Blood Game: A Jock Boucher Thriller Read online

  It was a timid beginning; his assignments easily could have been given to the judges’ own law clerks. Obviously, his judicial brethren had concerns for his longevity in his current post and were not going to give him anything too demanding, certainly nothing that might be challenged on appeal, and their concerns were valid. This was a waste of his expertise and the taxpayers’ money. He wouldn’t be here long—either he’d be given back his full role as judge, or he would resign, despite the president’s admonition, or ultimately be forced to quit. Federal judges were not intended to suffer plebeian indignities. Judge Boucher was feeling sorry for himself.

  The busywork was completed in short order. The phone had not rung. He returned the files and bade Mildred a good day. She was unsure how to handle her remaining hours, and he told her she should bring a book tomorrow. It would not be inappropriate. It was just the two of them. Behind closed doors.

  He drove his pickup from the parking lot and headed across the river, replaying in his mind the phone call of the previous evening. Fred Arcineaux, good Cajun name. Pointe à la Hache, point of the ax. The name of the boat? Oh yeah, the Sans Souci. Without a care. Obviously christened in better days.

  The locale was found easily enough, and a garage attendant pointed him in the general direction of the river, indicating where the boat was moored. Boucher had to locate the exact site without further directions because no one was about. The small marina was home to a number of oystermen and their craft, and those boats were secured. The oil spill had been especially devastating to oyster beds in the region, depriving many of livelihoods that had supported generations. But the Sans Souci was not an oyster lugger. It was a shrimp trawler. Boucher guessed it to be about fifty feet in length. On its aft deck was a hand-painted sandwich-board sign positioned so it could be seen from the river as well as from the shore. Its two words spoke volumes. FOR SALE. The vessel’s owner was slumped in a canvas folding chair on the aft deck, beer in hand. Next to him was a tin washboard tub with melting ice and beer cans both empty and unopened.

  “You Judge What’s-his-name?” the beer drinker asked.

  “Boucher.”

  “I’m Arcineaux. This bucket is mine. Come aboard.”

  The reference to bucket might have applied to the ice-filled beer container positioned next to him, as the boat owner had an obvious attachment to its contents. Boucher stepped carefully aboard, care required because of all the loose debris, much of it garbage, covering the deck.

  “Pull that over and have a seat.” Arcineaux motioned to a closed hard plastic cooler suitable for sitting, and Boucher dragged it close enough for conversation. At this point, a general compliment about the boat might have been offered as an icebreaker, but not in this case. It was a wreck. The same observation applied to its owner. Fred Arcineaux was a man somewhere in his early fifties. He was overweight, his beard merely the consequence of not shaving, and the hair that stuck out beneath his ball cap was likewise unkempt. The cap was filthy, its logo faded and unrecognizable, with the bill black from dirty fingers and frayed so badly at its tip that threads hung and fluttered in the wearer’s line of sight. He wore a sweatshirt, the perspiration rings around the neck so eaten into the gray cotton that they could never be washed out, over which he wore a rough denim long-sleeved shirt, light blue in rare patches where there weren’t oil and grease stains as permanent as if they had been sewn on. He wore jeans that hadn’t seen soap and water so far in this calendar year, and rubber slop boots.

  “Wanna beer?” he offered.

  “No, thanks. You’re selling your boat, I see.” It was the only observation about the craft that could be made without offending.

  “Got to.”

  “May I ask why?”

  The response was a sigh accompanied by a long draft from the beer can, which he upended, emptied, then crushed. This was a prelude to his narration; not literary, perhaps, but not without drama.

  “Used to make a decent livin’ at this,” Arcineaux said, staring over the side in the direction of the gulf. “Know anything about shrimping?”

  “No.”

  He shook his head with pity, as if Boucher were an illiterate locked in a great library. “My wife was my striker. We made a good team. She died before the oil spill. Glad she didn’t have to see the old girl like this.”

