Chapter 21: She’s Long Gone With Her Red Shoes on...

In Chicago, Logan woke at five in the morning. Woke to a repetitive four-on-the-floor Techno beat. He knew what that meant — Lacy was doing her brutal abs workout.

She grinned up at him from the floor. She was lying on her back, nude, knees up in the air. She began thrusting her pelvis up in the first of what would be 50 reps. She said, “Glute bridges.”

He watched with a mixture of fascination and wonderment, as she worked the routine; one that rivaled anything he been through as a Seal.

As she was effortlessly changing positions, she called out each drill, “Bridge pulses.” 50 reps later, “Kick-backs.”

Logan had watched her morning exercises — where she alternated katas with this torturous work on her abs — he had seen this enough times to memorize the order:

Fire hydrants, straight pulses, rainbows, side plank clams, outer leg lifts, butterfly crunches, bicycles, two minutes of planks with leg lifts, frog pulses followed by a two minute rest.

Lacy, breathing a little heavily, sweating, smiled, “Now, I’ll do two repeat sessions — on my right side, then on my left.”

Logan doubted that she had an ounce of body fat; and he knew exactly how taut her abs were. Lacy was remarkably beautiful, but she worked as if her body had gone to pot. Worked seven mornings a week. Worked like a Romanian peasant in the wheat fields at harvest time.

Logan was driving toward Omaha when Lacy’s phone dinged. She checked the text, “Hmm, one of my Darknet spotters may have stumbled across something.”

Logan adjusted one of the vents, “Oh?”

“She picked up a rumor about a guy running a sort-of-secret server farm.”

“How does that point to Apache?”

Lacy deleted the text by habit and said, “A couple of things. He, whoever he is, runs an encrypted phone network. Supposedly very profitable. But he also hosts DeepWeb and Darknet servers that allow clients to communicate anonymously.”

“Through Tor.”

“That’s right. You were in the Navy, must not have slept through all of your classes.”

The US Naval Research Laboratory developed the technology back in the 90s. The Tor browser rotates all traffic through a series of relay nodes. Thus masking each information packet’s starting point from the destination recipient.

“It’s over my head, all that technology stuff.”

“Yeah, right. Anyway, Server Dude supposedly retains his virginity no matter who his clients are.”

“He’s not legally responsible if drug dealers like on Silk Road are sending H around the world. So long as he doesn’t know what they’re doing.”

“Correct. But our particular Server Dude has some restrictions — no kiddy porn and nothing that could be construed as anti-American. Like foreign and domestic terrorism.”

Logan smiled, “Apache, the Army-lover. Could be him, could be. You said there were a couple of Apache pointers?”

“One chat-roomer asked, “Is this the Knife Guy?”

Marie grinned at Ethan, “Incest Index update.”

Ethan knew that the City Attorney and her sister were doing their best to keep him from going out of his skull with boredom. And, also from over-worrying about Logan and Lacy. Ethan appreciated it.

“Do tell.”

“It’s mostly just anecdotal. A rumor here, some gossip there. But this heat wave is ... eroding traditional Cajun mores. Upending some family conventions.”

Eulalie perked up. She was wearing a pink thong for modesty’s sake. And, sitting on the arm of Ethan’s chair.

Marie said, “I know of three bayou mothers who started giving bedtime hand-jobs to their boys. More than one climax if they’re having trouble falling asleep.”

Ethan, “I won’t judge them, but that’s a slippery slope.”

Eulalie grinned, “Yes, it certainly is!”

Marie, “One mother — Claire Dautrive — told her friends, “I done put Cassie on jerk-off duty.’ Cassie being her youngest child.”

Eulalie said, “I know that Rosie Dautrive was already masturbating all three of her brothers. Must have complained to her mother and talked her into getting Cassie to chip in.”

Madison said, “I never had any brothers, but jacking one off seems, I don’t know, less extreme than if a mom does it.”

Bull crossed his legs.

Madison glanced at her father, “Right, Popsicle?”

Ethan laughed, held up his palms, “No comment.”

Marie said, “What’s interesting to me is that there is no negative reaction from the other mothers. Sympathy, understanding, for sure. But there’s also a practicality — none of us has ever seen a sustained heatwave like this. Nerves are frayed, so many families just stay naked, boys are boys...”

Eulalie mouthed, “Thank Heaven for Little Boys.”

Marie, “I gather that curiosity is the prevailing mood. Other moms are starting to talk about their own boys ... well, if I do jack him off, that’s not the end of the world.”

Bull recrossed his legs.

Because it happened over four, maybe five months, the collapse of Carolyn and Matt Richard’s marriage went mostly unnoticed in the bayous. But when she moved into town ... well, that caught everyone’s attention.

Carolyn was used to her husband’s erratic schedule. And she knew that he sometimes stayed in his little Gulfport apartment instead of coming home between shifts on the oil platform. She had told her closest friend, Dee-Dee Préjean, “The fucker shacks up from time to time.”

Dee-Dee just shrugged. Men.

