Salvation Row

Chapter Fifty-Three

Milton, Izzy and Ziggy walked up to the parade route on St. Charles Avenue. The street was hemmed in with people: the sidewalk, the pavement, everywhere, a mad throng that rose and fell with its own undefinable patterns. Everyone was wearing purple, green, and gold. Others held up their smartphones, taking random photographs, the light from the screens leaving swipes across the darkness. Women hiked up their tops, showing their breasts in the hope of receiving necklaces of beads or painted coconuts. Revellers drank Sazeracs from disposable plastic cups and danced to music that throbbed from boom boxes. The street lamps were festooned with tinsel and paper decorations, glitter cascading down in drifts. A mounted policewoman stood sentry at the end of the street, her horse stepping from foot to foot. Other cops in their light blue shirts and dark blue trousers patrolled the fringes, the usual rules relaxed just a little tonight.

Milton looked around. The hullabaloo made him feel uncomfortable.

“What’s the matter?” Izzy asked him.

“Nothing. Just cautious. I can’t help it.”

“Just try to enjoy yourself.”

He smiled. “Not one of my strong points.”

“You gotta relax, Milton.”

“You’re right.”

Ziggy looked over at them.

“It’s over,” he said. “A week and we haven’t heard a word. It’s finished. Done.”

Izzy nodded her agreement. “Listen to him! Everything’s fine.”

“Yes,” he said. “I know.”

But was it over? Milton was too naturally cautious to accept that. It had been a week to Fat Tuesday, and he had allowed Izzy to persuade him to stay on. He had never been in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, and it was something that he wanted to tick off his bucket list. More than that, he knew, was a lingering reluctance to leave her. He would have to go eventually, of course, but he couldn’t shake the thought that Bachman was still out there. He had given it plenty of thought. In truth, he couldn’t get it out of his head. The odds were good that Bachman would have aborted the assignment and left town. Especially after Internal Affairs had swept through the mayor’s office and the ranks of the NOPD, arresting more than a dozen men and women and adding them to the employees of Joel Babineaux who had already been implicated in the corruption. Jackson Dubois had been picked up at his luxury home as he was making a ham-fisted attempt to pack away his life and leave. He and the others had all joined Babineaux in jail. None of them could look on the future with any degree of optimism.

So, yes. It was most likely that Bachman was gone, submerged in the underworld once more until he resurfaced to take another job. But Milton couldn’t help but to remember what he had said about the woman who had died in the bayou. What if it was his wife, and what if he really did think that Milton had killed her? Even the longest odds came up now and again, and Milton had been wrong before. He couldn’t completely relax.

There was a man who was selling Lucky Dogs over on the other side of the street. His stand was shaped like a foot-long dog, and there was a red and white Coca-Cola parasol overhead.

Ziggy pointed over in his direction.

“You want one?”

“Sure,” Izzy said.

“Milton?”

“I could eat.”

“And a beer?” Izzy suggested.

Ziggy nodded. “You want a bottle, Milton?”

He shook his head. “Some water, please.”

“Coming up.”

Milton watched him go, then turned back to the procession of krewes that were wending their way down the middle of the street. The first group were partying on a truck that had been decorated with a figurehead of a large male head. Men and women in purple robes and blacked-up faces tossed candy to the crowd below. Dancers in oversized papier mâché heads flanked the truck, garlanding the prettier girls with beads and leis. The next float was decorated with fibre-optic lights that flashed on and off, a blur of illumination. The successor had a large red lobster atop the cab, lights glowing from its claws. The next was done out in Zulu fashion, with hand-painted coconuts handed out to the crowds. A marching band followed close by, uptempo jazz reverberating back from the buildings that lined the route.

Izzy stroked his arm. “Relax!”

Milton knew that he must have looked uptight. He made an effort to smile at her, and she reached across and took his hand. He looked and saw that she had turned to face him, ignoring the procession, her face open and welcoming. He squeezed her hand, warm against his palm, but, as she moved a little closer, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket.

He disengaged his hand and took it out.

“What is it?”

He looked down at the display. “Ziggy.”

“Wants to know if we want mustard.”

Milton put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

There was no reply, just the background noise of the carnival.

“Ziggy?”

Still nothing.

Milton craned his neck, looking through the crowd. The throng on the sidewalk was thick and deep, and Milton couldn’t see Ziggy. He looked over to the hot dog stall, but it was obscured by two girls on the shoulders of their male friends. The view cleared as they swayed out of the way. The vendor was serving someone else. Ziggy wasn’t there.

Milton listened and heard Ziggy’s voice. He was protesting, the words muffled and unclear, but the tone unmistakable: fear.

His face must have given away his concern. Izzy put her hand on his biceps and looked at him.

“Ziggy?”

Still nothing.

Bachman.

It must have been him.

He didn’t know what to do. Bachman might be taunting him, drawing him away from Izzy so that he could come around and collect her when he was out of the way. It would be safer to retreat, to take her with him and go somewhere safe, to go somewhere so he could see him coming.

But Ziggy.

What about him?

“What?” Izzy mouthed.

He held onto her hand and tugged her with him.

He pushed through the scrum to the truck.

“What is it, John?” she said.

He shouldered right down the middle of a clutch of drunken jocks, probably lost from the Quarter, and reached the hot dog stand. There was no sign of Ziggy. No sign of Bachman, either. There was a metal fence behind the stand, and he clambered up it, hauling himself above the level of the crowd and scanning again. He turned back to Izzy. She was looking at him with a concerned expression on her face. He turned to the north, and, just maybe, saw a flash of scarlet before the crowd congealed around it and scrubbed it out.

