Bottom Feeders Read online

  It wouldn’t rain tonight, though, which meant that they were going to pour until dawn if they had to.

  The casino was one of the first buildings of its kind part convention center and part cruise ship. When finished it would be shaped like a baseball diamond, with homeplate mooring the rest of the building to the shore, and first, second, and third bases all represented by giant floating steel buoys. This meant that Harry and his crew were now pouring concrete down into three interlocking floating plates, each rising out of the water and recessed about ten feet to accommodate the concrete. As backwards as it seemed, filling the buoys up inland and then setting them to sea would have been too difficult. The crew would have needed an aircraft carrier to get them overlapping like they needed them.

  Not that this was easy, building on a river, but once they had the foundation in place, and each of the plates anchored to the riverbed by giant chains, then the ground under them would be solid, and it should be business as usual.

  But the construction team had to pour first, and do it from vertigo-inducing heights, so far out in the river that passing trawlers and barges would have to be careful not to collide with the site. It was such a massive undertaking, the Coast Guard was involved, a few patrols surrounding the site like beat cops directing traffic around a busted water main, collecting overtime.

  If he looked to his left, Harry could see the twinkling lights of the city, civilization glowing in the darkness of Louisiana, a state below sea level; land that was trying its best to kick the humans out. To his right, there was a similar twinkle, but it was lower down, below the horizon line instead of in the sky. The current of the river caught both the lights of the city and the crew’s work lights, and reflected them back into the starless expanse. The water looked cleaner at night, obsidian black instead of leaf brown and copper runoff.

  That was if he looked to either his right or left, but he didn’t look, not more than a quick glance to orient himself after slipping in the mud, almost falling down the wall they’d built over the bank. If he fell and couldn’t grab onto a safety railing, Harry’s body would pinball against the scaffolding, the water below maybe deep enough for him to survive and swim to safety, but also maybe not.

  He thought of the substantial belly flop he would have to endure, hitting the water, and his stomach grumbled in protest, forcing him to reach out for the railing on either side of him.

  Pataki was manning the north-most truck, the highest of the three chutes, so also the trickiest.

  “It checks out, some real standing-spoon oatmeal you’ve got here,” Pataki said as Harry approached, huffing with exertion. Christ, how was he going to make it through the night? There were three more loads.

  Pataki was one of the only men on the crew who didn’t have a Mexican or French last name, and this—combined with his general competency, of course—was what led Harry to trust him with the biggest jobs. Pataki was a Slav, or a Pollack, or something. Whatever he was, he had a slight accent, and because he found himself ostracized by both the Latinos and the Cajuns, was less likely to goof off and fall into an environment of cronyism.

  Instead of saying anything and risking sounding even more out of breath than he was, Harry just clapped Pataki on the shoulder and plucked his walkie from his belt. Harry swallowed down a glob of phlegm and exhaustion before trying to speak into the mouthpiece.

  “All three teams are go. I repeat, go. One man on the truck, one with his light on the chute. No leaks, fellas,” he said, then added, “Good luck. Over.”

  Pataki nodded and smiled behind him, flicking off the protective casing of the corded unit in his hand and then depressing the button, a red light flicking to green under his thumb, giving his fingernail a radioactive glow.

  Harry turned to look back down the walkway, and he could see the two other lights switch to green in near unison.

  Pretty good, he thought. But then the scaffolding under them groaned and he remembered that they were standing on this temporary construction along with three dump trucks, their front ends jacked up on six-foot risers. How much weight could the supports take? Would the concrete on the plates help or hinder their stability up here?

  Harry had done the math, trusted himself, but there were variables here, hundreds of thousands of cusecs worth of variables, each variable a cubic foot of water flowing through their construction site every second.

  “Look at it go,” Pataki said, his accent thicker, but the tone still transparent: the man had seen how the natural sway of the walkway caused Harry to cringe and grip the railing tighter, and Pataki was trying to calm his boss down.

  Pataki pointed his flashlight down, watching the first of the mix cross the halfway point on the chute now, the angle steep enough that it wasn’t going to slow, get caught up on itself, but slight enough that they weren’t just pouring straight down into the hole, giving the three guys in the boats a chance to direct the flow.

  “See? All good, boss,” Pataki said. It was such a humane gesture, almost tender. Wow, George Pataki, the softy.

  It was George, right? Harry tried to picture Pataki’s full name on his paystub or call schedule and couldn’t. He had been working with Pataki for the better part of a decade, and their relationship had been so inextricable from the site, from last names for everyone, that he’d forgotten the guy’s first name, if he’d ever known it.

  Harry leaned against the railing, feeling better, and resolved to look it up when they were through here, maybe even ask Pataki and his wife—he did have a wife, Harry was sure of it—over for dinner, if Sissy could be bothered to cook.

  In ten minutes or so, Harry was going to have to work his way down the staircase to check on the three guys standing in the plates, pushing the concrete around with oversized rakes. But now he could relax, stand beside Pataki, and watch the plates fill in. Already there were three small disks of mix spreading out like dark pancakes in giant griddles. The two men leaned over, the lip of the northern plate, third base, below them.