Carolyn couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Matt. Like most of the matriarchal Cajun families, she ran the household, and he stayed mainly out of her way. Credit to him, his paycheck was deposited electronically into the family account each month. She suspected, but didn’t mind, that he probably kept a private stash for himself from overtime and bonuses. Just so long as he continued to support his family, he could keep the extras.

Carolyn told Kath, her youngest, “Go into town first thing in the morning, see Mr. Verret by the bank. Tell him, let you sign the checks, you takin’ over the account.”

“Yes ma’am. But will he let me? My age an’ all?”

Carolyn snorted, “He give you any guff, tell him you know about me an’ him, Motel 6.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Carolyn looked off into the distance, “You may have to blow him; depends on his mood.”

Kath shrugged.

“You know how to do the utilities each month, you been with me enough times.”

Kath concealed her growing excitement. Her life was about to become even more interesting.

“Yes ma’am. I pay the electric and water for the Cajun Bayous. An’ I don’ worry, some of them families late paying me they share.”

“I’ll call you once I get settled.”

And with that, the 30-year old mother of five turned over the reins to her youngest child.

Carolyn realized, without much caring, that part of her was slowly unraveling. Matt hadn’t really been the catalyst; merely the excuse she made to herself to leave her family. Her internal thought process was a sort of dissociative state, like she was observing herself from afar.

She had been born into the Cajun Bayous and had lived there all her life. But, she’d kept her Sausalito connections, her city life, to herself. Since Matt worked offshore, he spent a lot of time away from the bayous. Consequently they had acquaintances, if not friends, in town. So, she had always felt a little different from the other bayou mothers. Confidence for one thing. Money, thanks to her husband. And the subconscious sense that she could walk away from it all someday.

Now that day has come. The kids were launched, for better or worse. Time to start leading her own fucking life.

Lacy and Logan shared the driving from Chicago to Omaha. They traveled in companionable silence for a lot of the time.

But Lacy continued to share, continued to open up about her private life.

“Chase never had me go to school, sit in classrooms. But he hired teachers ... no, he hired experts to tutor me.”

“Like?”

“If I’d been in college, declared a major, it would have been in philosophy.”

“Why?”

“Oh, the usual reasons. Critical thinking. Logical analysis. How to spot faulty reasoning. And, on a practical note, it taught me how to write accurately and clearly.” She grinned, “Which is invaluable when working with bankers and other executives.”

“Philosophy.”

“Then business. My Wharton tutor told me I had absorbed enough to earn an MBA.”

“Philosophy to business.”

“Then Silicon Valley. That’s ongoing — I don’t have the time to keep up with every technological advancement. But I try to maintain an overall awareness.”

“Makes sense.”

“Then it was back to philosophy. And you know what? Some of those dusty old arguments — the really arcane ones — started making more sense the second time around.”

“Fascinating.”

She gazed at Logan for a few moments, “But sometimes, I’m still that little girl in front of that big mirror. Practicing to become someone else.”

Eulalie took Connie Sue Rivens on a lazy loop around the Cajun Bayous. When she saw a Jon boat tied up to a dock, she just pulled up, and in they went.

Connie Sue met several local families — usually a mother and one or more of her children. Some of the moms still wore panties in the oppressive heat; others had given up their last semblance of modesty.

Their kids? The girls mostly echoed their mothers — panties or not. Although the girls who had brothers hanging around, tended to cover their pussies. Usually.

The women had no idea who Connie Sue was, but were obviously surprised and delighted to have Miss Eulalie Guidry calling on them. WZYD was always playing softly in the kitchen. Food was immediately offered — cornbread, boudin, gumbo ... something.

One family after another — Dee-Dee Préjean, P. P. Berard, Tessie Latiolais, Cootie Biggler, Helena Faucheaux — all of them and their children were unfailingly polite. And completely unembarrassed at the state of family undress,

Tessie mentioned it only in passing, “This big heat, I can’t keep ‘em in clothes, me.”

Connie Sue nodded sympathetically, “I understand.” And pretended to ignore the stares and budding erections from the boys.

As they motored back to the City Docks, Connie Sue said, “None of those moms even mentioned the hard-ons.”

“Like I said, it’s a different world down here. A different culture. But this heatwave has brought things more out into the open. It’s just too fucking hot to fuss about boners.”

Bull, the inveterate gear-head was particularly intrigued with Sausalito’s digital defense system — the security cameras on Andre Previn Road. Specifically, the facial-recognition software. He thought it unusual for a town of only 10,000 to have something that sophisticated.

He asked Rémy about it, and found that the chief was not at all reticent to discuss the subject. He was obviously proud of the setup, and of his ability to employ it to check on strangers who suddenly showed up. The was particularly true when Sausalito was hosting a ‘special’ guest in the bayou safe-house.

Bull asked, “Do you use the Perkins-Killner version?”

Rémy leaned back, a natural storyteller with an affable smile, “We did, Bull, until a year or so ago. But that’s pretty primitive compared with our current software.”

Bull’s understanding was that Naval Intelligence was still using Perkins-Killner. Huh. “So what do you deploy these days?”

