Thin Slice of Life

Chapter 21

Col. Bao dropped a ship-to-shore radio microphone on a metal government surplus desk and sighed with fatigue. The storm had ionized the atmosphere, and wireless service remained spotty. His head buzzed with static and garbled half-legible conversations. The Colonel had been up for most of the previous two days, and now he was worrying about his fiefdom in the wake of the storm. He sat in the office of a warehouse he owned in Sinton, far enough inland to be spared the worst of the storm’s flood tides and winds. According to both of the faiths—Buddhism and Catholicism—in which he had been raised (and had subsequently discarded), everything happened for a reason. But Bao’s head was sloshing with a lack of sleep, too much coffee and poorly suppressed anger. Master plans, if any, seemed remote to him. God—or Buddha—knew how many of his boats had been wrecked. The big outfits like Gulf King had sent their fleets running northeast to New Orleans and Mobile once the storm’s path became irrevocable. But the small boats in his fleet would have been in nearly as much danger in the open Gulf as if they had stayed put. Bao had ordered his captains to run their craft back up into the bayous and estuaries and hunker down. But he harbored no illusions that all CHAPTER 21 137 |21 of his trawlers, shrimpers and workboats still had their gunwales above water. One boat in particular, a boat bound for Mexico, he feared had been caught out in the storm. Almost two days and it still had not reported in. Of the men who crewed those boats, Bao spared not a moment of concern. Men were meat, and meat could be replaced. But cargo, especially precious cargo…Bao lit another cigarette and exhaled noisily. Most of his surveillance cameras were inoperative, and his Sea-Tex office on the Fulton waterfront was probably without power, or worse. Of his other command center, on the platform out in Mesquite Bay, he had no word and less hope. The crew boat out of Port O’Conner that he’d sent to the water-borne post after the intruders had been discovered had not radioed in after the storm. Col. Bao was, in the idiom of his adopted country, not a happy camper. He was exhausted; his finely-tuned web of legal and illegal operations might be in tatters, and his people were out of touch (and therefore out of his control). And he could smell his own sour reek. A knock on the office door ushered in one of Bao’s functionaries . Behind him, the Colonel made out the hulking figure of Senator Cudihay. Bao snubbed out his cigarette and beckoned Cudihay inside. The Senator was dressed in a crisp tropical weight suit the color of young wheat. He was, in addition, shaved, neatly coiffed and sweet smelling. Bao, whose own office plumbing had been contaminated with brackish seawater and backed-up sewage, wore a sweat-stained work shirt and soiled khakis. He looked like a common dockworker. And he hated it. Looking at Cudihay’s plantation-owner figure, he hated it even more. “You’ve been a popular boy,” said the Colonel evenly. Cudihay crossed his legs (plucking at the pants seam to preserve the sharp crease as he did so) and made himself comfortable. “I’m afraid your halo and angel wings don’t show up so well on television.” “Ah’m a man of the people,” Cudihay replied with satisfaction. “And the more piss-poor, jammed-up, strung-out and fucked-over people get, the better I look to ‘em. Nothin’ like a man’s house getting blown away to make him appreciate his elected officials. They know I can make those state and county bureaucrats jump when I holler froggie.” “And I suppose you will manage to make a dollar or two out of their plight,” Bao said. 138 21| “I think there is an excellent possibility of that,” Cudihay said with a smirk. “Did I mention I’ve got a cousin out in East Texas who owns a lumber mill? He supplies plywood and framing lumber for every lumberyard and hardware store in the surrounding three counties. I deep-sixed some environmental riders on the last budget bill so he can clear-cut a bunch of that good Big Thicket old...