  “All so people have another place to spend their paychecks if they’re starting to get bored with Harrah’s,” Harry said, loving the work, proud of it, but not too thrilled with the reasons behind it.

  “Nah, it’s not gonna be like that at all. It will be classy. You’ve seen the pictures. It’ll pump some life into this place. It’s not going to drain it like those other casinos,” Pataki said. So the guy was an optimist.

  Harry stood there, trying to think of something to say that wasn’t: “If you knew Mr. Wilkes like I did, you wouldn’t be thinking hope and change, you’d be thinking fucking dystopia.” But he couldn’t find the words before the scaffolding shuddered under them, the metal ringing like a tuning fork.

  Twirling to face the trucks, sure that one of the risers had slipped out from under its wheel, the wedge of the vehicle possibly about to push them into the Mississippi, Harry was surprised to see them all in place, drums still turning.

  If the top of the structure was fine, that meant that there was some kind of problem down below causing the movement.

  There was another hit, and Pataki made a sound. Not a scream, more of a surprised bark that trailed off as soon as it started.

  With a flash of light hitting the right side of his face and gone before he could lose much vision, Harry turned to see that he was now alone on the walkway, the railing still shuddering from the shift, twanging like a plucked guitar string.

  The Slav was not on the truck, not down on the landing below them, not on the steps: Pataki was gone.

  Harry bent to grab the man’s flashlight, keeping one hand on the railing. Pataki had been gripping that same bar just seconds ago, and it hadn’t helped him any. Harry felt his palms begin to sweat, the skin going rubbery.

  He pointed the flashlight beam down into the plate. The man below him with the rake just stared up, shielding his eyes.

  “What was that?” the guy yelled up.

  The guy either didn’t hear the splash Pataki had made hitting the wa
ter, or didn’t put together what it was. At least Pataki hadn’t hit the plate, pinged his head off the lip like that guy smacking against the propeller in Titanic. The best part of the whole movie if you asked Harry.

  “Back to work!” Harry yelled back down to him, and the man juggled his rake handle in surprise.

  He directed the beam over to the water. There were ripples there, but it could have just been the wake of a passing trawler.

  “Pataki!” he yelled, cupping his hand over his mouth on the off chance that the guy had slipped around in front of the truck to grab something he’d forgotten.

  “What?” the man on the plate below yelled back up.

  “Is your name fucking Pataki?” Harry responded, wishing he knew who the guy was, looking to fire him to just relieve some stress.

  Oh Jesus oh Jesus oh Jesus.

  He put the light back on the water.

  There were fewer ripples now, just the gentle wake of a splash still reverberating between the scaffolding and the plate.

  Did he stop the pour? When they were so close to finished with the first phase? Everything had been going so well.

  Of course he did. Harry had a great track record with on-site accidents, he shut everything down and scrubbed the scene. He’d even done some EMT and Triage training modules, because he didn’t trust anyone but himself to know what to do.

  So why wasn’t he screaming for them to stop, ringing everyone up on the walkie and getting all hands on deck, every light they had on the water, looking for Pataki?

  Because he could be clawing his way up onto shore right now. He could be fine and you’ll be endangering the pour for nothing.

  Or he could have knocked himself senseless on the way down, was now drifting to the bottom of the river, being carried away by the current, and losing brain function as his nostrils sucked in water instead of air.

  And if it was that second version of events? Would they be able to save Pataki anyway?

  If they did save him, would Pataki be brain-dead, a burden on his family?

  Harry Albright knew he was extrapolating, equivocating, inventing. He also knew that every second he wasn’t doing something to find the missing man he was committing a crime.

  The ripples were gone now, the water normalizing, and the pancakes of wet concrete kept spreading, their masses just about to meet.

  Harry unclipped his cell phone from its holster. It was a clunky Nokia flip phone; there was no place on a construction site for the dainty glass of a smartphone. He hovered his finger over the ‘9’ of 911, and then hesitated.

  He cursed himself and called Jed Wilkes’s number instead.

  There was a brief exchange of expletives, inquiries into whether Harry knew what time it was, never to call on this number.

  “Mr. Wilkes, I have a problem down at the pour and I’m not sure how to solve it.”

  Chapter Five

  The cleric dipped his head in prayer, and placed both hands down between the roots and felt the warm water press through his fingers. A pill bug ran under his palm, trying to escape the puddle that had formed in the damp ground.

  “She has fed once more. Hallelujah,” the cleric said, and from behind him, all bowing to the tree, its exposed roots encompassing their leader’s arms, all of their cloaks soaked through at the knees from the marshlands below them, his parishioners repeated: “Hallelujah!”

  The tree was old and had supped on more swamp carrion, more decay, than had ever entered even the oldest gator’s gullet. The tree wasn’t any more or less sacred than those beside it, their branches connected by a network of hanging moss, all of them one system to be worshiped and revered.

  “She will return soon. Already the waters are rising, warmed with the blood of sacrifice. Can you feel it, too, brothers and sisters? If you can, cry out.”

  “AMEN! She comes!”

  “I feel it, Reverend! Amen!”

  “Where is she? I need to see her!”

