Kessler suddenly veered into a parking lot of Texaco station and pulled over to the edge of the lot, near the air and water hoses.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
“Checking my fluid levels,” he replied. “What else?”
Kessler rounded up the empty beer bottles on the back floor and tossed them into a trash can. He then opened the trunk of the car and removed his jacket. He hung it on a hanger in the back and then began rummaging through a duffel bag in the trunk. He removed his tie and shirt and slid on a blue, short-sleeve silk shirt. H also kicked off his oxfords and replaced them with a pair of sandals.
He opened the hood of the car and checked the oil. Aftter a moment, he shut the hood and got back in the car.
“You feel better now?” I asked him nodding at his wardrobe change.
“Not really,” he said reaching in the back to retrieve another beer. “You got any of that pot with you that you were smoking on the sheriff’s boat?”
I opened my cigarette pack and removed a half joint.
“What kind of shit is that?” he asked me, sounding irritated.
“Don’t worry,” I said. This shit will knock your dick in the dirt ”
“Great, that’s all I need,” he said.
We arrived in Madisonville a few minutes later. I don’t know the exact dimensions of the size of the town limits, but they don’t extend very far. As Kessler noted, you’d miss the damned place if you nodded off for a second. Kessler immediately wanted to go drive down Lake Road, out to the boat launch.
However, I was hungry and needed something to eat. We were just about to turn left toward the harbor when Kessler suddenly veered right and asked, “What’s this way?”
“Keep going and you cross the parish line into Tangipahoa Parish and Ponchatoula,” I told him.
Kessler drove down a little way and then pulled into a small store, called Nguyen’s I’d heard of the place, but had never been there. It was a combination deli, sushi bar, gas station and bait shop.
I’d heard a lot about the place, primarily that the owner, Mr. Nguyen was pretty much at odds with the entire town. I didn’t know the entire story, but from what I gathered, this was the place to be on the north shore if you were Asian. On the south shore, New Orleans East and Chalmette were still heavily populated by Chinese and Vietnamese.
There had never been a serious Asian migration to the north shore until the late 1980’s. Then, for reasons unknown, vast droves began immigrating to the region smack between Madisonville and Ponchatoula.
They were fisherman, for the most part, and they didn’t really dabble into the everyday lives of white people. But every now and then you’d hear rumblings about strange tales about them, like how the locals would get up tight when their poultry began to mysteriously vanish.
There were other tales too, about exiled communists, opium trafficking, and things of that nature. Ninety percent of it was probably not true. Some of the towns folk in Madisonville are an untrusting bunch, and they still, even after all the growth and development, don’t take kindly to outsiders.
Mr. Nguyen was no exception to this rule. He’d fought a long hard zoning battle, both against the town and the parish, before he finally got the approval to re-zone his lot to a commercial use zoning classification.
Basically, there was nothing legally the system could do to stop Mr. Nguyen from opening his business. Ever since, his relationship with the locals was strained at best and have included alleged police harassment, vandalism and hate mail.
“They are all like rats,” Mr Nguyen told me one day, emphasizing his words with a whack of a meat cleaver he was using to chop up slightly thawed sashimi with. “Their day will come though. I piss on them all.”
I’ve always liked Mr. Nguyen. He’s always had a very sharp sense of wrong and right. I figured he and Kessler would get along fine. But when I pulled into the parking lot, the doors to the place was closed up.
There was a “be back in 30 minutes” sign taped to the door and I figured there was no telling how many hours it had been since the note was taped there, so I got back into the car and told Kessler to drive back to Madisonville.
When we got back to town, we pulled into the parking lot of a small convenience store, right near the Madisonville bridge. I had just opened my third beer and Kesler had already drank around five or six.
That, mixed with the joint we’d smoked, had me feeling a little nervous about entering a public place with Kessler, who was obviously pretty tightly wound.
What’s the worst thing that could happen though, I thought to myself as we walked into the store.
One day I will stop asking myself that question, because once it is actually verbally asked, it demands an answer, whether you really want one or not.
As we walked up and down the aisles, loading up on more beer, Kessler grabbed two fishing poles from a rack and said, “Perfect. We’ll go fishing. I’m going to fish my blues away today.”
“Sometimes, it’s best not to talk at all,” I whispered to him.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, whispering back to me, mocking me, “Does the weed have you a little paranoid there fella?”