Ziggy was wearing red.

“John, what? What is it?”

He dropped down to the ground, took her hand again, and hurried north, tugging her along with him. A clutch of drunken girls were whirling and spinning, their drinks splashing out of their cups. He edged between them, picking up his pace as soon as they were clear of them. It was a little easier to move against the side of the buildings, but the maelstrom of noise and light was disorientating.

He scanned, looking for Ziggy or Bachman. Faces blended together in the mêlée, difficult to make out as he moved through them, but none caught his attention.

Izzy stopped, tugging back at Milton’s arm.

“I’m not moving another step until you tell me what it is.”

“Ziggy is in trouble.”

“Milton!”

It was a loud, desperate cry.

He pushed and shoved his way through the crowd.

“Milton!”

He heard it above the clamour of the carnival, and turned in its direction. There was a patch of empty land between two derelict buildings, the ground rising up to a wire-mesh fence and, beyond that, a road. There was a gap in the fence and, behind that, he saw Ziggy. Bachman was next to him. It took a moment to realise that it was him. He was wearing a ball cap pulled down low over his eyes, and a leather jacket. His hand was inside his jacket, right where a shoulder holster would leave the butt of a pistol, and, as Milton watched, he grabbed Ziggy around the neck and threw him into the back of a waiting car.

Milton surged ahead, barging through the middle of another group of rowdy jocks.

One of them stepped in front of him. “No need to push, dude.”

The man reached out with his left hand. There was no time for negotiation. Milton hit him in the gut, doubling him over as he brought the point of his elbow down, hard, on the back of his head. It was a blindingly quick motion, knocking the man out and dropping him to the ground.

“Milton!” Izzy said, reaching for him.

Two of the man’s friends were in the way. They had watched Milton’s demonstration, and now they regarded him with unmasked fear. They braced themselves, nerves obvious, but they didn’t move. Drunken bravado. Very inconvenient.

“Get out of the way.”

Milton shuffled to the right, tried to edge around them, but they found the confidence to block him. The man Milton had knocked down was starting to come around, too, on his knees and reaching for his friend’s arm to help him to his feet.

Milton watched over their shoulders as Bachman went around to the front of the car and got inside.

There was a squeal of rubber on asphalt and then the car was gone, disappearing into the night.

Milton explained what had happened as he and Izzy took a taxi back to Salvation Row. She listened quietly and, when he was finished, she put a hand on his knee. She said it wasn’t his fault. He knew that was right, that it wasn’t — that it would have been impossible to ward against someone like Bachman if he had it in his mind to come after him — but it didn’t make him feel any better. Ziggy was in terrible danger, might already even be dead, and it had happened on his watch. It was the second time, too.

Once might have been an accident, although Milton didn’t believe in accidents.

Twice was starting to look a lot like negligence.

The taxi pulled up outside the house. The lights were burning, welcoming, and he thought about the meal that he had been promised. Elsie had prepared gumbo, Izzy had told him, a proper Louisianan meal to thank him for what he had done.

Ziggy had been invited, too.

They stepped out of the car into the sticky heat.

“What are you going to do?” Izzy asked.

“There isn’t much to do. We just wait. I—”

He stopped mid-sentence and reached for his phone.

Izzy’s eyes were wide. “Is it him?”

He took it out and looked at the ID.

It was displaying the number of the burner phone that Ziggy had been using.

He nodded at her, accepted the call, and put it to his ear.

“Hello, Milton.”

Milton felt his stomach drop.

Izzy looked at him enquiringly.

“You’re wasting your time.”

“I am?”

“The job’s over. You lost. Get over it. Move on.”

“I told you. This isn’t about the job.”

He put his hand over the phone. “Go inside,” he said to Izzy. “I don’t know where he is. It might not be safe out here.”

“No—” she began.

“Please,” Milton interrupted, raising his voice a little. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

She bit her lip, nodded, and crossed the lawn to the porch.

Milton turned away and walked ten paces down the street. “You there?”

“I’m here.”

“I said you’re wasting your time. It isn’t going to work. I’m leaving tonight.”

“Bit callous, Milton, even for you. What would your friend think about that?”

“I don’t care what he thinks. He’s just a technician. He’s not my friend. He doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“It won’t matter when I peel his skin off, then, will it?”

Milton gritted his teeth. “Do what you want.”

“But it won’t end with him, will it? I’ll kill your friend, and then I’ll kill the girl, her brother, her family. And then I’ll kill anyone I can find who you’ve ever cared about. And then, when I’ve done that, when you’re drowning in guilt and misery, then I’ll kill you.”

“You really want me for an enemy, Bachman?”

He laughed. “Save it for someone you can frighten. Do you remember anything about me at all?”

Too much, Milton thought. Much too much. “What do you want?”

“You killed someone very dear to me.”

“I just put her lights out. She was killed when you pumped bullets at us. A ricochet.”

Bachman screamed down the line, “You’re lying!” His voice was suddenly torn and ragged, with an undercurrent to it that made Milton think of madness.

He spoke calmly. “I’m sorry about what happened to her. But it wasn’t me.”

If Bachman heard him, he didn’t acknowledge it. “We have a score to settle.”

