The Thanatos Syndrome

visits.”
    â€œGood.”
    â€œWould you believe that some of them don’t want to leave and go back to the streets of New Orleans and Baton Rouge when they’ve served their time?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDon’t you love those colorful kerchiefs the women wear?”
    â€œYes.”
    We shake hands. He holds my hand in a firm grip for a second, gives me a final level-eyed look. He’s quite handsome with his long sideburns, handsomer than Howard Keel. “Glad to have you aboard, Doctor. Guard!”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œLock this fellow up. He’s a dangerous character.”

2. I CALL ELMO on the desk phone.
    â€œHow you doing, Doc?”
    â€œI’m fine, Elmo.”
    â€œWhat can I do for you, Doc?”
    â€œElmo, I need to get out of here.”
    Elmo sighs. “I’d like nothing better, Doc. But you know as well as I do we got to hold you for the ATFA. Doc, all you got to do is clear it with that doctor dude from Fedville and he can clear it with the feds.”
    â€œI know that. I’m meeting with them this afternoon. But I need to get out now for a while.”
    â€œOh, I got you. No problem, Doc. We got exercise period coming up in a few minutes. You can walk the levee. No problem. It’ll do you good.”
    â€œThanks, Elmo. I appreciate it, but here’s my problem.” I tell him about Belle Ame, the Brunettes, and the sexual abuse, giving him all the technical details. I tell him dryly, as one professional to another, one cop to another cop. “The thing is, Elmo, I have a kid there and I think I’d better get him out. Now.” I don’t tell him the kid is Claude Bon.
    There is a silence. I can hear the chair creak as he leans back.
    â€œGoddamn, Doc.” The chair creaks again. There is a soft whistling. “You know, I heard something about that from the sheriff over at Clinton. I thought they had turned them loose for lack of evidence.”
    â€œThey did. But now Dr. Lipscomb has the evidence.”
    Another whistling of breath through teeth. “Well, I mean shitfire, Doc. Why don’t I call Cooter Sharp over at Clinton and tell him to bust the whole gang? I mean all. I mean, when it comes to messing with chirren—”
    â€œYou can do that if you want. But they’ve tried that. And it will take time. And they’ll probably be looking for you, ready with their lawyers, and you’re going to run into problems of federal jurisdiction.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œElmo, I want to get the kid out of there. Now. We, you, whoever, can bring charges later.”
    â€œYeah.” The creaking becomes rhythmic. He’s rocking. “Yeah,” he says again and in a different voice. “Tell you what, Doc,” he says in a musing voice. He’s leaning back in his chair. “Tell you what. You go ahead and take your exercise. I’ll send up an officer to let you out the back gate. That will put you on the levee and batture, which is fenced off. What we got here, Doc, is a minimum-security holding facility—for illegals, politicals, suchlike. We’re not part of the high-security prison farm, you understand.”
    â€œI understand.”
    â€œThing is, Doc, the fence is a joke. Anybody can get over it, under it. But the thing is, even the hard-timers know that nobody but a fool would try to make it out by the river. That’s the Raccourci Chute out there, and ain’t nobody, I mean nobody, ever made it out that way to live to tell about it. You understand.”
    â€œI understand.”
    â€œNow, what we got here, Doc, is a fenced-off exercise area for our detainees, about a quarter mile of levee. Just so you’ll know where you’ll be walking, the downriver end is fenced off. The patrol’s not going to bother you—they know the people here are mostly politicals. The willows begin down there at the batture corner of the fence. You might recall an old jeep road that deer hunters use that runs up from old Tunica Landing. I know you know where that is.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThat’s about all I can tell you, Doc.”
    â€œI understand. Thanks, Elmo.”
    â€œFor what? Enjoy your walk, Doc, but you be back here by two or my ass is in a sling. What I’m going to do now is send you up some breakfast. It’s staff breakfast. After all, you been up here before on forensic business and are entitled to staff. You