“Just be cool man,” I said to him. “The people in this town don’t take prisoners. And they eat their own young.”
“Don’t we all?” he asked, grinning lecherously at me. He then changed the subject and said, “By the way, what’s this boudin stuff they have signs for up front?”
“It’s kind of like a sausage,” I told him. “It’s a Cajun thing.”
“Are you Cajun?” he asked me, suddenly inquisitive.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve got some Cajun in me, from my dad’s side.”
“How do you even pronounce it?” he asked me. “Do you say it like it looks? Boodin?”
“No, it’s pronounced boo-dan actually,” I said. “Must be a French thing.”
“Jesus Christ. The fucking French,” Kessler muttered. “Don’t even get me started on the French. So what is it? Is it sausage?”
“Kind of,” I answered.
“What do you mean kind of?” Kessler asked. “You should know these things if they’re part of your heritage. I’m going to be a resident now. I need to know these things if I’m going to be a Louisianian.”
I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to teach Kessler any sort of Louisiana history 101 courses.
“It’s like jambalaya or dirty rice, stuffed into a sausage skin,” I said. “It’s really pretty good. I usually buy a link or two of it every time I stop in here.”
“What’s it made with?” he asked.
“Some are made with ground pork, others are made from shrimp or crawfish,” I told him.
“Well I’m going to get some,” Kessler said, as we approached the counter.
It was around this time that Kessler noticed a sign for fishing licenses behind the counter.
“You have to have a fishing license to fish here?” he asked the kid, who couldn’t have been more than 19 or 20.
“Yes sir,” the guy told him.
“Even on public piers?” Kessler asked, suddenly mystified and seeming to get more aggravated by the second.
The vibe was getting ugly and I wasn’t sure why. I guess that’s what happens though when you basically slam five Heinekens on a hot day. I thought the weed would have mellowed things out for him, as it had for me. But instead, Kessler just seemed to be getting more and more cranked up by the instant.
“Especially on public piers,” the kid told him. “Especially out there near the new pier at Sunset Point. Wildlife and Fisheries guys have been going out there three times a day on the weekends.”
“That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” Kessler blurted out.
The kid gave Kessler an “I didn’t make the law” kind of glance, but this had no effect.
“In most parts of Florida, fishing license requirements are waived on public piers,” Kessler said. “It’s supposed to be good for tourism. No wonder this state is still living in the stone age. Nobody ever wants to spend any money.”
Kessler turned to me and asked me if I had a fishing license. I didn’t, so I gave the guy my driver s license, paid $20 and had my license in hand.
Although Kessler had watched all of this very intently, he asked the kid, “So what do I need now?”
“Just a driver’s license,” the kid said.
“Well that I can handle,” Kessler said.
He set the fishing poles down and dug in his back pocket and removed a wallet He opened the wallet and handed a card to the guy. The guy looked at it and then looked at Kessler and said, “What is this?”
“It’s my driver’s license,” Kessler said, still edgy.
“It’s not a Louisiana driver’s license,” the guy told him. “I can’t give you a fishing license unless you have a Louisiana driver’s license.”
“Well actually son, you see, this license is good in every state in the United States and most of the U.S. territories,” Kessler told him. “I work for the government”
“Well sir,” the kid countered. “I’ve never seen one before.”
“So, what does that mean?” Kessler asked. “Does it mean you won’t take if?”
“I don’t think I can,” the boy said. “I’ve never seen one.”
Kessler pulled his cell phone from his pocket, held it out to the boy and said “You want to call my superiors at the Pentagon to see if I have clearance or not you little fucker.”
“Jesus Kessler,” I said. “Calm down.”
I turned to the guy and said, “Please excuse him. He’s a little jet-lagged at the moment. He’s had a long flight. From Aruba.”
“You pig fucker,” he snarled at me.
“There’s no need to get hostile,” the kid said.
“You think that was hostile?” Kessler muttered. “How about when I rip your fucking heart out? Will you still tell me I’m being hostile then?”
The boy had apparently seen worse in the store, because Kessler’s bullshit didn’t seem to phase him, which was good.
Everything got silent for a while, though, and Kessler and the kid just stared at each other. For an instant, I knew what it must have felt like right before the shootout at Okay Corral began.