Milton left the phone at his ear and zoned out. He stared at the colourful houses, hearing the rustle of the wind through the trees on the lots that had still to be cleared, absently heard the call of a bird in the sky overhead. He had no doubt that Bachman meant every word he said. He felt as if he was being dragged back down into a world that he had only just been able to leave. It hadn’t been so long since Milton had found his freedom, putting an end to the threat from Control and the Group, and now he would exchange that for a pursuit by one of the most dangerous men in the world? A man who had been considered extreme, even by the extreme standards of the Mossad? A man good enough to fake his own death and elude Israeli intelligence? It would be just as bad as before. It would be worse.

And that was before he thought about Ziggy, Izzy, her mother and father, Alexander, and anyone else who got in his way.

“Fine,” Milton said. “How do we settle it?”

“You need to come and see me. You do that, alone, and I’ll let him walk. The others will never see me.”

“Where?”

“There’s a Six Flags.”

“Six Flags? What?”

“A fairground. Northeast of the city. They closed it after the flood. No one up here any more. There’s a central courtyard. A carousel. Meet me there.”

“When?”

“Midnight. And come alone. There’s nothing up here, Milton. Nothing and no one. I’ll see you as soon as you get within a mile of me. Anyone comes with you, I’ll put a bullet in your friend and I’ll leave. And then I’ll come after you and the others on my terms.”

“I’ll be alone.”

“Don’t be late.”

Chapter Fifty-Four

Elsie Bartholomew had cooked them another Creole feast, but, this time, Milton had to struggle to finish his plate. It wasn’t that he wasn’t hungry — he was, very — it was that he had no appetite. Izzy had known better than to tell her parents what had happened and, when they asked where Ziggy was, she had lied that he had business to attend to in town. There was no sense in worrying them. She had shouldered the burden of conversation, filling the awkward spaces when Milton had missed the questions that were directed at him, giving him a moment to recover and respond with the kind of useless platitude he knew would have them think that he was vacant or distracted or, more likely, just rude.

He thanked Elsie and Solomon when he had finished and, excusing himself on the pretext of wanting a smoke, went outside. He sat on the edge of the porch and put a cigarette in his mouth and then forgot about it, leaving it to hang there, unlit.

He was angry with himself. No, he corrected, not himself, with his helplessness. One of the core principles of recovery was the self-awareness that, as a drunk, his disease would make him try to control everything. The inevitable failure from trying to do that would usher him closer to the one solution that every drunk knew was infallible.

He felt the bonds on his sobriety start to loosen, a notch at a time.

Milton thought back to what had happened in London, after he had told Control that he was going to retire. He thought of Elijah Warriner, a boy who had been teetering on the edge of a gang life, throwing away his future, and how he had tried to help him. How had that turned out? Milton had been arrogant, thinking that his intervention would be enough to solve Elijah’s problems, but his involvement had just made them worse. He had fled to South America, eventually did some good in Juarez, and then to San Francisco and the Upper Peninsula. He was trying to learn, to teach himself the limits of intervention, what he could and couldn’t do. Should and shouldn’t do.

He thought that he had been getting better at it.

He thought that he had done good work in New Orleans.

Really?

Perhaps he had been wrong.

Hubris.

Ziggy was going to pay for his conceit.

For the first time in weeks, his resolve was weak. The urge to take a drink was strong.

“What’s happening?”

It was Izzy. She sat down on the porch next to him.

“I have to go.”

“Where?”

“Doesn’t matter where.”

She was close enough to him that he could feel the heat of her body. Milton fixed his stare ahead, not trusting the strength of his determination should he give in and look at her.

“Where, Milton? What did he say?”

“No, Izzy.”

“Six Flags?”

He turned, quickly. “You were listening?”

“Don’t get sanctimonious. All the lies that you told me, you’re not in a position for it.”

He turned all the way around, put his hands on her shoulders and looked straight at her. “You’ve got to stay here. You have to let me deal with him myself.”

“Deal with him?” Her face said she knew exactly what that word meant.

“I don’t know. Hopefully not. But he might not give me a choice.”

“So, call the police.”

“You already told me that was pointless.”

“But this is—”

“Even if they’d come, they’d make things worse. He’ll see them coming.”

“Then let me come with you. I know Six Flags. I’ve been there dozens of times.”

“No, Izzy. No way. He’ll see you, too. I’m not putting you in harm’s way.”

“I could stay outside—”

He shook his head and replied with complete conviction. “I have to go alone. If he sees anyone else, if he even sniffs anyone else, he kills Ziggy, disappears, comes after someone else when I can’t predict it. He could come after your parents. Alexander. You. All of you, just to get to me. It’s me he wants. Just me.”

“But you go, and, what — he kills you? Right?”

Milton shrugged. “He’ll try.”

“You can’t just walk into that. I can’t let you just walk into that.”

Milton squeezed her shoulders. “Yes, you can. One way or another, it will end. If he gets what he wants, he’ll leave.”

“Gets what he wants—”

“And if I get to him first, there’s no more threat.” He held her shoulders between firm hands. “You have to promise me you’ll stay here. You can’t help me, not for this. If you go, I’ll have to worry about you, too. You’ll make it worse, not better. More dangerous for me and Ziggy. For you. Stay here with your parents.”

“I can’t—”

“Izzy, look at me. Look. I can take care of myself. You know that, right?”

She raised her head and looked into his eyes. He saw fire and passion and a film of wetness.

She didn’t answer him.

He didn’t think that he had reached her.

“Izzy.”

She stood, anger flashing.

“You have to promise me.”

She didn’t. Instead, she brushed his hands away and stood. “When is this going to be over?”