  “Mr. Arcineaux, I’m here to talk about—”

  The shrimper waved away his interruption. “Show some respect. I don’t talk about my life without including Dora.”

  Boucher sat back and relaxed.

  “The spill hit, and we lost shrimp grounds. Had to go out further and further away from home port. Spent more on gas, had to hire me a new striker. We were all trying to help with the spill any way we could. We offered to track the oil. We volunteered to help with the cleanup, but nobody’d hire us, who knew the gulf better than anyone. Had to let my striker go, went out alone. Caught next to nothin’, and no one would buy what catch I brought back, saying everybody was afraid the oil contaminated it. We’re all out there like loose corks bobbin’ on the water, catching nothin’, comin’ back in at the end of the day, gettin’ drunk together because we needed each other. Oystermen, shrimpers, captains and crews of offshore service vessels with no work, ’cept one. Boy, how we cussed them. No jobs for anybody in the gulf but the bastards from Dumont Industries. Arrogant pricks. They had runs every day, plenty of work, but would they buy a thirsty man a beer? Hell, no. They was careless too, not good seamen. In such a hurry to get everywhere, there were near collisions ’bout every day. ’Cept in my case. Wasn’t near; they ran me over. Ripped my outrigger and nets clean off and left me there. That was all she wrote. I couldn’t afford to buy new nets and replace the outrigger. So here I sit. Got enough cash to keep me in po’boys another couple of weeks. Then what? What am I supposed to do?”

  “Did you make application for compensation from the settlement?”

  “Of course I did. It got denied. They said I had a damage claim against the company that wrecked my boat, that I had to get a lawyer and go to court. Fuck that. I got money for a lawyer? And how long will that take? Hell, if it weren’t for that damned spill, I’d have had money to replace my nets, hire a striker, and be out there catching shrimp. Now I have to sell my boat. Where am I gonna live then?” He looked up at the overcast sky and spoke to his dearly departed. “Dora, I miss you, honey, but I wouldn’t want you to go through this.”

  “I’ll look into the matter,” Boucher said. He stood.

  “That’s it?”

  “For now. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “All I want to know is when I’m going to get any money coming to me from those who ruined my business and my life.”

  Boucher rose and nodded. He disembarked, stood on the pier, and waved good-bye. They had not shared a handshake, he realized. He had not offered that basic gesture of good faith, not wanting to soil his own hand. He walked to his car and took a last look at the man slumped in his chair, who did not raise his head, staring down at his litter-strewn deck. The letters on the stern were faded but still legible. Sans Souci. Without a care. It was easy enough to say.

  CHAPTER 5

  FROM THE STATELY MANSION on Saint Charles Avenue, upstairs, right-hand corner window, the one closest to the two-hundred-year-old magnolia, came the sound of glass shattered by forceful contact with a wall, which, over its 150-year history, had been repaired, rebuilt, and tricked out with crown molding and exquisitely detailed boiserie panels. The crash was accompanied by a shrill screeching voice with enough power of its own to shatter glass. The house was set back far enough from the street that the sound was not likely to reach pedestrians passing by, nor was proximity to neighbors a concern. The lot was huge. Finally, the magnificent trees on the grounds provided no small degree of soundproofing. All of which helped to keep Elise Dumont’s frequent rages a family matter.

  “This is one of René Lalique’s earliest pieces,” Ray Dumont said, picking up shards of glass, remain
s of a perfume bottle over a century old. “At least it was.”

  “If you devoted half the attention to your business that you do to the antique crap you stuff into every corner of this old barn, you’d know why we’re losing money,” Elise growled.

  “We’re not losing money. We’re just not making as much as we used to. Darling, I know you are aware of the world’s economic situation, the—”

  “Don’t give me that financial-crisis crap again, Ray, or the next thing you’ll be cleaning off the floor will be . . .” She looked up from her vanity table. On her nightstand stood a Chinese enamel ewer and lid that dated back to the fifteenth-century Ming Dynasty.

