Free KNIGHT'S REPORTS: 3 Book Set by Gordon Kessler

goin’ down t’swamp, lookin’ fo’ the chil’ern’s prison — where they’s keepin’ the kids.”
    “‘ They’ being Sheriff DePue and Papa Legba?”
    Ram Jam’ s complaining guitar.
    “That them!”
    “I thought so.”
    “No! That righ’ there be them!”
    Fifty yards ahead, a police car pulled sideways to block us on the narrow street. Behind us, another one of those black limos did the same.
    “She-it!” Zack said, “Hol’ on, boy!”
    “E Z.”
    “No ‘taint!”
    “My name’s E Z.”
    “Your name an’ mine be mud we cain’t get the hell outa ‘ere!”
    The “Black Betty” vocals begin.
    “Alley,” I said and pulled out the Mach 10. It’s been a while since I actually shot at a law enforcement officer.
    Zack turned left into the alley, the old pickup leaning onto two wheels momentarily. As the cops got out and drew their guns, I put some carefully-aimed rounds in both tires on our side.
    But the limo was right behind us, and the alley proved a bit tight.
    We smashed into several trash cans and a mattress and went over a couple of deep dips in the road before making another hard left turn onto a street that wasn’t much wider than the alley.
    “Did I lose ‘em?”
    “No, the limo’s twenty yards back.”
    “No, E Z boy! Did I lose ‘em alfalfa bales? Cuz’ll get all wocka-jawed we lose his hay!”
    I’m feeling faint, and I shake my head and squint to see through my suddenly blurred vision. Finally, focus returns. “Three bales?”
    “Yessa, and thank the good lawd!”
    Zack glances at me. “Say, E Z boy, what’s mattah. I lay the smacks t’ya too hard?”
    “No, I think I was drugged somehow. The woman who showed me where your shop was blew dust in my face and scratched my hand.”
    “What woman?”
    “Pretty black lady. Bumped into her at Marie Lavaue’s House of Voodoo. Her name was Marie something, too.”
    “Marie Paris Dumesnil de Glapion?”
    “Yeah, that was it.”
    “E Z boy, you’s in trouble. That’s Marie Lavaue’s di-reck desen’ant! She be the Voodoo Queen. But she ain’t good like h’gran’ma, many past — she practice black hoodoo, not good magic!” He was genuinely worried. “N’body jus’ bumps inna her. She do some gris-gris, make a doll outa you hair an’ put a hex on you’s — an m’shop.” He stared out the front windshield of the old pickup. “I’s sho hope Ella Fitzgerald an’ them soon t’be yippers’s a’righ’.”
    I checked the side of my head where I’d felt the pinch when Marie left me in front of Zack’s shop. Sure enough, I found a bald spot about the size of my little fingernail.
    Gunfire erupted, blowing out the back window, sending glass and alfalfa into the cab of the pickup. One bullet passed by Zack’s head and put a spider-webbed hole on the driver side of the split front window.
    “She-it!”
    While we’d been distracted, the limo caught up on the straight road. But Black Zack was doing a hell of a job driving, and the old flathead six cylinder must have been tuned perfectly. Within another three minutes, we’d turned several corners — cutting across a couple — and pulled away to about three-hundred yards. Finally, we turned onto a two-lane blacktop leading out of town.
    Another five miles, we turned onto dirt, and the limo was nowhere in sight. The old rutted road, lined with thick foliage, vined trees and high grass, took us on a winding, hilly trip toward the swampland.
    And so it goes, just when you feel secure and let down your guard half an inch, somebody throws you a jab that lights up the stars behind your eyes.
    As we rounded a curve and came over a rise, a patrol car blocked the road a hundred feet ahead. We couldn’t miss either the sedan or the young cop with the .357 aimed over the hood of his car.
    At fifty miles per hour, the crash sent the old Dodge pickup into a spin, its gull-wing hood flapping off like a bird. Then down the thirty-foot embankment on the right side we went. We