City of Secrets

by O'Neil De Noux

  “That a possum?” Aligood asks as the spotlight hovers on a fat one waddling across a yard.

  “Yep.”

  Aligood has no idea what an armadillo is when Beau points it out as it scampers across the intersection of the avenue at Carrollton, heading toward Bayou St. John. For a moment Beau spots a gang of rodents scurrying across the street near the statue of General Beauregard and doesn’t slow down. He squishes at least two.

  No humans are found out and around. No vehicles to stop, even up by the lake. Beau takes them back around to City Park. After all, they’d jumped the pickup with the orange hood along Wisner Boulevard.

  “Ow. Ow. Owwwoooo!”

  “What’s that?” from Aligood.

  “Coyotes. They’re in the park.”

  “Seriously?”

  “You heard them. Coyotes are in every state now, except Hawaii. You white men have killed off nearly all the wolves. The range of cougars is expanding as well.”

  “You have cougars here?”

  “We call them panthers. A subspecies, but they’re all pumas.”

  Beau and his Papa had come across one once in the swamp where bobcats are plentiful, their wail sending chills up the spine. The cougar was silent and, thankfully, on high ground and stalking an unfortunate deer. Papa spotted it as it stepped from between two cypress trees. The big feline lowered itself, allowed the deer to approach. In a flash the dark brown panther was on the deer and they tumbled into the bushes, which shook for a few moments. That was all they saw.

  As he rides the quiet streets, Beau’s mind returns to the swamp. It was never quiet around the Cajun daubed house built by his grandfather where Beau slept upstairs. Never painted, the wooden house was elevated off the ground, its walls filled with swamp mud that had long ago dried and kept the house cool in summer and warm in winter. Well, somewhat cooler and warmer. There was no air conditioner and the small fans struggled during the steamy summers. When it got real cold, Beau slept downstairs next to the cast iron fireplace.

  He remembers dreams of plains warriors and nightmares of the only creature that truly frightened the Sioux – Coyote-man, a warrior who had drowned because if a warrior drowns his soul can never pass to the next world. During the day, the warrior’s soul slept with the fishes, at night it came out of the water covered with fur, pointed ears, long snout with razor sharp teeth, yellow eyes and walked on two legs, its front paws more like a feline’s with claws for grasping. Its voracious appetite particularly preferred the sweet taste of human flesh.

  The rain comes in a rush and two hours of rain is enough. As it lets up, not long before dawn, Beau turns his crew back to the marina.

  •

  Two hours before that, a gray pickup truck, stolen in Mississippi a month BK, pulls behind a small brick building with its doors broken and most of its windows shattered, sign out front dangling by one chain: BOOTSIE’S PAWN SHOP. The building’s rear wall is partially caved in.

  St. Bernard Parish below New Orleans had been completely inundated by water from Lake Borgne and Lake Pontchartrain that remained for nearly a month. Mixed with oil from huge tanks that had fractured, much of Chalmette was still toxic, a vast wasteland where most of the houses had been flattened by the rushing water. There was no water line on the pawn shop to indicate how high the water had come as the one story building had been completely under water.

  Ace Boody and Axel Smith climb out of the pickup, Axel immediately slipping on thick oily mud and manages to grab the door knob and doesn’t go down. Thankfully the moon is bright, bathing the entire area in a dim gray light.

  “Fuckin’ stinks,” he groans.

  “Oil, man. This is toxic waste.”

  “Why the fuck we here?”

  Ace moves to the rear wall climbs into the shop. He comes right back with two shotguns, hands them out to Axel.

  “They muddy but they can be cleaned.” Ace goes back in. Forty minutes after arriving at Bootsie’s, the rear of the pickup is piled with shotguns, AK-47s, Tec-9s, pistols and metal cans of ammo.

  “I don’t think the water got into the ammo cans,” Ace says as he gets behind the wheel.

  “They got rust on some of the shotguns.”

  “Yeah, but those pistols are stainless steel.”

  Pulling around the shop back to St. Bernard Avenue, a pair of headlights streaks past them, a white car hitting its brakes immediately, sliding.

