One Blood

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Saturday

Lake City, LA

Randy stared down at Coral, passed out on their bed. “Goddamnit, Snake, you had to call in the middle of the fucking night, didn’t you?”

“Well if yuh don’t want to know where Madame Deveaux is holed up, I can always call back during nurmal bidness hours.”

Randy heard the biting sarcasm in Snake Roberts’ thick, country twang and knew the man was one beer from a blackout. He checked Coral’s breathing and took the phone into the other room.

“You found her?” he whispered.

“A’ course. But yuh won’t be able to talk to her anytime soon.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because she’s been dead for ten years. Heart failure.”

“Dead?”

“As Elvis.”

“Shit!”

“If it means anything to yuh, I did locate her daughter, Jhonnette.”

“Her daughter? She can’t help me,” Randy replied. Then he thought of his father. “Wait. Maybe she can. Where is she, Snake?”

“She’s in Nawlins. Do yuh want me to arrange a meeting?”

“You know me too well, Snake. Fetch.”

“Okay, Boss. Oh, there’s one more thing.”

“What is it?”

  “I got the name of the guy yer supposed to spring from Angola.”

“Who is it?” Randy asked, fully expecting to hear Roberts say the name of some Irish mobster. When it finally registered what Snake was saying, he almost choked on the rage bubbling up from his gut.

“What did you just say?”

“I said it’s Lincoln Baker. My source on the inside is a hunnert percent positive.”

“But he killed Kristopher…”

“I know. Fucked up, ain’t it, Boss?”

“I’ll string Baker up by his balls. He wants to fuck with me.”

“How you gonna manage that, Boss? Baker’s on twenty-three-hour lockdown. Never leaves his cage.”

Randy threw the phone across the bathroom.

Punishment.