“When?” I asked.
Her eyes narrowed again. She reflected for a moment. “Wasn’t last week. Must have been two weeks ago. Monday or Tuesday. Early in the week, anyway. What day does Old Jake surface? I never keep track, but he shows up regular once a week. Buys a few staples like oatmeal, and bread, and canned stuff. And beer—plenty of beer. Then he disappears for another week.” She paused. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him since. Maybe that’s because he bought so much stuff that day.”
“Are you certain this dude was with him?” I asked.
“As good as,” she said. “They sat over there in that booth.” She pointed. “Old Jake always sits at the counter and has nothing but coffee. That time he sat in the booth with this dude or someone a lot like him.” She nodded at the photo. “The dude was wearing a tourist cap that said ‘New Orleans’ on it, but he took it off while he was eating. Looked just like the picture. Same build, too. Pretty good looking chap, actually. They had the special, took their time eating, and the dude talked a blue streak but in a low voice. Old Jake mostly listened with a silly grin on his face, which was odd for him. Normally he won’t shut up and listen to anyone, but the dude was buying, so he listened. When they were half finished, he ordered a pizza to go, and the dude paid for that, too, and also anted up for the groceries Old Jake bought.”
“What was the dude talking about?” I asked.
“Don’t know. Whatever it was, he didn’t want me to hear. Kept his voice down almost to a whisper.” She seemed piqued about that. “There was something funny about him,” she went on. “I mean—something really strange. He was buying for Old Jake, which was odd enough. And he was acting a part—he’d put on old clothes for it, but they were new old clothes, see what I mean? And he talked and talked like he was promoting something, which was screwy. Who with any sense would try to con Old Jake?”
“Did this dude have a car?” I asked.
“Didn’t see or hear one. They left together in Old Jake’s boat—I’m sure about that. You know the racket it makes. I heard it start up, and I looked out and saw them heading up the bayou.”
“Did anyone else see them that day?”
“Don’t know. If anyone was around the dock when they came or went, he must have seem them. Ask Bert—he may have been working on his boat.”
“Thanks,” Tosche said. “We will.”
We gulped the sandwiches and finished our coffee. We were in a hurry, now, to see whether there were any more witnesses. The elusive wild goose had suddenly laid a golden egg.
CHAPTER TWO
Bert, whose full name was Bertram Comereau, took some finding. We sloshed from one end of the village to the other, finally locating him in a garage playing poker with three characters who looked very much like him—wiry, weathered-looking chaps with blue eyes and dark hair.
They laid their hands down and looked at us inquiringly when we walked in. Tosche asked his question. Bert, the youngest by a number of years, nodded his head and said, “Yeah. Old Jake did have someone with him, but that was quite a while ago.”
One of the other men nodded. Tosche later identified him as Jacques Deslande—not even a close friend would have dared call him Jack. “It was week before last,” he said. “I saw them, too.”
I passed the photo to Bert. He squinted at it the same way Eva had. “Could be. Guy was wearing one of those caps with a long bill, so he didn’t look exactly like this. But—sure. This must be him.”
Bert handed the photo to Jacques, who glanced at it and nodded. “That’s him. I saw him with his cap off. It was a hot afternoon, and he was sweating. He took it off and mopped his forehead. He was looking for property to buy, Old Jake said. There isn’t any for sale, but they walked up and down the road looking at places. Then they went in the store.”
One of the other men, Ed, who had the unlikely surname of Smith, said, “I saw Old Jake about that time with someone in his boat.”
I offered him the photo, but he shook his head without looking at it. “They were way out in the channel. Old Jake’s beard ain’t hard to recognize, and anyway, I know his boat, but I never got a close look at the other guy. City slicker on his day off, I would have said. Wasn’t anyone who belonged down here.”
“Is anything wrong?” Bert asked.
“He’s missing,” Tosche said. “Someone said he was seen here, so we’re checking.”
“Oh.” Bert shrugged. “Well—he certainly was seen here, but that was a couple of weeks ago. Tuesday or Wednesday, I think. It don’t put no label on where he is now.”
“Right,” Tosche said. “But at least we know where to ask about him. Maybe Old Jake can tell us something.”
He turned to me. “Do you want to talk to Old Jake?”
“Where can we find him?” I asked.
“He’s got a cabon,” Tosche said. “Little place over on Squirrel Bayou. It belongs to an Orleanean named O’Harran, he used to use it as a fishing and hunting lodge, but he hasn’t done much of that for years. He lets Old Jake stay there for keeping the place up.”
“Old Jake don’t do much up keeping,” Bert said with a grin. “Fact is, he don’t do any. He didn’t even replace the glass when he broke a window. I suppose if the roof blew off, he might do something about that.”
“How far is it?” I asked.
“Half an hour in a motor boat,” Tosche said. “If we can find a boat.”
“Take mine,” Ed said. He tossed a key to Tosche, who thanked him and the others, gave me a nod, and marched out. I paused to add my own thanks and then squished after him.
The rain had let up—which was just as well, because the boat lent to us was not a cabin cruiser. It was an open boat with an outboard motor that seemed to produce more sound than movement. As we headed out into the channel, we were passed by a sizeable ship Tosche identified as an offshore crew boat, one that took workmen and supplies to the oil platforms in the Gulf. Pointe Neuve slipped astern, and on one side of the bayou a forest closed in. On the other were occasional buildings—a house or two, a cluster of warehouses, a dock with boats and a derrick. Tosche pointed out the trading post where the Cajuns sold alligator hides and furs during hunting seasons.
Eventually the forest took over both sides of the bayou, but even that didn’t shield the place from civilization’s corrosive touch. We passed one wreck after another—old barges and ships that were half sunk in the shallows and rusting to oblivion, which unfortunately was a slow process.
We turned into a smaller bayou lined with tall live oaks. These are evergreen oaks, a beautiful, massive tree of the American South that puts out enormous branches close to the ground. Festoons of Spanish moss added their own touches of hoary beauty to the grayness of the day. This was Tosche’s natural habitat, and he relaxed and became almost articulate as we penetrated further and further into it. Several times he shouted remarks above the din of the motor about something we passed. Once he pointed out an armadillo burrowing along the bank. Another time it was a tree stump that marked an alligator den.
Sitting there a foot or so above the water, it suddenly occurred to me that our small boat offered very little protection against a rampageous gator.
I called to him, “Is it possible to outdistance an alligator by swimming?”
“Not unless you can do better than twenty-five miles an hour,” Tosche shouted back with a grin. He added, “You can’t outrun one, either. They’ve been clocked up to thirty-seven miles an hour on land.”
“If one gets you in its sights, you’re done for, eh?” I asked lightly.
“Naw.