“Tonight.” Milton stood, too. “One way or another, it’ll be finished tonight.”

Chapter Fifty-Five

Milton drove northeast to Michoud Boulevard. The entrance to the park was marked by a huge red and yellow sign. It had been jolly once, but the colour was faded now, and some of the letters had been prised off by the greedy fingers of the wind.

A ticket booth stood beyond that, the glass long since gone from the windows and yellow graffiti sprayed all across it. He saw the skeletal track of a big roller coaster in the middle distance and, behind that, a Ferris wheel. The road ahead was blocked by a chain-link fence, but, as Milton drove slowly through, it didn’t take long to find a weakness that he knew he would be able to broach without difficulty.

He parked the Corolla and got out. It was still hot, even as late as this. He put on the ballistics vest, slipping his shirt over the top of it. He had the Sig Sauer and two spare magazines. He kept the pistol in his hand and shoved the spares into his pockets. He doubted that he would get to use the gun, but he was damned if he was going to a meeting with Avi Bachman without one. He thought about the MP5 in the trunk, but decided against it. He doubted the night would proceed in such a way that spray-and-pray was going to be a legitimate, useful option. Avi Bachman was in control. Milton knew that he wouldn’t let that happen.

Milton approached a spot in the fence where it had been sliced open. The opening had been yanked back, folded back onto itself so that the ends of the jagged wires were hooked onto the stretches that remained intact. Milton bent down and slipped through the opening.

He scouted the park beyond. The whole area had only been sheltered by an eight-foot earthen berm, and Katrina had made short work of that. It had been one of the first places to be overwhelmed and, since the pumps had flooded within hours, it had stayed that way for weeks afterwards.

The place was completely empty. There was enough moonlight for Milton to make out the buildings that had once housed attractions, circular booths that had dispensed food and drink, and, above all of them, the rusted stilts of roller coasters. The walls had been daubed with graffiti, screeds that decried the city council, FEMA, the federal government, anyone who had anything to do with what had happened here.

It was apocalyptic.

Milton walked, scanning ahead carefully, but aware that his caution would be pointless if Bachman decided to take him out now. He was a sitting duck, and he knew it. But he didn’t think that he would snipe him from a distance. He remembered a conversation that they had had, a lifetime ago and on a different continent, when Bachman had explained how he liked to get up close when he killed a man. Milton remembered one phrase in particular: Bachman had said that he liked to “experience” the moment when “hope drained” out of the eyes. Milton had thought there and then that Bachman was a psychopath. He had met many men and women who would have fitted the description during his bloody career — and he, himself, had merited it — but Bachman, maybe, was the worst.

Even the Mossad had wanted him dead in the end.

He headed deeper into the park.

He skirted the huge, disembodied, fibreglass head of a circus clown. It was resting on its side, a horizontal tideline of scurf from its flamboyant ruff to its blackened nose. Milton eyed it warily, knowing that his fear was foolish, yet still unable to ignore the sensation that its dead plastic eyes were following him. He reached the Mega Zeph roller coaster, the struts stretching a hundred feet above him, vines clasping halfway to the top as if they were trying to drag it down into the earth.

Milton walked down Main Street, with devastated buildings on either side, passed the Big Easy Ferris wheel, and then, finally, he reached the carousel. It was tall, eighty feet high, and constructed at the far end of a wide square. The seats were suspended at the ends of long chains, dozens of them, and they rattled and clinked as the gentle breeze bumped them against one another. It was eerie, other-worldly, and Milton knew that he was being watched.

“Bachman!” he called out.

Nothing.

“Bachman! I’m here!”

He had only taken another few steps into the square when his cellphone vibrated in his pocket.

He took it out.

“Drop the gun.”

“Let him go. I’m here.”

“The gun.”

Milton knew he had no choice. Bachman would already have something aimed at him. He swivelled, scanning the buildings that would once have been a restaurant, a ticket booth, the entrance to a gift shop. Doors stood open, some creaked in the wind, impenetrable inky blackness within. He couldn’t see anything. He held up both hands, the gun in his right and the cellphone in his left, and then, slowly and deliberately, rested one knee on the asphalt and placed the gun there.

“Step away from it.”

Milton did.

“Wearing a vest?”

Milton gritted his teeth.

“Take it off.”

He took off his shirt and then removed the ballistics vest. He dropped it onto the ground beside him.

“Leave the shirt off,” Bachman said. “I don’t want any surprises.”

Milton dropped it onto the ground next to the vest and the gun.

“Good. Now — keep going. The carousel.”

Milton walked over to it.

“Bachman?”

The call went dead.

Milton was thirty feet away from the pistol before Bachman emerged from a ticket booth. He had his own pistol in his right hand, aiming it with loose and casual confidence in Milton’s direction. He dragged Ziggy Penn out after him, his left arm looped around his torso. Milton could see at once that Ziggy had been badly beaten. His head hung limply between his shoulder blades, and his shoes scuffed and caught on the ground as he tried to keep his feet beneath him. Bachman hauled him all the way out into the square and then dumped him there.

“Had to rough him up a little,” Bachman called over, no need for the phone now.

“Of course you did.”

Milton was very aware that Bachman still had his gun.

He came closer, twenty feet away, saw that Milton was looking at it and held it up. “What? This? Sorry. I forgot.” He tossed the gun aside. “We won’t need guns, will we, John?”

Milton tried not to give away his surprise. “So how do you want to do this?”

