Chapter Forty-Seven

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Chapter Forty-Seven

Monday

Baton Rouge, LA

Randy sat in the back of a sedan en route to Baton Rouge Municipal airport where his chopper was waiting. The car abruptly slowed to a crawl and Randy observed a line of cars in the fast lane with their hazard lights blinking—a funeral procession.

The lead car was a hearse decorated with vibrant red roses. He groaned. Randy never wanted to see a rose again.

A large black bird landed on the back of the hearse. A phrase came to his mind:

Crows are the carriers of the dead.

The bird shook and flew off to Randy’s delight. He popped two Advil. He’d given himself a headache trying to get back those precious minutes between seeing the ruffian (Kristopher...it was Kristopher!) in the rose garden and waking up in front of Huey P. Long’s tomb.

Okay, say it was Kristopher. What now? Am I supposed to believe that my dead son came back from the grave to kill me?

Maybe it wasn’t to kill him, though. Maybe it had been a warning.

He came to warn me about Karen.

The driver maneuvered around the caravan and put them back on a crash course for the airport.

Randy was desperate for an update on Karen’s whereabouts, but his cell phone was in pieces on the floor of the Observation Deck and the car phone would not afford him with a secure line. Any imbecile could trace the call and that would be no good…no good at all.

And what to do about Snake?

If Snake was dumb enough to show up at the Lafitte mansion, he was a dead man. Randy pictured himself strangling Snake to death with a piece of chicken wire. Yes. Tonight his hands would get plenty bloody.

But first, Randy would take the relatively short helicopter flight back to Lake City so he could be there when they found Karen. He wanted to be the first face his daughter saw. He blocked any morbid thoughts of warnings from beyond the grave with a lucid vision of their reunion.

“We’re here, sir.”

He blinked and his daughter’s face vanished, replaced by the dark leather interior of the vehicle. Randy looked around the car as if seeing it for the first time.

The driver stared at him in the rearview mirror.

Randy wanted to crawl into a hole and die. He shuddered as he recalled the way Kristopher had looked at him with those bloody eye sockets. Though the helicopter was waiting, he had no desire whatsoever to get out of the car.

What if he’s out there?

Instead of moving or giving the driver further direction, Randy sat and watched the helicopter blades rotate. He had flown by chopper hundreds, maybe thousands of times without a problem, but today each helicopter blade was a razor sharp guillotine waiting to chop his head off.

“Sir?”

“Yes, of course, Joel. I’m ready.”

Joel opened his door. Randy’s eyes watered as a whippet of wind slapped him in the face. He rocked on his feet.

Joel grabbed his arm to steady him and asked if he was okay. Each word seemed to come in slow motion, barely audible though Joel was yelling in his ear.

Randy blinked his heavy eyelids and continued watching the blades. The rotating motion was so…hypnotic. Just when he thought he was going to pass out, the scene before him shifted.

“This is one election you can’t steal.”

The words echoed in his mind as he stared down at Juanita Simmons lying unconscious before him.

He was inside an official-looking space he knew very well—the Lake City Father’s Office. Randy shook his head to clear the fog and felt the weight of the telephone in his hand. He’d just knocked Juanita out with it. Her husband, Walter, struggled mightily in the closet, trying to free himself.

Randy didn’t have much time. He shut the closet, cutting off Walter Simmons’ protests, and dragged Juanita over to his desk. After handcuffing one of her arms to the desk, he inspected the rest of his handiwork.

Carla Bean, Walter’s secretary, stared up at him with unseeing eyes as blood darkened her green, silk blouse. Even dead, Carla was a very attractive woman—it was no wonder Walter had fallen for her. He positioned her in the chair and then picked up the twenty-two caliber pistol he’d used to kill her.

Wiping the weapon down with a rag, he placed it in Juanita’s outstretched palm. There was something exciting about being this close to a woman other than Coral. And a black woman at that. Had he ever been this close to one? He couldn’t recall.

Randy examined her face and body, so foreign, yet so familiar. He traced her handcuffed arm but she did not stir. He could understand how these full, sensual lips and round and supple bodies had seduced so many slave owners. Walter Simmons was a fool, he decided, unbuttoning his pants.

I should make him watch.

Randy opened the closet door and mounted Juanita as Walter’s rage-filled grunts filled the room. When he entered her, thorns tore into his naked shaft.

Randy screamed and jumped up to find he was in the Capitol Rose Garden with his pants down. Streaks of crimson were smeared all over his tie and dress shirt.

That’s going to stain.

Randy had to fight the urge to giggle.

I’m going crazy.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dad,” a voice said from behind him. “You going crazy would be as likely as the Beatles rapping.”

Randy turned to see Kristopher, the way he’d looked the last time he’d seen him.

“Here, let me give you a hand.” Kristopher extended his right arm.

Randy reached out to touch his son’s face but Kristopher stepped back out of range.

“You started this,” Kristopher said. “You brought this upon your own family. Why?”

Randy realized Kristopher’s lips weren’t moving. Still, he heard his words loud and clear.

“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Can’t bullshit me, Dad. I’m dead. Just like you are going to be if you don’t open up. Now open up!” Kristopher demanded.

Randy, having lost control of his mind and faculties, felt his jaws spreading open. The unmistakable aroma of thousands of roses singing their fragrant song filled his nose. Kristopher placed a rosebud in his mouth.

Randy gagged. The flower smelled just like a rose, but tasted like blood. Randy closed his eyes against a wave of tears.

“You alright, sir?”

Randy forced his eyelids open and saw concern slinking its way across his driver’s face. Randy’s eyes were still watering from the wind swirling off the helicopter. He gladly accepted the handkerchief Joel offered.

“Of course I’m fine, Joel, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, sir, you kind of spaced out on me there for a sec…”

“It happens from time to time,” Randy replied, looking at the rotary blades again. What is happening to me?

Jhonnette Deveaux’s words came like a whisper. “Only Panama X is strong enough to control the baka.”

Once inside the helicopter, Randy put on his headset and said to the pilot, “There’s been a change of plans.”

“Where to, Sir?”

Randy had made a career of following his instincts and they’d never led him astray. He prayed the trend continued. “We need to make a stop at the Louisiana State Penitentiary.”

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