Read DR07 - Dixie City Jam for Free Online

when you held up the skull vertically, it looked like a
crucified man from the front. When you reversed it, it resembled an
ecclesiastical, robed figure giving his benediction to the devout. If
you shook it in your hand, you could hear pieces of bone clattering
inside. Batist said those were the thirty pieces of silver that Judas
had taken to betray Christ.
    It had nothing to do with voodoo. It had everything to do with
Acadian Catholicism.
    Before I left the guesthouse for the jail, I called up Hippo
Bimstine at one of his drugstores.
    'How bad you want that Nazi sub, Hippo?' I asked.
    'It's not the highest priority on my list.'
    'How about twenty-five grand finder's fee?'
    'Jesus Christ, Dave, you were yawning in my face the other
day.'
    'What do you say, partner.'
    'There's something wrong here.'
    'Oh?'
    'You found it, didn't you?'
    I didn't answer.
    'You found it but it's not in the same place now?' he said.
    'You're a wealthy man, Hippo. You want the sub or not?'
    'Hey, you think that's right?' he asked. 'I tell you where
it's at, you find it and up the fee on me? That's like you?'
    'Maybe you can get somebody cheaper. You know some guys who
want to go down in the dark on a lot of iron and twisted cables?'
    'Put my schlong in a vise, why don't you?'
    'I've got to run. What do you say?'
    'Fifteen.'
    'Nope.'
    'Hey, New Orleans is recessed. I'm bleeding here. You know
what it cost me to get rid of—when he was about to be our
next governor? Now my friends are running a Roto-Rooter up my hole.'
    (Hippo had spent a fortune destroying the political career of
an ex-Klansman who had run for both the governor's office and the U.S.
Senate. My favorite quote of Hippo's had appeared in
Time
magazine, during the gubernatorial campaign; he said of the
ex-Klansman, '—doesn't like us Jews now. Check out how he
feels after I get finished with him.')
    'I won't charge expenses,' I said.
    'I'm dying here. Hemorrhaging on the floor. I'm serious.
Nobody believes me. Dave, you take food stamps?'
    Hippo, you're a jewel, I thought.
     
    Batist and I picked up my boat and
left the dock at three the
next morning. The breeze was up, peppered with light rain, and you
could smell the salt spray breaking over the bow. The water was as dark
as burgundy, the chop on the edge of the swells electric with
moonlight, the wetlands to the north green and gray and metamorphic
with mist. To the southeast I could see gas flares burning on some
offshore rigs; then the wind dropped and the sky turned the color of
bone and I could see a red glow spreading out of the water into the
clouds.
    It was completely light when I cut the engine and drifted
above the spot where I had dove down into darkness and the sounds of
grinding metal three days earlier. Batist stood on the bow, feeding the
anchor rope out through his palms, until it hit bottom and went slack;
then he tied it off on a cleat.
    The water was smoky green, the swells full of skittering bait
fish, the air hazy with humidity. I had fashioned a viewer box from
reinforced window glass inset in a waterproofed wood crate, and I
lowered it over the side by the handles and pressed it beneath the
surface. Pockets of air swam across the glass, then flattened and
disappeared, and suddenly in the yellow-green light I could see schools
of small speckled trout, like darting silver ribbons, drumfish, as
round and flat as skillets, a half dozen stingrays, their wings
undulating as smoothly as if they were gliding on currents of warm air,
and down below, where the light seemed to be gathered into a vortex of
silt, the torpedo shapes of sand sharks, who bolted and twisted in
erratic circles for no apparent reason.
    Batist peered downward through the viewer box over my
shoulder. Then I felt his eyes studying me while I strapped on my tanks
and weight belt.
    'This don't make me feel good, Dave,' he said.
    'Don't worry about it, partner.'
    'I don't want to see you lunch for them sharks, no.'
    'Those are sand sharks, Batist.