“A nice fist fight, sort this mess out, get things straight. Man to man.”

Milton blinked hard. This was unexpected. He looked at Bachman and weighed him up: maybe an inch taller than him, ten pounds heavier. They were evenly matched. Milton watched as he came in close, ten feet away, unbuttoned his shirt and dropped it behind him. He was wearing a vest. His arms were solid with muscle, coloured by full sleeves of tattoos. His chest was thick, his waist tapered, his legs powerful.

Milton laced his fingers, stretched them, unlaced them and let his arms fall loose to his sides.

“Ready?”

“Six Flags?”

Izzy had stayed just inside the door and listened to Milton’s side of the conversation with the man who had taken Ziggy. His outrage at being eavesdropped on would have been funny in different circumstances. He, after all, had lied to her about the most fundamental things, including who he was. He had tried to get her to say that she would stay behind, had tried again and again to get her to say that she would, to swear it to him, but the most she had conceded was a small nod of the head. Just a nod? She hadn’t sworn it. She hadn’t promised, hadn’t even said it. And she wouldn’t have paid any attention even if she had. After everything Milton had done for her and her family, how could she let him take off to be shot?

She could not.

She watched as Milton drove away, and then hurried to her own car. She drove north on Franklin Avenue and then turned to the east, following I-10, and caught sight of him as he passed the turn-off for Lakefront Airport. She knew that he was careful, and guessed that he would be looking out for signs that he was being followed. And, in the event that he was, she turned left onto Morrison and followed the route of the interstate one road removed. She turned back on I-10 as she reached Gannon, but, as she stared frantically ahead and then back in her mirrors, there was no sign of his Corolla.

Had he turned off? Accelerated away?

She drove on. She thought about what had happened over the course of the last few days. Joel Babineaux, Jackson Dubois and their cronies were in custody, their reputations shredded, with just jail time to look forward to once the scale of their corruption became obvious. And who knew how deep down the rabbit hole that would go? The police, certainly. Detective Peacock was just the first domino to fall. The mayor. Who else?

Salvation Row was safe, and the way was clear for the charity to continue with its work. There would be no mall now.

Alexander was back in rehab, and he had seemed happy to go.

All of those things had looked so desperate before Milton had arrived. He was a complicated man, and she knew there were depths to him that she did not want to disturb, even to know about, but without him things would have been very different. Babineaux would have driven his bulldozers straight through the middle of all of their hard work.

And Alexander might have been dead.

She couldn’t get that out of her head.

She couldn’t abandon Milton, no matter what he had said.

She drove on, nudging seventy and then eighty as the roads cleared. She headed to the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge. The spectral silhouettes of the park’s taller rides were limned in silver by a half moon and, as she drew nearer, she saw Milton’s Toyota Corolla parked at the side of the road.

She slammed on the brakes, rolled up behind it, killed the engine and the lights.

The chain-link fence rattled in the breeze. She looked through it and into the darkened park.

She remembered. The place was like an open sore, a reminder to those who had the temerity to thumb their nose at Nature. The city was here at the whim of the ocean.

Deserted.

Eerie.

They called it Zombieland now.

Izzy stepped through the gash in the fence and hurried inside.

They fenced for the first few moments, each firing out exploratory jabs, keeping a safe distance between them. A couple of Milton’s right-handers slid between Bachman’s defences, cracking off his cheek and chin. They had no effect. Bachman moved with studied ease, his weight balanced perfectly so that he could dodge left and right without having to think about it. Milton had been a decent regimental boxer when he was younger, and he still recalled much of it, but he remembered again that the Mossad trained their agents in Krav Maga and he knew that would be a very big problem. The discipline eliminated all superfluous movements. You never turned your back on your opponent, there was nothing fancy, each strike delivering maximum power. He remembered that Bachman was good at it and, if he allowed him to get too close, he would be at a severe disadvantage.

He didn’t want to get in too close.

“Your wife,” Milton said between breaths.

Bachman didn’t reply.

“—didn’t kill her… didn’t shoot her.”

Bachman’s face darkened and he threw out a big roundhouse that Milton took on his shoulder, the blow sending a spider web of pain along his nerves. Bachman used the momentum of his body, using the hips rather than the torso, to generate quick and effective force. The power of it took Milton by surprise, staggering him a half-step to the right.

“—not lying.”

Bachman grunted, firing out Muay Thai elbows and knees. Milton caught a knee strike against his side and responded with a stiff left hand that knocked Bachman back again.

Milton stood away, gasping for breath. “Your shot — ricochet — killed her.”

Bachman roared and rushed him. Milton tried to sidestep, but his foot caught against a loose plank that had been discarded in the square and he could only stumble. Bachman grabbed him, both hands around his shoulders as he drove him back. Milton managed to pivot as they collapsed and he fell atop him. He tried to wrestle Bachman down, to hold him against the ground, but he was strong. He butted Milton in the face, a dizzying blow that gave him enough space to strike up with his elbow. Milton lost the grip with his right hand, opening up more space between their bodies so that Bachman could strike him again, and then again, with his elbow. Milton felt the bones in his nose snap and the blood rushed down to run across his lips. He tried to fire out a left-handed punch, but Bachman jerked his head aside and his fist glanced against his temple and hit the concrete. Pain flared again. A broken knuckle?

Bachman swung his elbow again and Milton fell off, rolling onto his back.

Bachman sprang to his feet with a nimble kip-up.

