Read Chapter 9: Mire and Deeds

Ruby’s office smelled of old paper and the faint, sweet rot of the parish’s flood years—a must that never quite dried out of the plaster. She didn’t offer coffee. She didn’t offer a seat. She stood behind her cluttered desk with her reading glasses pushed up into her silver hair and flipped the cover of a manila folder shut like she was closing a coffin.

“It’s gone,” she said.

Caleb blinked. “Gone.”

“The surveyor’s plat for the Broussard tract. Filed in 1947, recopied in ’63, and sealed in the parish map room with the rest of the flood records.” She tapped the folder with a nail. “That room took on six feet of water during Hurricane Lili. Half the files turned to pulp. Yours was one of them.”

“So you can’t certify the boundary lines,” Caleb said. “Landry walks into court with his 1902 deed, and I got nothing but a land grant that talks about covenants and brides like it’s a damn fairy tale.”

“I didn’t say I can’t certify it.” Ruby lowered her glasses and looked at him over the rims. “I said the original is gone. But the state keeps microfilm copies of every recorded plat in Baton Rouge. I can order a certified copy from the archive.”

Caleb’s chest loosened a half inch. “Then order it.”

“Certified copies from the state archive run two hundred dollars,” Ruby said. “Expedited, with the seal and notarization the court will demand, plus my fee for filing the chain of title and running the quiet title action—that runs closer to ten.”

“Ten thousand.”

“That’s the number.”

Caleb let the silence sit. The boatyard was bleeding. The only workboat was gone. The bank account his father had kept under the floorboards of the shop held exactly eleven hundred dollars in damp, wrinkled bills. The truck in the yard might fetch fifteen hundred if he sold it fast, but then he couldn’t leave the parish if he needed to.

“I don’t have ten grand,” he said.

Ruby’s face softened a degree—professional pity, the kind that cost her nothing. “I can’t carry a note on this, Caleb. I’ve seen what happens to lawyers who get tangled in Broussard business. My predecessor, Tom Nezat, handled your grandfather’s estate. He’s fishing in Canada now and won’t talk about it.”

Caleb nodded. He didn’t ask.

---

The bait shop sat at the end of a gravel drive off the parish road, a leaning clapboard building with a hand-painted sign that read LIVE BAIT–COLD BEER–GAS. The front room was empty at eight that evening, the old man behind the counter reading a hunting magazine with a cigarette burning in the ashtray. He didn’t look up when Caleb walked in.

Caleb bought a six-pack he didn’t want and leaned against the counter. “Word around town says there’s a game runs in the back on Thursdays.”

The old man turned a page. “Word says a lot of things.”

“I need a seat.”

The old man finally looked up. His eyes were pale, clouded, and there was a deep scar running from his left ear down into his collar—an old machete wound, Caleb’s father had once said, that had nothing to do with fishing. “You know what the stakes are?”

“I heard.”

“You heard wrong.” The old man closed the magazine. “The stakes are whatever’s on the table when the whiskey runs out. Could be money. Could be a truck title. Could be a promise. You don’t get to pick.”

Caleb set down forty dollars. “That cover me for a seat?”

The old man’s fingers closed on the bills without looking at them. “Back room, through the curtain. Don’t touch nobody’s drink.”

---

The back room was paneled in dark wood that predated the building itself, and the air was thick with cigar smoke and the grease of decades. Five men sat around a round green felt table, each with a pile of cash and a glass of whiskey. The dealer was a thin Cajun with a gold front tooth and dead eyes that had seen every bluff in three parishes.

Caleb took the empty chair across from the dealer. The man beside him was huge—six-four, two-fifty, wearing a shirt that strained at the shoulders and a gator-tooth necklace that wasn’t for show. When he looked at Caleb, something in his face flickered with recognition that made Caleb’s gut go cold.

He’d seen that face before. Through the tinted window of a black Escalade, parked at the edge of his boatyard while Remy Landry stood in the yard with his checkbook and his smooth, poisonous smile.

The enforcer shuffled the deck himself, dealing the first hand.

---

Caleb lost the first three hands. Bad cards, conservative play, and a tab that was climbing into the negative. The enforcer watched him through half-lidded eyes, drinking slowly, folding early, winning when he stayed.

On the fourth hand, Caleb looked at his cards—a pair of jacks, nothing special. He studied the enforcer. He remembered his father at the kitchen table, teaching him to read the Church socials, not the cards. *“People tell you what they’re holding whether they want to or not, son. You just got to learn the language.”*

The enforcer had a tell—a tiny twitch of his left thumb whenever he was dealt a strong hand. He’d touch the edge of the table with it gently, like he was petting the felt. On weak hands, he’d drum his fingers instead.

Caleb folded the pair of jacks. The enforcer caught the play, and his eyes narrowed over his glass.

Next hand: weak cards. Caleb made noise—raised, bet like he had a straight. The enforcer’s fingers drummed. His bet was too small. He was protecting a weak hand and trying to bluff strength simultaneously. Caleb slid the call across the table and turned over a pair of deuces.

The enforcer’s jaw tightened. His partner to the left laughed low.

It went like that for an hour. Caleb read the giant like an open book—the thumb twitch, the drumming fingers, the way he’d swirl his whiskey exactly one swirl clockwise before a raise he meant. By the time the whiskey bottle was down to the last two fingers, the pile in front of Caleb had grown fat. He counted it without touching—seven thousand, four hundred.

“That’s enough for me.” He started to gather the chips.

The enforcer put a hand flat on the table. “You’re leaving.”

“I’m leaving with my money,” Caleb said.

“You came in with forty dollars,” the man said softly. “I’ve seen you count your stack three times now. You got four hundred short of your number.” He leaned forward, and the chair creaked under his weight. “You need the rest, don’t you? For that title business.”

Caleb’s blood went cold. He’d been careful not to say why he needed the money. Nobody in this room knew—except the one man who worked for Remy Landry.

“One more hand,” the enforcer said. “Winner takes it all. Your stack against my last three thousand and the knowledge of how Landry’s going to hit you next week.”

The room went quiet. The old dealer stopped shuffling and laid the deck flat in the center of the table.

Caleb looked at the enforcer’s face. It was a mask—but masks have seams. And there, at the corner of the man’s mouth, was a flicker of smug satisfaction. He thought he had Caleb trapped.

But the thumb hadn’t twitched. And he wasn’t touching the table.

“Deal,” Caleb said.

The cards flew. The enforcer’s thumb touched the rim of the table on the first card. When the flop came—ace, ten, seven—he pressed his thumb hard into the felt, grinding it like he was stubbing out a cigarette.

Caleb checked. The enforcer raised. Caleb called. Turn card: a nine, no flush draw. The enforcer’s thumb was steady now, soft. He bet half his stack with a confidence that had cracks showing at the edges.

Caleb counted the pot in his head. Then he pushed every chip he had across the felt. “All in.”

The enforcer blinked. That was the tell. Real surprise. He shoved his cards down with a growl and flipped them over—pocket eights, no pair on the board. Caleb turned over the ace-king.

The room erupted. The enforcer’s face went red, and for a moment Caleb thought the giant might flip the table, but the old man behind the counter materialized at the edge of the room with a double-barrel in his hand, resting it across his forearm like a waiter with a tray.

The enforcer pushed back his chair, stood, and looked down at Caleb with a smile that was all teeth.

“Enjoy your title, Broussard.” He took one of his bills off the table and snapped it in half, leaving one half on the felt and pocketing the other. “Landry owns the other half of that debt now. It ain’t about money no more. It’s personal.”

He walked out, and the whole room stayed quiet until his truck engine faded down the gravel road.