Rémy smiled, a happy man, pleased to be talking to someone who would probably appreciate the quality of the product. “Lacy Danube recommended that Marie and I check out Clearview AI. She gave us a contact there.”

Bull frowned, “I thought the Clearview app was restricted to the feds — to Homeland Security?”

“Maybe once, but now legitimate law enforcement agencies can access it. Access the software.”

“How does it work?”

“They scoured the public web — Facebook, Venmo, all social media — and they have over three billion images of people.”

Bull whistled.

“And not just photos — they provide links back to the webpages where the images came from.”

“So ... you can not only capture a picture of a stranger, but you can identify who he is, where he came from.”

“It’s even more effective than that.”

“How so?”

“Here’s the example that sold us on Clearview. A Homeland Security agent found child porn — a man and a young girl — in a Yahoo account. He sent the man’s face to child-crime investigators around the country.”

“And?”

“An investigator in Seattle ran the image through Clearview AI and it turned up a hit. But not in the way I would have expected.”

Bull leaned forward, “Talk to me.”

“It showed a series of wedding photos — eating slices of cake, dancing, throwing the bouquet. There were over 40 pictures posted on Facebook, and the guy they were looking for was in the background of just one of them. He worked for a caterer.”

“Wow.”

“He’s doing 30-to-35 at FCI Elkton.”

Lacy reached over and unbuckled Logan’s belt. Eased the zipper down. He raised his hips until his thighs bumped the steering wheel. Lacy tugged everything down to his knees and waggled it in her right hand, “Cherce.”

“Thank you, Spencer Tracy.”

“I’m glad I don’t have to spell everything out for you.”

She bent down, took him in her mouth.

Logan checked his rearview mirror, then the side ones.

Marie, the natural politician in her, quickly recognized the conversational gifts that Ethan Dalton possessed. He was so skilled at getting other people to talk. And it wasn’t merely studied behavior because he was blessed with a natural curiosity. He was genuinely interested in the answers to his questions.

Which meant that he was genuinely interested in other people. And those other people usually basked in the attention. They routinely left his presence feeling good, feeling pleased with themselves. Feeling smart. Feeling they had enlightened and entertained him.

But it wasn’t until Chase Windsor joined the bayou safe-house group, that Marie, along with Eulalie, began learning what truly remarkable conversations sounded like, what they felt like.

One morning at breakfast — Eulalie was wearing a flesh-colored thong and serving shrimp grits with slices of satsumas on the side — Ethan smiled at Chase, “What’s your take on Fingerspitzengefühl?“

Chase laughed and said, “Funny, I was just reading that Hartsborne and Germine paper on crystallized knowledge.”

Ethan smiled at Marie and Eulalie, “Chase and I are both in our 60s. We no longer have the blazing synaptic horsepower that you girls do. What does that mean? Our tired old brains are trying to adapt — trying to form new neural pathways To develop pattern-recognition capabilities better than we had before. A fancy word — Fingerspitzengefühl — it just means we’re developing our intuitive flair, our instinct, if you will.”

Chase agreed, “At our age, it’s evolve or wither.” He paused, thinking about the subject, “Now Marie and Eulalie, you young ladies have what the scientists call fluid intelligence — the ability to quickly comprehend new challenges and think on your feet.”

Ethan said, “While the geezer element ... we have what’s called crystalized intelligence. Which means that we can draw upon decades of an accumulated store of knowledge.”

Marie said, “Different strokes for different folks?”

Chase said, “Exactly. Look at the various cognitive skill sets we all use to one degree or another. For example, processing speed and short-term memory. As well as facial-recognition capabilities ... those are some of the blessings of a youthful brain.”

Ethan, “Other factors arrive later in life. Like vocabulary and the ability to comprehend other people’s emotions.”

Chase, “Which means we all have to be adaptive. There is simply no one, single age at which humans are performing all of those cognitive tasks at peak.”

Ethan, “And probably, not even most of those tasks. As a result, society puts too much early pressure on young people to specialize and succeed. And that same society has a patronizing attitude toward us old folks at the other end of the spectrum.”

Chase smiled, “Which, when people underestimate me, it’s often an advantage in my profession.”

Marie thought:Well, I’m never going to underrate these two dudes.

Eulalie winked at Chase, “So, you can do crackpot?”

Chase slumped a little in his chair, let his eyes go vacant, and gave both hands a slight tremor.

Marie laughed.

Eulalie had a thoughtful expression on her face. She’d never heard anyone in Sausalito discussing anything remotely like the topics that Ethan and Chase did. At some primal level, she understood they weren’t showing off, weren’t having theoretical and arcane discourses for the sake of impressing anyone.

No, the two older men recognized a kindred spirit in each other, a shared curiosity, a mutual fascination regarding the possibilities of the human condition.

Eulalie thought: Fuck, the things I don’t know.

Marie led Connie Sue into Miss Kitty’s. The DJ, Evelyn Oubre, had the sound cranked up almost to the max.

Kate Broussard was waiting for them, a big welcoming smile. Word would spread through the room, through the town — both Marie Guidry and Connie Sue Rivens on the same night.