Page 29 of Iggy

Gunner said nothing. He watched the door. The swamp air carried fryer grease, spilled beer, and the green rot of the bayou. Somewhere behind the building, frogs called back and forth like men passing coded warnings. He had met informants in prettier places and trusted them less.

Inside, the bar was narrow and dim, with deer heads over the liquor shelves and dollar bills stapled to the ceiling until they formed a sagging green canopy. Two yellowed ceiling fans that had once pushed cigarette smoke in slow circles, never clearing it, still spun in a slow, gentle circle not providing any air or ventilation to the old place.

A jukebox glowed red in the corner, silent for now. The bartender watched the men come in and decided quickly that polishing glasses was safer than asking questions.

Bunny sat in the last high-top table beneath a neon crawfish sign with one pink heel hooked around the rung of her chair and a sweating glass of bourbon untouched in front of her.

She was older than her name implied, sharp at the edges, hair pinned up with a silver clip shaped like a knife. Her denim jacket hung open over a black tank, and the small Graveyard Saints patch sewn inside the lapel had been folded back where only someone looking for it would see.

“You boys planning to stand there and soak up ambiance?” Bunny asked. “Or did you ride all the way to LaPlace to learn something?”

Gunner slid into the booth across from her. Skull took the outside position, blocking the aisle with his bulk. Razor stayed standing long enough to check the back door, the hall to the restrooms, the two old men pretending not to listen at the bar.

Iggy dropped into the chair at the end and smiled like he had not already counted every bottle that could become a weapon.

“Start with Neela,” Gunner said. “How bad is she?”

Bunny’s mouth twitched as she got up from her seat to take a chair beside them.

“That depends on whether you mean dangerous or desperate.”

“Both.”

She lifted the bourbon, but only to roll the glass between her palms.

“Neela has always been both. That’s why people follow her. Or why they used to. She can scare a man into shutting up, then turn around and get your kid placed in a hospital bed that apparently wasn’t there before, with the right doctor paid in full before dawn. She makes you feel like the fire is under control because she’s the one holding the match.”

Razor leaned against the booth post.

“You love her or hate her?”

“Yes,” Bunny said. Iggy gave a soft laugh.

“That clears it up.”

Bunny finally looked at him, and the laugh died without anyone touching it. This woman was hard. Hard as nails and it was apparent she’d chosen to stay undercover.

“I have been inside the Graveyard Saints almost twenty years. I have patched their cuts, cooked their books, lied to sheriffs, buried guns, moved girls out of bad houses, and watched presidents come and go like hurricanes.

“Before the last one, there were at least six in five years. Most died from in-fighting within the club. Neela was barely out of her teens, with rage in her bones, when I first saw her. She grew teeth because the world kept putting fingers in her mouth.”

Skull’s knuckles tapped once on the table.

“We didn’t come for a biography.”

“Then listen faster,” Bunny said. “Because her biography is the motive.”

Gunner let that settle. A waitress came by with a tray and thought better of stopping when she saw the booth. The neon crawfish hummed over Bunny’s shoulder, bathing one side of her face in red. Behind the bar, a television played a weather report with the sound off, the radar blooming red, yellow, and orange over the Gulf like a bruise. What was more concerning was the purple off in the distance. A hurricane.

“She lost money,” Gunner said. “Millions. We know that much.”

“She was losing it,” Bunny corrected. “There’s a difference. This morning when I left, she was smiling again. Not relaxed. Neela doesn’t do relaxed. But lighter. Like she had found the bottom of a flooded room and could push off it.”

Razor’s head tilted knowing the possible reasons.

“Because of the market?”

“Because she found a different investment,” Bunny said. “Wouldn’t tell me the name. Wouldn’t tell Tank either and he pretends that doesn’t bother him. She had calls coming in before sunrise, one of them from a trader out of Houston, another from someone overseas. She kept saying the window was narrow, that if she moved fast enough she could not just recover the loss, she could cover the promise.”