  This third exclamation was a false note in an otherwise flawless ceremony, and the cleric stood from the roots, pushing the hood back from over his bald pate, the fabric of his cloak drying his hands as he did so.

  “Who among you speaks so brazenly? Asks to see Her with such presumption?” he asked the gathering, even though he knew full well who had demanded to see Her. There were only five worshipers, but even since yesterday their numbers had grown, and would continue to grow.

  “I didn’t mean no offense, Reverend,” Jonny Niven said, standing to face the cleric eye-to-eye. The boy’s hair was wild, unwieldy enough that it had made his hood lumpy, misshapen. He would need to shave it, show his cloak a little more respect.

  “You think She will have your sister with Her? She has taken her inside, Jonny. She is in a different place now, my son.”

  “No, well…I just want to see it, know She’s for real. I’ve seen waves, but I haven’t seen—”

  The cleric cut him short. “Or do you want revenge, Brother Niven? Do you wish to face down a god?”

  “Well, not at all,” Jonny said, his corn-fed accent thick, something that made the cleric think that maybe Jonny and his sister were more relation than siblings, that perhaps they were carrying on some kind of vulgar family tradition.

  “Winona is gone, Jonny, but she is not erased. It is only through singing Her praises that we can one day hope to join Winona. In the beyond.”

  Chapter Six

  Chase watched Lucinda crawl through the clearing in front of him, allowed his eyes to fall onto her ass, and then moved them away. It never failed to fascinate him how completely unattracted he was to the girl.

  Not because she was ugly. Quite the opposite was true. But because he cared for her so deeply, in such a different way than he cared for Gail.

  When he was a kid, the lowest hanging fruit if you were going to pick on some comic book nerd—not that he ever did that—was pointing out that Batman and Robin were clearly gay for each other.

  Or was that even the right term? How old was Robin supposed to be? Was Bruce Wayne just a pederast? Even if there was consent there?

  These days, Chase got it.

  Now he understood how that relationship could remain platonic. The Caped Crusader effect wasn’t make-believe stuff, it could happen. There could be a platonic master/apprentice relationship, as powerful as father and daughter. Chase guessed at that last part, not having any children himself, and wriggling his nose because the thought reminded him of the problems he was having with Gail.

  “What’s your problem, grandpa?” Lucinda asked, catching him with his thinking face on. She pushed cattails out of the way and moved past, letting them fall and thwack Chase in the knees.

  “Nothing. I was just deep in thought about how happy I am to have a young ward of my very own to lead me on foolish adventures.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go fuck yourself, Kemosabe,” she said. “You can think I’m lying all you want, but it’s true: I did find some weird shit out here yesterday.”

  “And you’re sure we’re in the right area? You don’t want to just chalk it up to too much sun and try to salvage the day, drop a line out there?” he asked, and pointed to the estuary parallel to where they were walking. They’d been hiking unfamiliar territory for a good long time without any sign of the satanic esoterica she’d described.

  Lucinda took an exaggerated look around, her expression telling him all he needed to know, then shrugged. “May as well wet a line,” she said.

  Even though they both made a living more or less from catfish—Chase also guided for reds and prehistoric paddlefish at certain times of the year—whenever they had free time together, they preferred to spend it pursuing other species. To keep it interesting, they usually agreed upon a specific technique to target a particular species, a kind of friendly challenge. In the winter, they might hit New Orleans City Park and fish the golf course ponds for bass using only tenkara rods, a Japanese method of fly-fishing designed for trout in small creeks and rivers. Sometimes they
proposed a challenge, aiming for biggest fish or quantity. If it was a morning trip, the loser would have to buy the Bloody Marys afterward. Day or evening, then the loser bought the beer. Other times, they simply fished without bothering to keep track of numbers or size. Those were Chase’s favorite times, when fishing was just that. Fishing.

  Today was one of those days. Lucinda had seen something that spooked her out this way, a pentagram constructed from fishing line, and she’d asked Chase to return with her to check it out. They’d packed ultralight rods and a small case of UV Panther Martins. The spinners, painted fluorescent shades of purple, pink, blue, and red, looked more like earrings some raver chick might wear. Chase had received them as a commercial sample, and because classic Panther Martins (black body, gold blade) were his all-time favorite spinners, he’d brought them along today to test them out as they investigated the markings of this satanic fisherman that had rattled Lucinda.

  They pieced together their two-piece ultra-lights and cast the garish lures into the turgid estuary.

  Fish could see ultraviolet light. UV allowed them to detect enemies and mates. Shad, crawfish, and plankton all gave off UV light, so in theory, UV lures offered a more visible and natural presentation to fish.

  However, Chase had read enough on the subject to know that UV light scattered underwater, so maybe these new lures wouldn’t do much for an angler at all. After all, trends came and went in the fishing world, just as they did in the beer world, and everywhere else. One season it’d be black IPAs and floating frog umbrella rigs. The next, it’d be watermelon grubs and farmhouse ales.

  Chase counted to ten before flicking his wrist to get the lure spinning and retrieved it at a slow pace, occasionally pausing to let it sink and flutter, then snapping it into action again.