Kessler just finally laughed and said, “Sorry kid. I was just fucking with you. Can you give me a license or what?”
Suddenly, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly, we were all friends again This was a good thing.
“You got a local address or something?” the kid asked him.
Of course Kessler didn’t so I told the kid to just use my address and Kessler ordered a dozen links of boudin.
“Christ,” I said. “What are you going to do with all that?”
“Eat it,” he said.
He then trotted back off down an aisle and grabbed a few bags of chips.
“Okay,” Kessler said, setting the stuff down on the counter. We got the license we got the fishing poles, tackle and bait. We have the beer, the boudin, the News on Wheels. Give us a bottle of Wild Turkey too and three bags of ice too.”
We had paid for everything, loaded it up into the car and were just about to pull out of the parking lot when Kessler looked down at his new fishing license and muttered, “Son of a bitch. No way. This isn’t acceptable.”
He climbed back out of the car and began marching back to the store.
Frantic, I glanced at my fishing license to see what it was that had caused him to start flipping out again. However, I didn’t see anything. I was a few seconds behind him and when I entered the store I could hear him yelling.
“What the fuck kind of scam are you trying to run on me here,” he hollered at the kid.
“Pardon me mister,” the kid responded, but I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about?”
“This you little prick,” Kessler said, shoving the fishing license back in his face. “Take it and read it.”
The kid took it in his hand and glanced at it.
“Look at the damned expiration date,” Kessler said.
Finally, I thought, looking at mine. I then saw the problem. The license expired in three weeks.
“June is when they issue the new ones for the year,” said the kid.
“So you’re telling me that if I came in here in three weeks I could get one for the year?”
“Yes,” the guy said.
“I don’t want this damn thing then,” Kessler said and he slapped it back down on the counter. “Give me my money back. I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous in my life. You should get your money back too.”
“No,” I said. “If that’s how it is, then that’s how it is.”
“That’s the kind of resolve that created the Nazi problem in the first place,” Kessler said. “You should stand up for your rights. And you have a right not be be jacked around by some limp-dick pencil pusher in Baton Rouge.”
“There’s no refunds on licenses,” the kid told Kessler.
This pushed him over the edge and Kessler launched into full screams.
“Give me back my fucking money,” Kessler screamed slamming his open palm down hard on the counter. The smack reverberated loudly through the store.
“Sir if you don’t step away and get out of this store now, I will call the police,” the guy said.
“By all means call’em,” Kessler said. “I’d like to report a fucking robbery. Fuck you and you’re fucking piece of shit store.”
Kessler smacked the counter again and stalked out.
“Dude,” I said, with my shoulders shrugged. “No need to call the cops. We’re out of here and we won’t be back. I promise.”
The kid just looked at me, stone-faced, and I backed cautiously out of the store. I climbed back into the car and Kessler cranked the engines with a laugh.
“Stupid little bastard,” he said. “Did you see that? He was about to piss in his pants.”
“No Kessler,” I told him. “That would have been me. The kid didn’t care less.”
“Fuck him, he was a freak,” Kessler said, spinning gravel as he floored it pulling out of the parking lot.
We drove down Lake Road and arrived at the boat launch around five minutes later.
We’d just parked when I noticed a sheriff’s truck approaching with its flashers on. He cut loose one quick burst of the siren and suddenly a loudspeaker filled the air.
“Would the driver of the vehicle please step out,” said the voice.
The treacherous little bastard at the store had called the cops anyway.
“Great Kessler,” I said.
“Maybe the cops have a better sense of humor than that stupid kid,” Kessler muttered. “Bunch of fucking inbreeds. This is worse than Deliverance.”
Kessler got out of the car and two cops approached. I couldn’t hear exactly what was going on, but there was no way I was going to get out of the car unless I was sent for. Kessler pulled out what I assumed was his government “driver’s license” and handed it to the cop.
Oh great, I mused to myself. This is going to go over nicely.
It was at this point that I realized one of the cops was the Seargent. He had walked over toward me and the car and when he got close enough to recognize me I motioned for him to come over.
“Hey man,” I said to him. “Can I get out of the car?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You know this guy?”
“Yes officer,” I said, not knowing what more to say after that. Did I tell the cop Kessler was an intern; or would that be lying to a cop and punishable by law? I decided to keep it neutral and told the Sergeant Kessler was just a friend of the family.
