Page 35 of Carnival Queen

“They’re dead,” said Trak with a blank face.

“How come you can’t just injure people? Why does it always have to be death?” said Whiskey, shaking his head.

“They deserved to die.”

“Fair point. I’ll see if I can find a cell phone or anything. Go. Get those boys, brother.”

Whiskey found the cell phones of both men and then busted the windows of their cars, searching for anything that might help them. He remembered that other than Ogie, there were several other bouncers, and yet they were nowhere to be seen.

When he came around to the front of the building, he knew why. Tailor and Alec were standing over the big men, grinning.

“Did you kill them?” he asked Alec. Alec looked at him and frowned.

“That’s not nice. We’re not Trak. We didn’t kill them. Well, not all of them.” Whiskey just shook his head, then kneeled in front of the bouncers.

“Where are the other clubs?” he asked, just to be certain they’d gotten them all.

One of the bouncers immediately began to talk, listing off the locations throughout the state. All of them were now ashes except the one behind them, which would be soon enough.

“Who hired you?” he asked. The men all looked at them, shaking their heads. “You’ve got one choice only. Tell me who hired you, or you’re going to die in an inferno inside that building.”

“We were hired to do construction work,” said one of the bouncers. “When we showed up, they had photos of us with young women at other clubs. We were told they would go public, they would be sent to our families if we didn’t cooperate.”

“All of you?” asked Whiskey. They all nodded their heads. “And if I let you go, what will you do?”

“Get the fuck out of here and this fucking state,” said one of the men. “My wife already left me, but I’m gonna win her back.”

“Good luck with that,” frowned Whiskey. “In my experience, it’s not that simple. If we ever see you in a place like this again, if I ever find out that you touched one of those girls or boys, I will hunt you down.”

“You think this is all about the clubs?” asked one of the bouncers.

Whiskey and the others looked at him, waiting patiently. As he stared down at the young man, he realized it wasn’t the kind of look that you normally saw in a bouncer. He looked too all-American, too clean-cut.

“It’s not. It’s not about the clubs at all. They’re trying to bring an oil pipeline from Guyana through the Gulf to Louisiana. The clubs were just quick money for them and a place to entertain investors. This is way more. Something no one knows about. I used to be on the rigs, and I caught a glimpse of the plans on Mr. Jackson’s desk one day. They want to divert oil from other South American countries and paralyze their governments.”

“Who is they?” asked Whiskey.

“Mr. Jackson and Mr. Douglass,” he said.

“No. No, they’re not the head of this. Someone is above them. Neither of those fucking idiots is smart enough to do this.”

“That’s all I know. I swear,” said the man.

“Can you redraw what you saw?” asked Alec. He looked up at the mountain and nodded.

“Give me some paper and a pen.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

With no sleep at all between them, the team walked into the offices with the drawing in their hands. Whiskey slapped it down on the table.

“A pipeline. They’re diverting oil from South America into Guyana, and they’re going to withhold the oil by building storage facilities right here in South Louisiana, stockpiling the oil and paralyzing other countries.”

“We need to find out how they’re doing all of this,” said Nine. “We need to find out who is backing them and how we stop it. I don’t care if we have to blow every fucking ship in the Gulf. We’re going to stop this.”

“Nine, as much as I love your enthusiasm,” said Miller, “if it’s full of oil, we’ll create a natural disaster that would affect our great-great-great-grandchildren.”

“Fuck,” he muttered.

---