An Absence of Light

“Redden’s from Sweetwater, Texas,” Neuman began. “Father was a high school principal there. Went to college at Texas Tech, majoring in mechanical engineering, dropped out when he learned to fly. He was a crop duster for a while, a few years, then he got a job with a charter service flying people over the Grand Canyon. A few years at that, and he joined the National Forest Service in California flying firefighters into the summer fires. A few years at that. Next he turns up in the Rio Grande Valley, Mission, Pharr, that area. No visible employment, but visible money, so the DEA begins keeping tabs on him. They catch him one night in Ojinaga across from Presidio with a load of Mexican Brown. The State Department had the word out that they needed some pilots, and Redden was persuaded to go to Honduras and Nicaragua for some covert action. That’s what he was doing when he landed a load of arms on a little private strip outside Villavicencio, Colombia. After that he seemed to have disconnected from CIA to ‘independent’ work, probably with Kalatis. His bio peters out very quickly after that. Just sightings throughout Central America.”

“But there’s no warrant out for him?”

“Nope.”

“Christ Kalatis. I don’t believe that guy’s reach.”

“I don’t believe a lot that I’ve seen in the last twenty-four hours,” Neuman said. “I don’t believe Arnette. That place is like a government installation…”

“What about Ledet?”

“I didn’t spend much time on Ledet since he’s in Atlanta.”

“Remember anything about him?”

“He’s from Louisiana, Baton Rouge. Went to LSU. Apparently met Redden when they both were flying drugs on the border. I don’t think he was picked up by the DEA, he just showed up in Tegucigalpa shortly after Redden. Probably because of Redden. Their history generally parallels after that. I think they’re pretty good buds.”

Graver looked across the coastal flats as they left the city. The sun was fierce.

“Ledet from Red Stick,” he said. He could feel the sun’s heat radiating off the window beside him as it came through the glass like a laser and fell across his shoulder. The air conditioner in the car was cranked up as high as it would go as he stared out the window to the coastal flats.

Chapter 68

Eddie Redden lived on a piece of expensive property. He had a beachfront house that was protected from the street by a thick screen of pink and scarlet oleanders and clumps of cerise bougainvillea. Turning into the drive you could see a large, low-slung bungalow with a shallow-sloped roof, and Jamaican-style jalousies of bleached cypress. A deep veranda, flanked by palms, ran around to the back of the house where Galveston Bay glittered on the other side of a thick, emerald lawn that someone else mowed and fertilized and watered. Beyond that a dock ran out into the flats and a small blue skiff was tied to the pilings, bobbing in the southerly breeze.

There was a circle drive that exited on the other side of the lot, and where the front sidewalk met the drive a freestanding porte cochere of trellises covered with grapevines sheltered a black Alfa Romeo convertible. Neuman pulled up behind the Alfa and cut the motor. The two of them got out of the car and walked up to the porch and into the shade to the front door. The house was open to the breeze and you could see through to the porch in back. The daylight from the bright bay reflected dully off the burnished wooden floor in a long, luminous smear. Graver smelled gardenias on the breeze.

Neuman rang the doorbell. Nothing happened at first, no sound in the house. He rang it again, and a woman’s voice from somewhere inside said, “I’m coming,” politeness tinged with impatience. They didn’t hear her walking on the floor because, as they immediately observed, she was barefooted. She was suddenly standing on the other side of the screen door, adjusting the drape of a white cotton shift she had just put on. The smear of light from the wooden floor behind her went right through the thin material to reveal to them the space between her legs all the way to her crotch. The cotton shift was all she was wearing. She tucked some dull brown hair behind an ear, and cocked her head up at Neuman, squinting a little at him.

“Yeah?”

“Hi,” Neuman said. “Is Eddie in?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Joe… Dearden.”

“Jay Deer-den…?” She said it to herself like it was the most ridiculous name she’d ever heard.

“Yeah, Jay,” Neuman said.

“Well…” she said, dropping her eyes, seemingly truly puzzled as to how to answer his question. Not a particularly intelligent-looking woman, she had sharp features and a weathered face with an abundance of sun-induced freckles. It was a common feature along the Gulf Coast. She did, however, possess a shapely figure.

“He was expecting me,” Neuman said.

“He was?” she squinted up at him again. She turned and looked into the darkness of the house. Neuman reached out and quickly but softly tried the screen door. It was open. She turned back to him. “Well, shit, he’s not here,” she said.