Mangrove Bayou by Stephen Morrill

them, I don’t buy them.”
    “Well, we’ll sell it. And the house. Buy another house someplace else.”
    “Still don’t see why we gotta hide out now. Coulda fucked back there on your own bed.”
    “We’ll get a room in our favorite motel, honey-bunny. Then go out for a nice steak dinner,” Katie said. “Would you like that?”
    “Celebrate? Sure. I want champagne. After all, I did all the work.”
    “I knows that too, Tats. And you done good. We’ll get us some nice Cold Duck.” She reached down to the floorboard and pulled up her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes.
    “Then we can talk about the money,” Tats said. “I did all the work. I should get half.”
    “I’ll take care of you, honey-bunny. Like always. You’re my guy. Always have been. Always will be.”
    “Damn right.”
    Katie lit her cigarette off the dashboard lighter. She took in a deep pull and looked back through the rear window of the pickup truck. They were totally alone on the road for as far as she could see in either direction. “Pull over,” she suddenly said. “I gotta pee.”
    “Oh Geez.” Tats slowed and pulled the truck off onto the narrow grass between the road and the guardrail. Katie reached into her purse.
    “Is that a man standing across the road there?” Katie asked.
    Tats looked. It was so dark he could barely see the bushes on the other side of the road. He started to turn his head back toward her. “Where? I don’t…”

Chapter 15
    Wednesday, July 24
    By Wednesday, Donald was a category one hurricane and was crossing the western tip of Cuba. Troy came in after his morning run and did his exercises in what they now called the gym but which was really a storeroom. He showered and changed into jeans and a fishing shirt and sat at his wobbly desk. The jiggling brought his computer screen back to life. Nobody ever shut any of them off.
    One thing they lacked was laptops in the vehicles. Troy was accustomed to that from his work in Tampa, having access to a lot of records as well as text messaging from the dispatchers and station. But then, he reflected, in Tampa he hadn’t had a large corner office with its own fire exit.
    Troy was usually in his office by seven each morning. This morning he heard some commotion back in the cells and went to look. The station had four lockups along one wall together. On the other side of that hallway was an interrogation room with video camera, a door to the locker room, and a door to the shower and a public toilet. The hall ended at a door to the station lobby at one end and a metal door to the back parking lot at the other. Prisoners could be unloaded and brought in the back way, not past June and the front lobby. Plus all the staff parked out back.
    Calvin Smith had unloaded two men from one of the trucks and was locking them up in one cell together. The men looked like migrant workers and Troy suspected Mexican heritage. They also looked drunk and one was bleeding from a gash on his forehead and a broken nose.
    “What’s all this, then?” Troy asked.
    “Drunk and disorderly,” Calvin said. “They were peeing in the bushes by the microwave tower.”
    “Good God almighty. Lawlessness run amok. Lucky you were able to quell them.”
    Calvin grinned. “Probably want to charge them with indecent exposure, too. And this one resisted arrest and I quelled him.” He laughed. “ Quelled the bejesus out of him.” He shoved the injured man into the cell so hard the man bounced off a wall and fell flat on his back. Troy put out an arm to stop Calvin from closing the cell door. He went in and bent over the man. Then he picked him up and stood him on his feet. When Troy let go, the man fell down again and Troy caught him before he hit his head on the concrete floor.
    “Nose needs packing and some stitches for that gash. But otherwise he’ll be back picking tomatoes soon as he’s released. But he’s too sozzled to even stand,” Troy said.
    Bubba Johns came through the door