Lousiana Hotshot

it. What had he done, driven into the river? The closest thing to doing that was driving onto a ferry, and she ought to know. She did it often enough. She did it now. And sure enough, picked up the beep on the other side. The car was headed north.
    Algiers Point wasn’t only delightful, colorful streets. Uh-uh. There were woods and swampland to the north, with mosquitoes the size of bats. It was a favorite place for dumping bodies and dealing drugs.
    It was where Aziza probably was.
    Maybe Cassandra and Tony were dead already; maybe Toes was taking them out there to dump them.
    But surely not. There’d been no blood in the house. Where would he have killed them, and how? She was feeling desperate. She tried calling Langdon again. No go.
    Who else to call? There was one person, but it might not be a good idea. A person who disapproved of Toes’s activities and felt threatened by them. Yet also a person who had a big fat stake in keeping them quiet. But she couldn’t call the Baron. Could she?
    She damned well had to. She had to do anything she could.
    The cops again? Sure. Anything. And she had the license plate. She tried a different tack this time— terrified motorist.
    “Nine-one-one? I just saw a man with a gun pointed at a little girl— a teenager. Omigod, I’m losing the car—
yeah,
he’s in a car. Yes. Yes, I
have
got the plate number.” Pretty suspicious given the rest of the message, but what did she care? “Algiers Point. Near those woods— you know? Omigod, I just heard shots. Hurry, Officer. Hurry! It’s a black Lincoln Navigator.”
    It probably sounded phony as hell, like some angry wife with a grudge, but she knew they couldn’t ignore it.
    She couldn’t stop her fingers, they moved on their own, dialing up Baronial Records, and then her mouth got out of control. “The Baron, please. Tell him it’s the Baroness de Pontalba and if he wants to save his brother’s sorry fucking life, he better get on the phone now.”
    Excuse my French, Eddie.
    The Baron came on the line. “Baroness, what the hell’s going on?”
    “Your crazy-assed brother just kidnapped a teenage girl and my partner’s son. I’m in a car right behind them.” (That was close enough.) “We’re in Algiers Point.”
    “You on drugs, Your Grace?”
    “You killed the mama, didn’t you? Listen, I know the whole story. How Rhonda Bergeron made a stink and ended up dead. Then so did Cassandra’s mama. The detective she hired’s in a coma. If he dies, that’s three.”
    “You are the craziest chick I ever met in my life.”
    So why didn’t he hang up? “He’s got two more in his car, and I’m on their tail. If he takes us all out, that’ll make six. It’s not going to fly, Baron. You can’t save your brother. I’m giving you an opportunity to save yourself. Take it.”
    She could see the Lincoln SUV now; it was parked by the side of the road. She was sweating. The Baron said, “What do you want?”
    “Call him. Call him now. Page him. You must have some kind of emergency code.” She could hear the panic in her own voice.
    “Why should I?”
    “What?” She was struggling to see if they were still in the car.
    “Why should I call him?”
    “Because I have a recording of you admitting you sent Bingo and Pig to take out the mother.”
    “Sheeit! Ya got no such thing.”
    “Walk around to the front of your desk and feel under the lip. Go ahead, do it. Remember when you turned toward the window and gave me a look at your fine black ass? Know what I put there? Go see. Feel it?”
    She thought she heard him swear under his breath. “That’s a little transmitter I put there. I put one in your brother’s office as well. I’ve got a recording of the conversation you had when I left your office. You stop him, I give it to you. He touches that kid, and the rest of your life you’re doing the midnight show at Angola.”
    “Give me your number.”
    She rattled it off. “Baron, there’s one more thing. I’m armed. I’d as soon kill your brother as swat a fly. In fact, I’d love to. You don’t want to make me mad.”
    He laughed, and for a moment she thought she’d overdone it. Probably she sounded like some fifties TV detective. But he said, “That’d be the best thing for everybody, now wouldn’t it?”
    He hung up, leaving her shaking her head to clear it. It had to be a pose. He’d hired killers to protect the man, he wasn’t about to throw him to the lions— or rather, the lioness. She