  “Oh, God, no.” Her husband rushed to the nightstand and cradled the piece as if willing to die for it.

  Elise returned her gaze to her mirror as she applied gloss to her thin lips. She no longer focused when looking at her reflection; too many procedures had left her with a face she barely wished to acknowledge as her own. Cosmetic surgery had not given her the youthful appearance she had fought to keep, unless the taut skin of a drumhead connoted youth. There was not an ounce of excess flesh anywhere on her body. Her high metabolic rate from worrying about money was better than an anorexic diet.

  “The offshore service company’s profits are down,” she groused. “Our oil and gas production is down. Our car dealership’s profits are down. The bank doesn’t make us any money, our real estate is costing us a fortune in carrying costs, and we can’t sell a damn thing. Our stocks are in the toilet while everyone else’s securities portfolio has doubled. Ray, our casinos’ profits are down. Broke people find money to gamble, just like poor drunks find money for liquor. There is no reason we should not be making more from our casinos. We are losing on each and every one of our businesses because everyone thinks you are an idiot they can walk all over. You’re getting screwed, Ray. And if you’re getting screwed, I’m getting screwed. I don’t like getting screwed, Ray.”

  His antique vase secure, Ray Dumont walked over and stood behind his wife, bending over till he could see himself in her mirror. He tied his tux bow tie—no clip-on for him—with deft expertise born of decades of experience, or possibly heredity. The Dumonts were the closest thing to aristocracy one could find in the state of Louisiana, or the entire nation, for that matter. Formal evenings had been a regimen since he was toilet-trained. Now Ray Dumont was at last beginning to lose the trim figure of his youth. A modicum of diet and exercise—and less alcohol intake—would have kept him fit, but his attitude toward aging was like his attitude toward life itself. Let it roll, the good and the bad. Though his hair was still full, his mustache still black, his chiseled jaw now drooped with jowls, and belts were loosened a notch or even two, cinching in an expanding and overhanging gut.

  “You know,” Elise continued, “I read that four hundred Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined. I know something else. We’re not on that list.” Her makeup complete, she took the Tiffany diamond necklace she had selected for the evening and draped it around her neck.

  Ray assisted with the clasp. “What would you have me do, darling? Fire everybody working for us? Replace them with whom? You want me to put you in the showroom selling Chevys? I can’t see you working on one of our offshore rigs, or one of the service vessels. Maybe you could deal blackjack on the riverboat, or you could waitress. I don’t think I could let you wear this necklace, though. I’d have to hire extra security just so you could serve Sazeracs. That would not be cost-efficient.”

  “You’re mocking me, Ray.” She glanced again at the Ming vase. He put his hands on her bare shoulders and restrained her from moving too quickly. Her temper had cost enough for one night.

  Elise Dumont suffered from bipolar II disorder. Periods of elevated energy and impulsiveness could be followed by bouts of extreme depression. The symptoms had begun after the tragic death of their only son, on whom they had placed their hopes for the continued success of the family dynasty. Ray’s reaction was no less acute, maybe even more debilitating because it was not given expression. The father internalized the wound to his soul. He did not speak of his deceased son but thought of him often. He remembered his last visit home. Thanksgiving. Well over a year ago. The two had sat in his library. Rain had thrummed against the beveled glass windowpanes as they spoke, a couple of armchairs pulled close to the room’s blazing fireplace.

  “Dad,” his son had said on that early-winter afternoon, “I’ve discovered what could be one of the greatest hydrocarbon reserves in the western hemisphere.” Charles Dumont was a geologist, an independent consultant under contract to the U.S. Geological Survey, exploring a field in Mexico. “Did you know Mexico used to be number two in oil production after Saudi Arabia?”

  Dumont nodded and sipped his Scotch.

  “The USGS undertook a study of the area where I’ve been working almost a decade ago. I was retained to update their earlier findings. There’s a continuing U.S. government effort to determine how Mexico’s resources might meet our future energy needs. We’ve always been their biggest customer, and their production is down. At current estimated reserves, in ten years they’ll have nothing left to sell us if they don’t start investing to increase production. We need them. If we’re going to import energy, it should come from Canada and Mexico. Dad, we must end our dependence on Mideast oil.”