Milton’s vision darkened, a black fringe that fell down like the drawing of a curtain. Bachman’s face was concentrated and his eyes glittered with black fury. Milton rolled his neck as Bachman stamped down on his head, the treads of his boot scraping down the side of his crown. He scrambled upright again, his feet slipping and sliding on the mossy cobbles. He was still too dazed to get his arms up in time as Bachman swept out a wide kick that crunched into the junction of his neck and shoulder, whiplashing his head to the side.

Bachman hammered down a big right. Milton recovered just in time, blocked it on his forearms, rolled away, and tottered to his feet.

He floundered back until there were ten paces between them.

There was blood in his mouth. He spat it out.

Bachman shook out his arms. There was the first purpling of a contusion around his right eye socket, but that was it.

They both circled warily.

“Want to know something?” Bachman opened and closed his fists, rolling his shoulders. “When we were in Egypt, before the operation, I thought you were an arrogant prick. Big reputation. Full of it. I heard it from the others, even the fucking Americans were scared of you. But I wasn’t. Nothing to back it up, Milton. All hot air.”

He was barely out of breath. Milton was gasping.

“This isn’t necessary,” he said between pants. “Just go, Bachman.”

Bachman hopped, two quick steps that closed the distance before Milton, dazed, could react. He fired out a flurry of rights and lefts. Milton covered up, but Bachman switched his aim and started to pummel his ribs and torso with short, abbreviated kicks. The air was thumped out of his lungs and pain fired out, thunderclaps of it. When Milton lowered his guard to try to block the kicks, Bachman clocked him with a huge right cross.

He staggered away.

He couldn’t trade with him.

He fell back.

Izzy walked through the empty fairground.

That’s right, Zombieland.

She tried to remember how long ago it was since she had been here. Ten years? Maybe fifteen. Her parents had taken her and Alexander here, years before, and she remembered the happy time that they had spent. The long, endless, hot days, the park just a long bowl of concrete with nowhere to shelter from the tropical sun. She remembered the synthetic taste of the hot dogs, the sugar rush from candy apples and cotton candy and the sugary soft drinks. The pictures of what Katrina had done to the park had been some of the hardest for her to bear. Her friends felt the same way. The water that had lain atop it for weeks, brackish and corrosive, was a slur upon her most cherished memories.

She looked around with a shiver of discomfort. There were the ghostly silhouettes of the rides, abandoned to nature. The Mega Zeph roller coaster, the Big Easy Ferris wheel. All the empty concession stands. She passed a wheelchair, washed out of whichever building had stored it, and left there, forgotten, to corrode.

It was humid, sticky with heat.

A jet passed overhead, its engines rumbling through the dark night.

She thought she heard voices.

She stopped, closed her eyes, and listened.

Yes. Voices.

A man, speaking. Too far away to discern the words, but the tone was evident. Confident.

She felt a knot of tension in her stomach. She tried to ignore it.

She turned in the direction of the voices and started to trot.

They were next to the carousel now. Milton felt it against the back of his legs, fell back against it, shuffled along, reached his hand up for the nearest chained seat, and used it to haul himself aboard. He retreated backwards, putting a line of seats between them. Bachman vaulted up easily and came on, sweeping the chairs aside, the chains rattling. Milton staggered back, through the chairs, until he felt the central spindle behind him.

Bachman closed. Milton tried to get his guard up, but his arms were sluggish.

Bachman drilled him.

He stumbled.

Bachman drilled him again.

The black curtain descended again, more pervasive, and Milton was unable to defend himself as Bachman stepped up, jackhammering a right and then a left to the head. He fired a big cross into his ribs, another blow with the point of his elbow that spun him around and dropped him, face up, across the rotten wooden floor of the carousel.

Bachman dropped down onto the ground, taking Milton’s right wrist, looping his arm beneath his shoulder and then immobilising the limb by clasping both of his hands together. He pulled the arm up, Milton’s elbow yanked towards his head, and then twisted his body to apply intense pressure to the shoulder. Milton knew the hold: it was a Kimura, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu submission move, and Bachman had cinched it in tight. The pain was indescribable. It burned through the fugue like a white hot sun. Milton knew, in a distant part of his brain, that his tendons were being stretched out and his joints pulled apart. It wouldn’t be long before the fibres snapped and his shoulder dislocated.

Somehow, on instinct alone, Milton reached around with his free hand and stabbed Bachman in the eye.

He released the lock.

Milton tried to crawl away from him. He slid off the carousel and onto the cobblestones, but, as soon as he put weight on the shoulder, he collapsed. His chin scraped against the rough stone.

There was no respite. Bachman straddled him from behind, took a fistful of his hair and crashed his forehead against the ground.

And again.

And again.

The darkness was complete now. It felt permanent. Each blow registered less and less.

Milton felt the life ebb out of him.

And then they stopped.

— felt something hard against his chest — his muscles limp, his arms dangling—

“—away from him—”

— heard the words, tried to string them together, make sense out of them—

“—the way back—”

— blinked until he could see again. He was spread across the edge of the carousel, his head lolling, looking down at the ground below—

“—and get—”

— pushed himself backwards and fell onto his backside, one of the suspended chairs bouncing against the back of his head—

He looked up.

Isadora Bartholomew had his Sig Sauer in her hand.

She was pointing it at Bachman.

“—hands up.”

Milton reached up and touched his forehead. The blood was warm and tacky against his fingers. He felt a surge of vomit and had to fight to keep it down.

Bachman was at the edge of the carousel, too, his hands half-heartedly raised to the height of his head.

