Blood and Thunder by Max Allan Collins

Author:Max Allan Collins [Collins, Max Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: det_crime
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

14

The sky was in mourning, the dome of God’s capitol a rumbling, rolling black that threatened celestial tears any moment. And I hadn’t packed a goddamn raincoat.

A hot hoarse wind rippled the surface of Capitol Lake as I walked along its wooded shore, between the war zone of the statehouse and Our Lady of the Lake. It was a little before ten o’clock. Like most people going to visit somebody at a hospital, I didn’t really want to be here.

Not so the throng of people standing on the ground between the lake and the hospital parking lot, rural folks mostly, moms and dads and kids and grandfolks, their beat-up trucks and autos parked right up on the grass. They stood keeping vigil, staring at the nondescript three-story light-brown-brick sprawl of the hospital as if it were a holy shrine; perhaps to them it was.

This respectful mob was kept at bay by the bayonet-wielding national guardsmen who formed a human cordon around the edge of the parking lot. More soldiers were posted at each of the handful of steps rising to the front landing, where a dozen plainclothes cops, heavily armed, some with shotguns, some with submachine guns, stood shoulder-to-shoulder, blocking the front double doors. The soldiers and cops seemed to be expecting revolution, even though the crowd they were facing was adoring.

My B.C.I. badge got me inside the hospital, and past one last sentry in the surprisingly small reception area, which was teeming with cops and guardsmen and guys in rumpled suits. The hallways were a little better, but not much, and even the nuns looked ready to swear a blue streak. The place was thick with dozens of heavily armed cops, in and out of uniform, often clustering around stairwells. A large press room was up and running, with half a dozen tables cluttered with phones; it was bustling, and blue with swearing and smoke. A big fleshy state patrolman with a bloodshot nose was talking to a couple reporters just outside the press room.

The trooper was smiling, waggling a finger, saying, “Remember, now-we got orders to shoot any of you boys who try an’ go upstairs an’ see the Kingfish.”

The newshounds took this advice without objection; this was Louisiana-this wasn’t the place to make a stand over freedom of the press.

I showed the big patrolman my badge and asked, “Where’s the Senator’s room?”

He frowned; my accent must have made him suspicious, but my badge was legit, so he pointed upward with a thumb. “Three-fourteen. Do I know you?”

“You must,” I said pleasantly. “Otherwise, why would you’ve given me the Kingfish’s room number?”

On the third floor, politicos and bodyguards were everywhere, slumped in chairs and on couches, many of them snoring. Messina was in a corner, by a potted plant, curled up like a fetus, sleeping on his coat.

Murphy Roden was sitting by a window, looking out at the dark roiling clouds; he was smoking a cigarette. On a magazine table nearby was a little metal ashtray with dozens of spent butts.

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