  “You said you made a discovery.”

  “The Eagle Ford shale formation. You know what that is.”

  “I know it’s in Texas and that every domestic and international energy company has a piece of it except me.”

  Charles put down his drink and leaned forward in his chair. “The Eagle Ford shale continues south from Texas. Geologic formations don’t conform to international boundaries, and Eagle Ford deepens and thickens, the farther into Mexico it goes. It might hold more oil and gas than any field in the Middle East. Dad, we’ve got what could be the world’s largest hydrocarbon play, and it’s just over the Rio Grande. Another thing—we’re finding that these source rock shale formations are stacked. Below each one is a similar formation from an earlier geologic era. There’s enough energy in them to last for centuries.”

  “I can’t believe you’re the first geologist to discover that the formation goes beyond our border.”

  “That’s not my important discovery. Dad, I found the sweet spot. Sweet spots are the biggest secrets in shale oil and gas production. You know what they are.”

  “Optimum location for drilling. You found one?”

  “I found several.”

  “That’s great for oil, but there’s a glut of natural gas on the market right now.”

  Charles sat up. “That’s normal after a huge discovery. The price is fluctuating. Right now it’s seventy percent up from its market low and continuing to rise. In the past, most natural gas went to fuel electric plants. Now that we have a secure supply, we’re beginning to create the infrastructure that will ensure demand. We’re finally beginning to use natural gas in transportation. It’s cheaper, cleaner, than oil. The glut on the market you mention is temporary. It will evaporate in no time, and we’ll be scrambling to firm up long-term supplies. Right now city buses are converting from gasoline to natural gas. DHL has converted its truck fleet to natural gas. Shell produced more natural gas than oil last year, and they are installing liquefied natural gas pumps in truck stops across the entire country for long-distance heavy-duty eighteen-wheelers. Detroit has already designed cars that can run on natural gas. In some countries it’s the exclusive fuel for all cars. It will displace oil. You know it, and I know it. It’s a question of time, and those who get in now will be the next Rockefellers.”

  “I’m glad you’re keeping yourself informed on developments in the industry while you’re away.”

  “We have satellite TV down there, Dad. I watch Jim Cramer’s Mad Money, just like you. He’s been bullish on natural gas for years.”

  “If this play is so big, why isn’t everybody running down to M
exico like they did to Texas?”

  “The first reason is that I haven’t turned in my findings yet. The second is because at the moment it’s dangerous as hell down there. Cartel violence has practically shut down much of the production in that part of the country and scared off further investment and development.”

  “The drug cartels?”

  “It isn’t just about drugs anymore. It isn’t even just about Mexico. There’s a criminal insurgency along the northern tier of the country, but they operate up here too, I guarantee you. They kill their rivals, they kill law enforcement, and they kill elected public officials. They’ve become transnational criminal organizations and are also active in Central America, Europe, and Africa. They’ve diversified into almost every criminal endeavor you can think of. They’re killing machines.”

  “What you have down there is gang violence, pure and simple.”

  “The criminal insurgents are organized armed forces fighting against the state for control of specific regions. They have their own secure mobile phone networks. They’ve built antennas in every state in the country for their own encrypted radio communications. They’ve forced the government to resort to the use of federal troops to combat them. They coerce civil authority to bend to their will, or they kill them.”

  “Are you suggesting we intercede in another country’s gang wars? Hell, we’ve got our own.”

  “You’re damned right I’m suggesting we intercede if necessary. How long do you think it’s going to be before terrorist suicide bombers cross that dried-up old creek we call the Rio Grande? It sickens me to see the criminal element perverting that society. Mexicans are the friendliest people I’ve ever met. They are hard workers, passionate about their country and its customs, faith-based, and intensely focused on family.”