“Put your hands up, now.”

“Come on.” Bachman’s voice was relaxed. “You’re not going to shoot me.”

Izzy kept the gun trained on him.

“I can see it in your eyes. Look at you. You’re scared.”

Milton pushed himself up to his knees. Dizziness buffeted him.

“There’s nothing wrong with being scared. Most people would be, a situation like this. Just listen to Milton. You don’t want to shoot me.”

“I will if you don’t keep your hands where I can fucking see them.” She jabbed the gun at him, as if that might be enough to make up for the doubt that was so evident in her voice.

Milton knew she wouldn’t shoot. He had moments to save her life.

“You’re not a killer,” Bachman said. “Look at you. You haven’t got it in you. You shouldn’t worry. Not many people do. I do. Milton does, don’t you, John? He tell you what he used to do?”

“Stay there,” she said.

“Used to be an assassin. That’s right. He tell you that? British government. Ten years. A whole decade of murdering. How many people have you killed, John? You tell her that? Fifty? A hundred?”

“Izzy,” Milton groaned.

“Me, too. Him and me, not too different. Not when you come down to it. But not you. I reckon I could just come over there and take that gun from you right now. What do you think? Could I do that?”

Bachman took a step closer to her.

Izzy backed away.

Another step.

Izzy was terrified.

Milton pushed himself upright and managed to slide down to the ground.

There were six feet between Izzy and Bachman.

Bachman took another step.

“Avi,” Milton called.

“Stay there, Milton.”

He swayed back and forth. “Want to… you want to go again?”

Now Bachman turned his head. He looked at him, an expression of amused curiosity on his face. “Look at you. You’re crazy.”

He lowered his hands and formed fists.

“Put them up,” Izzy shouted.

He turned back.

Milton had barely anything left. He could only just raise his arms. There was a crank resting on the lip of the carousel. It must have been used in the mechanical workings and left there when the park was evacuated. Milton’s fingers closed around it, the metal cold in his palm, and he lifted it up.

Bachman didn’t notice. He was walking over to Izzy. She was backing away, unable to shoot.

Moments left before he would take the gun.

Milton followed after them.

“Hey!”

Bachman stopped, turned, and Milton swung the crank.

It struck him on the forehead, just below the line of his scalp.

Bachman stopped, his hand drifting up to his head, frowned, and then, as his eyes rolled back into his head, he toppled over onto his side.

The crank slipped from Milton’s fingers and rang against the cobblestones. He felt an enervating wave of lethargy, and he fell to his knees and then onto his side.

The darkness fell again.

“Milton—”

The sound of sirens could be heard from Michoud Boulevard.

“—are you okay?”

He heard his name and saw the blurred tracing of Izzy’s face shimmer above him, as if he were underwater.

And then, he was.

Chapter Fifty-Six

Milton waited in the manager’s office. The business of the bank continued outside, cashiers quietly and efficiently dealing with the small, shuffling lines of customers. It was a little before midday. This was his third, and final, stop of the day. Each stop had taken an hour.

He stretched out his legs. The beating that he had taken from Avi Bachman had left bruises all the way across his body. His nose had been broken, too, and three ribs. His shoulder had been dislocated. He had pushed it back into place again himself, and it had hurt like hell. Milton had never been bested like that in all his life. Bachman — or Claude Boon, his given name when the police booked him for kidnap and assault — had thrown him around like a rag doll. If it wasn’t for Izzy, he would have been killed. There was no doubt about it in his mind.

Izzy.

She had tried to persuade him to stay in town for a few weeks. He had been tempted. He had enjoyed working on the houses, and it would have been rewarding to help them get construction going again. But, he eventually decided, he didn’t want to be around when the press started to get hold of what had happened with Babineaux and the others who had been caught in his web. He had a natural aversion to publicity. It was partly a hang-up from his past, but also the sure knowledge that a low profile was better for a man like him. It was better for those around him, too. There were people in the world who would take great interest in him, were they ever to discover where he was and what he was doing. He knew that likely meant that he could never settle down. He had reconciled himself to that possibility. A peripatetic, vagabond lifestyle suited him. He could live with it.

The police had asked Milton to stay in town, too. He had given a statement, explaining how he had helped Izzy and the charity. The prosecutor would be able to lay out the details without him. Bachman was hired by someone at Babineaux Properties to kill Izzy, Milton had intervened, and he had abducted Ziggy to exact revenge.

Open and shut.

Milton had no interest in being in New Orleans for the trial. The idea of a clever lawyer skewering him on the stand, drawing out the kind of information that was much better kept secret, filled him with disquiet. And, anyway, he wasn’t needed. The main charge was the aggravated kidnapping, and Ziggy and Izzy were around to give evidence for that. Bachman hadn’t brought Ziggy across state lines, so federal charges had not been brought, but, because he had beaten him, he was looking at a felony. A serious one.

Milton had asked Izzy what Bachman was facing. She said life imprisonment in Angola with no prospect of parole and that was if he was lucky. If the feds got involved, tied him to other murders, he might be looking at the death penalty. Either way, he didn’t have much to look forward to.

The manager returned with a sheaf of papers and sat on the other side of the desk.

“Well, Mr. Smith,” he said. “It’s all in order.”

“Very good,” Milton said.

“Two hundred thousand dollars, cash. Don’t see deposits like that every day. Hoops to jump through, you know.”

“Of course. I understand.”

“Well, it’s all done. You want to tell me where you want it to go?”

