Until today.
"What you mean, he missed them?" Fortier demanded, leaning forward with his broad, big-knuckled hands spread on the table that was bolted to the floor inside the room reserved for inmate visits with attorneys. Theoretically, the room was soundproof and the screws were barred from eavesdropping, but Armand kept his voice down all the same, despite a sudden urge to scream.
The lawyer swallowed hard, as if he had a fish bone or a little piece of oyster shell lodged in his throat. "Um, well, I mean there was a problem. The fellow seems to have, um, well, moved on."
"What the hell you mean, moved on?" the Cajun snarled. "Cost me two hundred grand to find out where they at, them dickwads, and you tellin' me it's wasted."
"Well," the lawyer said, frowning, "three out of four-"
"Ain't good enough!" said Fortier.
"But if the man has disappeared-"
"Feds hid him one time, they can hide him twice. What you use for brains there, little man?"
An angry flush suffused the lawyer's cheeks, but he didn't possess the courage to reply in kind. Instead, he tried to humor Fortier, play to his mood. "We found him once before, we can-"
"We found him?" Fortier was staring at him with the rapt attention of an entomologist who has unearthed a new and unexpected insect species. "I hear you said we found him? Make it sound like you been out there lookin', instead of sittin' on your ass and billing me for shit, half the time I don't know what."
The lawyer found a thimbleful of nerve. "If you're in any way dissatisfied-"
"I'm in a damn zoo with crazy blacks and a bunch a guys that think they Hitler. Now you want me to be satisfied?"
"I meant-"
"Screw what you meant," the Cajun said. "I tell you something true, I guarantee. You don't mean shit, hear what I'm sayin'? You take my money, say you going to do certain things for me, I expect them things to be done. You come round here with sad old stories, asking for more money, I start thinking maybe you be screwin' me."
"No, sir, I can assure you that-"
"Thing is, when I get screwed, I wanna know it's comin', see? That way I can enjoy it, like. Your way, it's just a big pain in the ass."
"He can't go far," the lawyer said.
"You know that for a fact? He call you up and say, 'I don't be going far'?"
"Well, no, but-"
"What you do is listen now, and do just what I say."
"Yes, sir."
"Reach out for Leon and remind his hairy ass he still owes me a pelt. He let me down on this, it be wolf season where he at, I guarantee. Then next thing, you call up that boy what took two hundred grand to do a job that still ain't done. Feds got old Jean, I wanna know the zip code by this time tomorrow."
"Suppose the Feds don't have him?" asked the lawyer, "What shall I do then?"
"You bring your high-rent ass back here and tell me that. What you use for brains, boy? Seem like chicken gumbo."
A GUARD ESCORTED Fortier back to his cell in Ad-Seg, which he understood was fedspeak for administrative segregation. Once upon a time, they used to call it solitary, and it was reserved for punishment of prisoners who broke the rules. These days, Ad-Seg still housed its share of troublemakers, but it also held inmates who were isolated for their own protection: snitches, racial activists, high-profile cons whose very notoriety had made them targets for the rank and file of mainline prisoners who hoped to build a rep by shanking someone famous. They were strictly one-man cells in Ad-Seg, and the chosen few were fed right where they lived, without exposure to potential dangers in the mess hall. When they exercised, it was in groups of three or four, a private corner of the joint where they were safe from shivs and prying eyes. The Cajun's closest neighbors on the cell block were a former agent of the CIA who sold out brother agents to the Russians in the last days of the cold war and a transient pedophile who sometimes killed and ate his victims as he roamed from state to state. They both seemed nice enough, but Fortier wasn't concerned with making friends.
He wanted out, and soon. The wheels were greased, but he could never make it work while any of the witnesses who sent him to Atlanta in the first place were alive.
Three down and one to go.
He meant to see it done, or know the reason why. And if the plan fell through, there would be one extremely sorry loup-garou to answer for it.
"No more Mr. Nice Guy," Fortier informed his empty cell. "I guarantee."
REMO COULD SMELL the stagnant swamps ahead of him before the interstate conveyed them out of darkest Mississippi and into bayou country. Everything from that point on would have a kind of continental flavor once removed, which made Louisiana stand out from the other Deep South states. It was the only state in Dixie where the Roman Catholic Church claimed a majority of Christians, counties were called parishes and everything from food to architecture had a strong French accent. The swamps were "bayous" here, and many residents still put their faith in voodoo-from the French voudun-regardless of their race or ethnic origin. If there was any place in the United States today where legends of medieval lycanthropes still clung tenaciously to life, Louisiana fit the bill.
"You grew up here?" Remo asked their reluctant navigator in the front passenger seat.
"Louisiana born and bred, that's right," the Cajun said.
"You like it?"
Cuvier considered that one for a moment, frowning as if Remo's question puzzled him, presenting issues he had never taken time to ponder.
"Like it?" Shoulders thick with muscle lifted in a shrug. "Is where I'm from. Like it or don't like it, what difference? Tell you one thing true-I like it more than Omaha."
He stretched the last word out as if its syllables were unfamiliar to him, something from a foreign language-which, Remo decided, was a fair enough description in the circumstances.
"You may not be safe here," Remo told him, "even if we find the man who's tracking you."
"I told you three, four times already, ain't no man," said Cuvier. "Armand done hire himself a loup-garou. You find him, he find you, don't matter which. That's all the trouble you going to need."
"Tell me something," Remo said. "In all the time you worked with Fortier, did he have lots of werewolves on the payroll?"
"Go on with jokin'," said the Cajun. "That's all right. You meet old loup-garou, then you'll be laughing out the wrong side of your face."
"I wasn't joking."
Cuvier gave him a quick sideways glance and they rode in silence for a few more minutes, Remo concentrating on the road, Chiun pretending to be asleep in back, before the Cajun spoke again.
"There's not just one old loup-garou around here, if you wanna know. Not many, but a few. A few is all it'll take. Pass on the secret and the power."
"But you never met one?"
"Not me, no," said Cuvier. "My grandpa seen them, back a time, before I was born. See one, it last you for a lifetime, if you live that long."
"I'm only interested in recent werewolves. You don't know this werewolf," Remo pressed him. "Where he lives or what his name is, anything to help us track him down."
"Done told you not to worry about that thing. He'll find us when he feel like it, I guarantee. He find us, and that's all she wrote."
Remo veered to a different tack. "What would you pay your average wolf man for a job like this?"
"A contract? All depend on what he ask for, what he needs. I reckon some take money, just like common folks. You can't be sure, though. Loup-garou might ask you something else."