Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 13 - The Diamonds of Ghost Bayou by Kent Conwell

Author:Kent Conwell [Conwell, Kent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery: Thriller - P.I. - Louisiana
ISBN: 0803476183
Publisher: Avalon
Published: 2011-12-04T06:09:00+00:00

By the time we reached the eighteen-mile-long bridge spanning the Atchafalaya Swamp, Diane had downed her lunch and was snoozing in the backseat.

We’d kept the top up and turned on the air-conditioning. I held the powerful car to the speed limit, taking care to stay in the outside lane so every other vehicle on the road could pass.

And they did.

After leaving Baton Rouge on 1-12, we ran into road construction, an ongoing project in Louisiana. I can’t remember a time in the last thirty years I didn’t run into construction on the way into New Orleans.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve tried to obey road signs, and when I spotted one stating the right lane was closed a mile head and I was to move to the left lane, I did. Sure enough, after half a mile, cars started slowing. Dutifully, I fell in at the rear. But naturally, there were those idiots passing us on the right to see how far they could get before breaking into line.

I stayed in my place in the line of vehicles, careful not to leave more than ten or twelve feet between me and the car ahead. I discovered years ago, if you leave fifteen feet, a twenty-foot car will try to pull in. Must be a macho sort of thing. Or a death wish.

To my delight, a massive eighteen-wheeler a few cars back pulled out into the right lane, effectively blocking it so the jerks couldn’t sneak in ahead of us.

Road signs in Louisiana usually warn you thirty seconds after you could have taken an exit that would have permitted you to avoid the traffic jam.

This time, the road sign was correct.

By three o’clock, we were comfortably ensconced in rooms next door to each other at the Lafitte Courtyard on Chartres Street, a few blocks south of Jackson Square in the French Quarter. One block over and three or four north on Royal was Jimmy Ramsey’s haunted house.

I’d experienced enough of New Orleans that it no longer held any magic or mystery for me. Without a doubt, it is a world strikingly different from that which the average tourist visits, but most never peer into the underbelly of that world, which is mostly seedy and filled with greed and selfishness.

Drugs were rampant, muggings common, thefts invariable, and scams without end.

To the uninitiated, it was all glitter and glamour. To the initiated, it reeked of depravity.

Slipping into fresh clothes after showering, I booted my laptop and pulled up my mail. To my delight, Eddie Dyson had responded.

I skimmed his reply but was disappointed to find he had not provided information on Benoit’s cell mates. Technical problems, he had explained, which really meant nothing to me. Still, I had some answers. I set up my small portable printer and made a hard copy.

The only additional details of the heist Eddie could provide that I hadn’t already learned from Louis Brasseaux and Emerente Landry at the Priouxville Bayou News or from Oscar Mouton at the Bayou

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.