“What happened back at the store?” the Sergeant asked me.
“He got a little upset over a fishing license,” I said.
“Did he threaten to kill that boy?” he asked.
“No way,” I said. “He verbally assaulted him, but he didn’t make any threats.”
I was in the process of quickly relaying the whole story, when the other deputy walked up and motioned for the Sergeant to join him. I saw them talking to each other. Kessler was just standing near the sheriff’s truck with a look of utter contempt on his face. Meanwhile, the Sergeant and the other cop, who I didn’t know, were talking rapidly to each other. The Sergeant pointed at me and then both of them walked over to me.
“If being an asshole was a fucking crime, I would have thrown him under the jail,” the other deputy said to me. “He wants to file a complaint against the kid at the store.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I said.
“He’s got interesting identification too,” the Sergeant added. “You’re the news editor. Do you have any idea why we have a disgruntled NSA guy walking around terrorizing the locals?”
“NSA?” I asked.
“Yeah, National Security,” the other cop began.
“I know what it is, I just didn’t know that’s who he worked for,” I said. “Besides, I think he’s retired.”
“Nope,” the Sergeant said. “He’s on active status, as a consultant. We just had the sheriff on the line and he’s about to have a coronary because he likes to know when we’re going to have feds snooping around town.”
“As far as I know, he’s retired, just broke up with his fiance in Florida and he sold his condo,” I said. “I’ve hired him to do some freelance writing for the paper. That’s all I know. We’re just out today to do some fishing. Look, I know he’s upset about losing his woman. Can we just leave it at that for today?”
“For today yes,” said the Sergeant. “But the sheriff wants you to call him later on when you’re not with him. Does he have an address here in town? Because whatever he’s told you, I know the sheriff is going to want to keep tabs on him for a little while, just to satisfy his own curiosity.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what this meant, but still gave my home address anyway. The two told Kessler to go on about his business and to mind his temper.
“I don’t care who you are, or what you’re really up to here in town, but we treat each other with respect around here,” the Sergeant added. “I’d suggest you do the same.”
“I’ll take that under advisement sir,” Kessler said, smirking a little.
The cops got into their truck, turned around and left.
“They didn’t have much of a sense of humor either,” Kessler said, laughing as he walked back to the car and opened the trunk. He grabbed the fishing poles and asked me to grab the beer, as if nothing, none of this, had just transpired.
“You’re fucking crazy,” I said to him.
“It’s all a matter of perspective,” he said to me. “I’m the one that thinks all of you are fucking backwards and crazed. But fuck all that. It’s not important. Lets catch some fucking fish and see if we can’t find someone to boat us across to the sand bar. It’s time to get started on the book.”
I stood there for a minute, stunned, staring off blindly into the sunlight. The paper still had to be written and Kessler had just basically given the damned cops an open invitation to put him under surveillance. And, to top it all off, the sheriff wanted to talk to me about all of this.
“You coming or what?” Kessler asked me. “Come on, Cheer up. Fuck’em if they can’t take a joke.”
“It’s not a joke Kessler,” I said to him. “Those men had guns and they were not joking.”
“You worried about those guys?” he chuckled. “They don’t have a clue. They’re not like us. We’re professionals chief. Don’t ever forget that.”
We collected all our stuff and trotted over to the piers.
I was trying to be mindful of the time, and I mentioned this to Kessler as we lugged our gear over to the piers. However, he continued to tell me it wasn’t a big deal and that we could easily knock out the newspaper on the following day.
“Didn’t you say you already had four stories done already for the week?” he asked me.
“Five actually,” I admitted.
“Then quit you’re bitching chief,” he said. “You’re worse than a damned woman. Things will fall into place. They always do. Have you ever not put out a newspaper on deadline day?”
“Well, no actually,” I confessed. “But.”
“But nothing,” he said as we sat out stiff down on the pier. “Now all we have to do is find a ride across.”
It was just about then that Kessler noticed an old crabber idling by in a small flatboat. Kessler jerked his head in the man’s direction and then whistled and waved his arm at him.
The guy was only about five or six feet out from the pier.
“Hey cap,” Kessler called out to him. “Can you give us a ride across to the sand bar?”
The crabber, an older, grizzled black guy, looked at us and, after deciding we looked harmless enough, said, “If I take you across, how the hell you gonna get back?”
