Page 94 of Absinthe Dreams
“I hate to say it,” I said. “But we need to start recruiting.”
LaCroix gave me a dirty look, but nodded. We just didn’t have the numbers, and that was bad. Real bad.
“Two prospects to start with won’t be too bad, but they better be trusted, man. Friends of the club.”
“Might be we need to call in another favor or two with the Kraken boys,” I said.
“What, like see if any of ‘em feel like re-locatin’?” LaCroix asked.
I shrugged and said, “I hadn’t thought of that, but maybe…”
He grunted and turned back into his thoughts, and we were silent the rest of the ride back to home base, which for the moment was LaCroix’s old Bayou House.
We got out of the truck and loaded shit into one of Cy’s old skiffs, LaCroix boarding it solo and pushing off with a long pole into the swamp.
“Hey wait a minute, would you, boss? I got something I’d like to discuss,” I called out.
“You comin’ with me?” he asked, and I nodded.
“Yeah.”
I was planning on staying out here the rest of the night anyway. What was the difference between here and out on the hidden houseboat?
He pushed back closer to the dock, and I leaped into the bottom of the boat.
“See you then.” Bennie gave a wave of his hand and turned with Saint and Axe to head into the Bayou House.
“What’d you want to say to me?” LaCroix asked when we’d been poling our way in silence through the swamp for a minute.
I pulled mine out of the water and stood it up in the bottom of the boat, leaning on it.
“Genesis and I want to get a place together,” I said. “Out here, in the country, at the edge of the swamp, more than in the city.”
“You looking for my blessing?” he demanded.
“Sort of,” I answered truthfully. “We wanted to do up a place where the club was welcome and safe. You know we already got your daddy’s old place, but…”
I didn’t know how to approach this part.
“Spit it out. You want to buy it and fix it up or some shit?” he asked.
“No, I want to buy the land, burn it the fuck down with you, and build something entirely new.”
He paused in his poling through the muck and peered at me through the dark.
The moon was up, but only in half her glory, so it was hard to see, but I could feel him study my face. He remained silent.
“That place ain’t but full of old ghosts for you,” I said. “You ain’t set foot in it long before your daddy died, and ain’t set footoncein it since he did. I know the value of keeping it as a base outside the city, but with Cy gone, and me with Gen most of the time, it sits empty. Burn it down, collect that bag, sell the land on the cheap to me and Gen, and keep it in the club.”
He stood for an age, thinking about it, and finally dropped the pole back into the water and shoved off, steering us in the direction we needed to go to get back to his lady.
He was quiet for so long, I didn’t think he would go for it, but then…
“I’ll ask the Bayou Baroness,” he said. “Feels like the right thing to do, but I want confirmation from the spirits that I ain’t about to take on some bad juju disposing of the family land.”
I nodded, and even though I didn’t go for a lot of his superstitious shit, I respected him enough to do whatever he felt was right. I mean, worst-case scenario, it was a “no” which I’d anticipated would be the case.
We could sit on it longer.
