Mississippi Roll

He went down the sagging wooden stairs carefully, fully aware that there could be an army of small dead things with sharp pointy teeth under them that Joey could send after him. But he felt that they had found at least a tiny bit of common ground, and zombies were one less thing he had to worry about, for now. There were plenty of others.

Like the man sitting in the locked black Escalade he’d left parked up the street from Joey’s shack. There were no working streetlights in Hoodoo Mama’s neighborhood, so Ray could barely discern the silhouette in the front passenger seat. He thought that it was a man, a small man, perhaps a boy. He seemed utterly unconcerned as Ray approached the vehicle, so Ray simply opened the driver’s side door and bent down to look in.

From close up Ray could see that he was indeed a small, slight white man, probably in his early seventies. He had a pleasant face that had been roughly treated by the passage of time. What hair wasn’t covered by his porkpie hat was white and cut short. Ray suddenly recognized him. ‘You’re the JADL guy from the boat. Robicheaux, right?’

He smiled. His teeth were even and white. ‘Right, Mr Ray.’

‘Can I help you?’

‘No, but I want to help you.’ He had a Cajun accent.

Why not? Ray thought. A small old dude was just who he needed on his side. ‘How?’ Ray slid into the car and closed the door.

‘Information, Mr Ray. I know what’s going on among the refugees – and it’s not good.’

Ray sighed as he pulled into the deserted street. ‘What’s happening?’

‘They’re scared, Mr Ray. Tired and hungry. They were hoping for sanctuary and have been turned away—’

‘Pretorius says they have a shot—’

‘No. Asylum will be granted to a token few – the Handsmith and his son, the ace Tulpar, maybe two dozen passengers in all. Aces and nats, every one.’

‘And the jokers?’

‘Van Rennsaeler made a deal with the British PM – they’re sending them to Rathlin Island.’

Ray frowned. ‘That rock off the coast of Northern Ireland?’

‘It was once a joker colony. Pretty much abandoned these days.’

‘So they’re sending them to some gulag – out of sight and out of mind.’

‘That’s the plan.’

‘I can hear the but you left unsaid.’

The old man smiled wryly. ‘Very perceptive, Mr Ray. There are several buts. The Handsmith has refused the deal, as has Tulpar. There’s talk of mutiny aboard the ship – of taking it over and trying for Brazil, Africa, maybe.’

Ray snorted. ‘Yeah, Jesus, great idea.’

‘There’s more. A few of the refugees belong to a joker terrorist gang – the Twisted Fists. Others are starting to listen to them.’

‘To do what?’ Ray asked. ‘Go up against the US Coast Guard?’

‘They are desperate.’

‘It would be a bloodbath.’

‘Which is something your job is to prevent.’

Ray pulled the Escalade over to the side of the street and slammed it into park.

‘How’d this come down to me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t speak for the government. I work for the government.’

The old man looked at him, his lined face composed. ‘If not you, who then?’

‘Shit,’ Ray said.

‘But for the fortunate turn of the card, you and I could be one of those jokers.’ If he was a joker, Ray thought, it didn’t show. An ace, maybe? Ray had never heard of him, but that meant little. Your card could turn when you were seven or seventy, or maybe he had some crappy little power that attracted no attention in the wild card world. ‘If as a nation we turn our back on a handful of brothers and sisters whose only crime was to be born in a savage land, how long will it be before other ships are sent to Rathlin, packed with those of our own nation who some people still despise? What then, Mr Ray?’

‘Shit,’ Ray said again.

‘But,’ the old man said thoughtfully, ‘all is not entirely lost. The JADL has been in contact with a man who calls himself Witness. For a million dollars he’s offered to provide haven for the refugees in Cuba. That island isn’t exactly, uh, strict when it comes to immigration, and, uh, other laws. It could easily absorb a few hundred refugees, or act as a transit point once they acquire proper identification.’

But Ray’s mind had turned back a decade. ‘This guy calls himself Witness,’ he asked, ‘what’s he look like?’

The Angel was still awake when Ray returned to their hotel room. She slept very little, ate very little, and never smiled. She was sitting on the bed, watching some Mexican talk show. Ray knew that she didn’t speak Spanish. It was all noise to her, like the rest of the world washing through her head but failing to distract her from the horrors she’d faced in Talas.

‘I’m back,’ he said, eliciting only a flicker of interest. ‘You’ll never guess who I ran into.’

Her eyes slid over to him, which was encouraging.

‘The JADL guy we met on the ship,’ he said, undressing down to his underwear and carefully hanging up his suit in the hotel room’s closet. The room was small, but neat, one of the lesser chains as SCARE didn’t have the budget to put its agents up at the really nice places with gyms and saunas and free breakfasts. But Ray didn’t much care as long as it was clean.

The night was hot and humid, but the Angel had cranked up the air conditioner until it was bordering on wintry in the room. Ray got into the bed next to her.

‘The small man? He seemed nice,’ the Angel said. There was a faraway look in her eyes.

‘Yeah.’ Ray looked at her thoughtfully. ‘But he’s in the fight, in his own way.’

‘What do you mean?’ the Angel asked.

Ray kept the smile off his face. At least he’d engaged her, aroused her curiosity. That was something.

‘He’s working with the JADL, trying to help the refugees.’ Ray relayed the information that’d been given to him, but when he was partway through the Angel turned her attention back to the television screen. ‘Only thing is, along with the nutjobs trying to keep the refugees off American soil, apparently there’s another problem festering behind the scenes. The Twisted Fists may get involved.’ That evoked no interest. ‘And a group headed by some guy who calls himself Witness.’

This captured the Angel’s attention. She turned her gaze back upon Ray. ‘The Witness?’ she asked.

Ray nodded. ‘He fits the description.’

Angel, looking thoughtful, relaxed, shifted against Ray’s chest, laying her head on his shoulder.

‘The Witness,’ she repeated.

He held her a long time as her breathing relaxed and her eyes slowly closed and at last she fell asleep. Moving slowly and carefully, he reached out for the remote and turned off the television. Now, finally, he could sleep, too.

The rest of the team arrived the next morning when Ray, the Angel, and Moon were eating breakfast in the motel’s coffee shop. The Angel was listlessly picking at her pancakes. Ray himself had almost as little appetite lately as his wife, but he managed to finish his omelet between feeding Moon cut-up bits of her breakfast steak. She was still a collie. She preferred a canid form for public appearances, and Ray was long used to dealing with recalcitrant waitresses and busybody onlookers. He handled their questions, usually, with patient explanations, but today he wasn’t in the mood and resorted to his best glare, sometimes reinforced by a flash of his official badge. It worked.