Sure enough, I glanced up at the sand bar and noticed there were no boats docked in the shallow waters. From the looks of it the entire place was empty.
“We’ll worry about that later,” Kessler said. “Can you take us?”
“Sure,” the old guy said. “It’s no sweat off my back. I’ll pull up over near the launch down there.”
I grabbed the ice chest and Kessler grabbed the backpack, fishing poles and two fold-up chairs he had stored in the trunk of his car. We dragged our stuff down to a small wooden boarding ramp of sorts when Kessler paused distractedly.
“Wait right here,” he said. “I have to get something out of my car.”
He sprinted off and returned a minute later with some thing, that looked like a weed-eater, in his hand.
In a matter of minutes we’d made it across and were getting off the guy’s and onto the sand bar. We grabbed the rest of our stuff and tha man asked us if we were sure we wanted to just be left there. Kessler said it wasn’t a problem though, and the guy pulled off.
“If worse comes to worse we can always swim back,” Kessler said.
He lugged the chairs up on the sandy shore and set them up near a small tree which gave off a little shade.
“This is just perfect. It’s good that no one is here now. It gives a chance to study the habitat without the interference of the natives.”
“What are you talking about you dingbat?” I asked. “There’s nothing here. We aren’t National Geographic Explorer.”
“Oh, but we are,” he corrected me. “Take a look around you. There’s all kinds of tell-tale signs that life was here. Look at this,” he added, holding up a broken flip-flop.”
“Good work inspector Clouseau,” I told him. “What anthropological facts can we glean from that.”
“Don’t mock me,” he said. “I thought you were serious about this.”
“About what?” I asked.
“The book,” he said.
“Well I am,” I answered him sitting down in one of the chairs and opening a beer. “It’s just that the morning has been a little intense.”
“The life of a professional is always intense,” he said. “It’s a job hazard.”
“I just want to take a load off,” I said. “I’ll scavenge the island for physical evidence later.”
“Suit yourself,” he said opening his backpack. He fished out a pair of swimming trunks and tossed them to me. “I’m going to go change behind those bushes. I’d suggest you do the same when I’m done.”
He trotted off and then returned a few moments later clad only in his swimming trunks. He settled back into the chair and took a long sip from his beer.
“Now this is the life,” he said. He then sat up and grabbed the thing that looked like a weed-eater.
“What the hell is that anyway?” I asked him.
“It’s a metal detector,” he said. “An expensive one. I bought off a guy in Vegas. Got it dirt cheap. He was desperate. Vegas is a great town for back seat sales. Half of those monsters would sell their grandmothers for one last game of blackjack.”
“Does it work?” I asked him.
“I used it after a few hurricanes last fall. Let’s just say that it paid for itself. I found three diamond rings, a Rolex watch and about $60 in change. I found a safety deposit box too but I haven’t figured out how to blow the lock without damaging the contents inside. Let’s just say demolitions was never my strong suit.”
“I’ll have to keep that in mind on the Fourth of July when you want to shoot off Roman Candles with Alex.,” I said.
He just laughed and opened his beer. He set it down in the sand and slowly rose to his feet. He flipped the thing on and started swiping it over the sand. Suddenly the thing let loose with a sickening chortle of electronic beeps. It sounded sick.
“You gotta be kidding me,” I muttered. “You got something so quick. It’s probably a bottle cap.”
He ignored me and waved it over the spot again.
“It’s buried,” he said, setting the detector down as he dug with his hands. After a moment he pulled out an old railroad spike.
“I’ll be damned,” I said, more impressed that he’d found something so quick instead of being too curious as to why a railroad tie was buried in the sand in the first place. He examined it and then slid it into his backpack
“You never know when that could come in handy,” he said and then started off down the shoreline.
I don’t know the exact dimensions of the sand bar. It’s longer than it is wide If I had to guess, I’d say the sand bar was about 150 yards long, possibly 200 at tops. It is probably about 50 yards wide at its widest spot.
Kessler’s metal detector was beeping with activity
“Hey chief come check this out,” he called out to me. He held out a ring a very expensive looking diamond in it.
“Is it real?” I asked.
“About ten grand worth,” he said. “There’s some real interesting trash here too.”
“That’s gross,” I said.