“Yes. There’s a charity building houses in the Lower Ninth.”

“Build It Up? Sure. I know it.”

“There. I’d like the money to go there, please.”

“All of it?”

“Yes, please.”

The man tapped out the details. “A very good cause,” he said. “You see the news this week? They got into a dispute with the guys who wanted to build that big mall down there. Dug up all kinds of dirt. The papers are saying that those people are going to go to jail.”

“I did,” Milton said.

“And did you see it this morning? Mayor’s office is getting involved, too.”

Milton wasn’t in the mood for a discussion, although he had read the newspaper over his breakfast. “You need anything else from me?”

“No, sir. We’re all good.”

“Thank you.”

He got up. He had the final four hundred thousand dollars in his pack. He would deposit that when he got to Florida. No sense in attracting undue attention to himself. He figured that depositing all of it in New Orleans on the same day would be asking for that to happen. He had looked into the Bank Secrecy Act, and knew that each institution he used would have to file a Currency Transaction Report with the government. No way around that with deposits as big as these. He had the documentation for three separate identities, and he had opened new accounts for all of them. He had varied the amounts—$150,000 in one, $250,000 in another, $200,000 here — and he hoped that might muddy the waters.

The manager walked him to the door.

“What do you have planned for the rest of the day, sir?”

“Not too much.”

“Well, you have a good one.”

“Thanks,” Milton said. “You, too.”

The bank was only a couple of blocks from the bus station. He shrugged his pack onto his shoulders, collected his rifle, and walked there. It was another hot, sticky day, and he hoped that the bus would be air-conditioned.

The bus station was a simple affair: eight bays, a single-storey concrete building with a tinted glass front. There were a clutch of passengers in the waiting room, leery of waiting in the broil outside. Milton checked the destinations board. The bus to Miami was leaving from Bay C in ten minutes. He walked over, took his phone and headphones from his pack, put them into his pocket, and slung the pack into the cargo bay.

The driver was waiting at the door.

“Ticket?”

Milton took the one-way ticket from his pocket and handed it to him. The driver checked it, punched it, and handed it back. Milton climbed aboard. The bus was almost full, with just a handful of spare seats. The other passengers eyed him with lazy disinterest. Milton took the seat that was closest to the front. The man alongside was unshaven, wearing a denim jacket and badly patched jeans, a bandana on his head. He smelled a little ripe, like he hadn’t seen a bar of soap for a while. Milton didn’t mind. There were plenty of days, out in the wilderness, when he was just the same.

“You all right?” the man said as he settled in next to him.

“Doing okay.”

He put out a hand. “I’m Jack Wishard.”

Milton clasped it. “John Smith.”

The door shut with a whoosh of compressed air, and the driver started the engine. The silver bus, gleaming in the sunshine, pulled out of the station and edged into the busy traffic.

“Where you headed?”

“Miami.”

“Me, too. What you doing down there?”

“Nothing special. Just thought I’d go have a look. It’s been a while since I last visited.”

“What business you in, John?”

“This and that. Whatever I can find.”

“I know that kind of work.” The man reached down into a knapsack on the floor and took out a can of beer. Milton saw several others nestled in there. “Want one?”

Milton shook his head. “I’m good. But thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” The man popped the top and took a long slug. He smacked his lips and sighed contentedly. “Man, I needed that. Long drive ahead, John. I do this trip once a month, go down there and see my little girl. Me and the wife split up. She went down there to her folks, took Daisy with her. Fourteen hours, every four weeks, stuck on this frickin’ bus. Best way I ever found to make it go faster, you get a little buzz on. You sure you don’t want one?”

“I’m good.”

“All right.”

The man took another long swig and then, sensing that Milton wasn’t particularly interested in conversation, looked out of the window.

The bus rolled north east on I-10, passing the abandoned Six Flags, the skeletal struts of the roller coaster picked out in the blistering sun. They passed through Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge, the dense vegetation reminding him of the bayou shack where Avi Bachman’s wife had met her end.

Milton settled himself so that the pain from his injuries became a dull ache that he could almost ignore and closed his eyes. He was tired. He thought of Izzy and her family, the meals that he had enjoyed in the beautiful home that she had built, and drew satisfaction from the knowledge that they would have no need to move now. Solomon and Elsie could live and die in the Lower Nine, surrounded by old neighbours called back by the progress that was being made by their daughter. Their amazing, inspiring daughter. Milton had made mistakes, but not there. It was a good job, well done.

The bus rumbled onto the Pontchartrain Expressway across the glittering, treacherous waters of Lake Pontchartrain and headed on to Slidell, Diamondhead, and Diberville.

Milton thought of Avi Bachman. Was he a loose end? He could have put a bullet in him, tied it up for good, but Izzy was there, and what would she have thought of that? He had lifted his mask a little since he had arrived in town, but taking it off completely would have poisoned him to her forever. He couldn’t have done that. He had done the only thing that he could have done. But, still, the idea of a man like Avi Bachman, or Claude Boon — or whatever he chose to call himself — walking the earth with a grudge against him was not something that would allow for easy sleep. The thought that he was incarcerated was of some comfort.

Wishard finished his first can, closed his eyes, and started to snore. Milton opened his eyes and looked out past him at the unwinding landscape, the endless Gulf and the primeval swamp that fringed the road. They drove alongside a long, wide inlet and, as Milton watched, a big alligator roused itself from the burning rocks and slid into the muddy waters, quickly sinking out of sight.

Milton closed his eyes and tried, again, to sleep.