wrist, Ben kicked him in the throat. Hard enough to knock the rest of the wind out of him without doing any permanent damage. The big guy toppled to the floor with a crash that made the cans and bottles on the store shelves wobble and clink.

  The other moron was lying on his back a few feet away behind the counter, squealing like a pig and clutching his injured groin, far too preoccupied to think about reaching for the revolver that had spilled out of the waistband of his blood-soaked trousers. The barrel and cylinder of the gun were spattered bright red, and there was a lot more of it pooling on the floor. There was a perfectly circular weal the size of a bottle base imprinted on his forehead.

  Ben let go of the big fellow and stepped around the counter to slide the fallen revolver away with his foot. Looking down at all the mess and blood, he saw the shattered remains of the Laphroaig Quarter Cask and shook his head in sorrow. What a waste. Why couldn’t he have lobbed a six-pack of Dixie beer at the guy instead?

  But there was no use crying over it. It was the idiot on the floor who had much more to cry about. Ben eyed the gory spectacle of his crotch and said, ‘Looks like you emasculated yourself, pal. You’ll be singing mezzo soprano in the parish choir from now on. Maybe that’ll teach you. Then again, I doubt it.’

  He turned to look at the storekeeper. The old guy was cowering against the counter, boggling from under a protectively raised arm as though he thought Ben was going to hit him next. So much for gratitude.

  There was a phone with a curly plastic cord attached to the wall behind the counter. Ben pointed at it. ‘I’m guessing the Sheriff’s Office is only open nine till five, but there must be a number for the local dispatch centre. Call it. You’d best get them to send a couple of ambulances, too.’

  The old man relaxed a little as he realised he wasn’t about to become Ben’s next victim after all. He lowered his arm and gaped down at the prostrated form of the big guy on the floor, then peered over the counter at the other one still yowling and thrashing in a slick of his own blood.

  ‘Holy shit, mister. I never seen nuthin’ like it. You went through those two boys like a goddamn hurricane.’ Motioning at the big guy, he added, ‘That there’s Billy Bob Lafleur. He’s one evil sumbitch, not right in the head if you get what I’m sayin’. Knowed his mother, way back. She was crazy too. This other fella, he must be from outta town. Jumpin’ Jesus, look what he done. Plain shot off his own balls.’

  You could hardly hear yourself think in the place for all the racket. Ben stepped back over to the castrated would-be robber and knocked him out with a quick kick to the temple. Silence at last. He pointed again at the phone. ‘Make the call and let’s get it over and done with. Then I’d like a replacement bottle of whisky to take back to my hotel.’

  ‘I ain’t got no more of those, sonny. You just broke the last one.’

  ‘Then I suppose I’ll have to settle for a Glenmorangie instead,’ Ben replied.

  ‘It’s on the house,’ the old man said. ‘Least I can do for a feller who just saved my life.’ He stuck out a wizened hand. ‘Name’s Elmo. Elmo Gillis. Owned this store since ’seventy-two and never had no trouble until these two dipshits showed up.’

  Ben took his hand with a smile. ‘I’m Ben. I appreciate the kindness, Elmo. But I’m happy to pay for it, and the broken one too.’

  Elmo made the phone call. Ben rested against the counter and lit up a Gauloise, savouring the peace while it lasted, and not much relishing the prospect of having to deal with the cops. For some reason, he and law enforcement officials seldom seemed to gel.

  It wasn’t very long before they heard the whoop of sirens, and the street outside became painted with whirling blue light as a pair of identical Crown Victoria police patrol cruisers with CLOVIS PARISH SHERI
FF’S DEPARTMENT emblazoned on their doors came screeching up at the kerbside.

  ‘That’s Sheriff Roque,’ Elmo said, pointing through the store window at the car in front. ‘Meaner’n a wet panther, that one.’

  ‘Bad cop?’ Ben asked him.

  ‘Hell, no. Ol’ Waylon is the best sheriff we ever had.’

  From the lead car emerged a large, raw-boned officer in a tan uniform and a broad campaign hat jammed at an angle onto his greying head. His face looked about as soft and good-humoured as a mountain crag in winter. Joined by a pair of deputies from the cruiser behind, he pushed inside the liquor store and halted near the doorway, surveying the scene with gnarled fists balled on his hips.

  And now Ben’s evening was about to get started in earnest.

  Chapter 5

  The sheriff glanced around him. His eyes were pale and hooded, and threw out a flat cop stare that landed first on the prone shape of Billy Bob Lafleur, then on his unconscious partner in crime, and finally on Ben, scrutinising him carefully.

  Ben noticed that in place of his regular service gunbelt and sidearm, Roque wore a fancy buscadero cowboy rig with an old-style Colt revolver nestling snugly in its holster. The floral pattern tooled leather went well with his boots, which were definitely non-issue as well. Deviations from the standard uniform evidently didn’t matter too much down here.

  Without taking the stare off Ben the sheriff asked, ‘What the hell happened here, Elmo?’ He spoke loud and slow, as if measuring every word. Which might have been partly to make himself heard by Elmo, knowing the old guy was hard of hearing. Ben guessed that in a small community like this one, everyone knew everyone else, their secrets, their problems, their history.