Aside from the bottles there was a cell phone, a shiny silver dildo, a tennis racket a nine iron, several old license plates (probably off of stolen cars), four sets of keys and an old gun.
“Holy shit,” I said. “Is that like a junker?” I asked, pointing at the gun.
“It’s a GIock, 9 millimeter and it appears to be in perfect working order. Only thing it’s missing is a clip.”
I grabbed the cell phone off of the pile and toyed with it. Surprisingly it had a signal.
“That thing works?” Kessler asked
“Yeah,” I said.
“Good. Keep it,” he said. “You never know when it could come in handy. Are there any other numbers in the history or in the contact list.”
“Yeah,” I said. There’s a shitload there. If we ever get bored on a rainy day we can reach out and touch somebody.”
“What’s up with that gun?” I asked. “Was it buried?”
“No, just tossed into some bushes,” he said. “You said yourself the cops came up here yesterday to write that ticket. Somebody was probably drunk, saw the cops coming, tossed the gun and then couldn’t find it.”
“Kessler, you might be on to something here,” I said. “Let me try that thing.”
He handed it to me and gave me a quick rundown on how to use it.
“This is pretty cool,” I said. “It’s true. The more shit we gather the more I see a pattern starting to emerge.”
“Yeah,” he said. “By all looks and appearances, I think this is a squatters ground for the filthy rich.”
I’d barely moved a foot when the metal detector went off again. Kessler came over and sifted his fingers through the sand, underneath the detector, and pulled up both a Timex and a small Swiss Army knife.
“Does the watch work?” I asked.
“What do you think?” he asked. “It’s a Timex, of course it’s working.”
A few moments later I found a pair of Ray Bans, which were only a little scratched on the lenses. Kessler walked over and tossed me something in the air. I caught it in my hand. It was a wallet.
“You know that guy?” he asked me.
I opened the wallet and looked at the driver’s license. Shit, it was a small world after all. I knew the guy allright. He was this asshole who worked for the parish, as department head of some sort for the planning department. As far as I knew he had a wife and child. I wonder if they’d been out here with him. I was pondering whether I should call him, as a joke, to tell him I found his wallet when I saw a bunch of bills tucked away in the billfold.
They were all hundreds, seven of them.
“Actually I do,” I told Kessler. “But I don’t like him much. You want a cut of this?”
“Nah, you keep it. You have mouths to feed chief,” Kessler said. If nothing else, he seemed more relaxed now.
“I found a used condom and a hypodermic needle over by those bushes,” he said.
“What kind of people come out here?”
“I saw them yesterday,” I said. “It was really a mixed crowd. There were even families out here.”
“I wouldn’t know that by looking at all this shit,” he said. “If I didn’t know any better I would think this was a regular pirates den. We’re going to really need some sort of good plan for just blending in here. We’re going to have to infiltrate them deep. Come in from behind some way.”
“Forget all that for a second,” I said. “There will be time for the book. What we need to do is totally excavate this sand bar. We’re sitting on a potential treasure trove here man. In one more week school lets out and this place will never be empty. We have totally free run of the place now. We should take advantage of it.”
He nodded in agreement.
We spent another few hours working the metal detector. We found eight more pair of sunglasses, three more watches, all gold, all expensive. We found six rings, ear-rings, a necklace, shell casings, canned tuna, two more cell phones, both of them dead, a pager, a garage door opener, and close to $200 in change.
The only thing we didn’t have was toilet paper, which was not a good thing because I had to take a shit. Kessler managed to find some Off wipes in his bag and he told me to just use those.
“I’m not gonna put bug spray up my ass,” I told him.
“It’s either that or don’t wipe at all,” he said.
Reluctantly, I grabbed the container from him and went to find a quiet place. I found a place in some shrubs and squatted over a log. I liked nature and all, but this was a little extreme.
I had just finished and was getting up to wipe when I noticed something near a bush. It was a strap of some sort and when I pulled it, I realized it was attached to a large green Army duffel bag. I pulled it and the bag was covered in earth, leaves and pine straw. I hefted it out to the clearing with me and motioned for Kessler to walk over. He did and we opened the thing. Inside were a bunch of blocks wrapped in plastic baggies, taped with duct tape.
“The mother lode,” he said.
“What do you think it is?” I asked.
“It’s either dope or coke, maybe both,” he said. “I think now would be a good time to try to flag a ride off of here.”