  “The fuck he came from?”

  Ace zooms around the car and floors the accelerator as the Louisiana State Police car hits its blue lights.

  “The only fuckin’ cop in an entire parish!” Ace has the pickup moving now, the trooper’s car trying to catch up, siren blaring. Axel leans out the passenger window and peppers the grill of the police car with a Tec-9, sees the rounds hitting, the car swerving now. Axel ducks in case the cop returns fire.

  “Where the fuck did he come from?” Ace is still yelling.

  “Won’t be long. Way to stop a car, shoot out the radiator.”

  When Axel peeks back, he sees the trooper’s car is smoking and it slows to a stop. He sees flashes and ducks again as Ace swerves from lane to lane until they are out of range.

  “Can’t hit shit and got no radio to call for help.”

  Ace doesn’t let up off the accelerator until they cross the St. Claude Bridge across the Industrial Canal, well back in the city now and the rain starts up.

  “We gonna need some shit to clean these up.”

  “Across the river,” Ace says. “They got Walmarts open. We buy a gun cleanin’ kit, some cheap towels and a shitloada gun oil.”

  Axel looks back at the shotguns and AK-47s.

  “You know how to take them apart.”

  Ace laughs, slaps the wheel. “Fuck no, but our big mouth leader keeps bragging ‘bout all this know ‘bout guns. Let’s see.”

  Axel finds this funny too, decides he’d better reload his Tec-9.

  •

  It takes Beau four trips to carry the gifts from the ATF into Sad Lisa. The rain had stopped but water drips on him through the broken overhang along the pier. On his last trip, this one with ammo boxes only, Beau hears the plaintiff call of a high pitched, “Meow! Meow!”

  He spies a small kitten sitting and shivering at the side of the pier. It’s soaked. He puts the ammo down, scoops up the kitten, runs his hand through its hair to take off some of the water. Its fur is battleship gray, its big green eyes stare at him and it meows again.

  “It’s OK, baby. Where’s your momma?”

  The kitten digs its claws into Beau’s hand and he pets it again.

  “OK. OK. I hope you like soy milk.”

  He sees a shadow, realizes its Ann in a long tee shirt. Lord know if there’s anything under it.

  “You don’t give milk to cats. That’s a myth. Little tyke needs cat food. Kitten chow. They got some cans of cat food at the back of the warehouse. Cans. Give it to me to dry off.”

  Beau picks up the rest of the ammo and Ann follows him with the kitten into Sad Lisa. By the time he’s found the cans of kitten food, she’s dried off the kitten with one of his towels. In the light the kitten’s coat is blue-gray, its eyes bright green.

  “How old do you think it is?”

  “Five, maybe six weeks.”

  “Just before Rita hit.”

  “Let’s hope its weaned.”

  Beau opens a can and Ann tells him to put some of the dried food in the bowl as well, so it’ll get used to both. She grabs another bowl, pours bottled water into it as Beau checks the kitten that has stopped meowing. It’s so small, it fits entirely in Beau’s big hand.

  “Can’t tell if it’s male or female.”

  Ann reaches out, “Give it.” She looks. “It’s a girl. A long hair. Got pedigree blood in her.”

  She hands the kitten back to Beau. “You feed her.”

  He puts the kitten next to the bowl and she sniffs and digs in.

  “Slow down, Baby.”

  “You need
to come up with a better name.” Ann heads to the door. “There’s bags of litter in the warehouse. You need to keep her inside. I heard animals fighting earlier. Thought it was dogs and cats, but Stu said it looked like a coyote. This baby’s momma might be long gone.”

  Beau feels Sad Lisa shift slightly, pulls out the Glock as Stu comes into the doorway. He re-holsters his weapon. “If that was a coyote,” he tells her, “why are you outside?”

  She taps him on the chest as she steps past him. “Coyotes don’t attack people.”

  Stu looks at Beau and he sees it in the eyes. Everything’s different AK. Anything’s possible. Stu follows Ann off the houseboat. Beau goes out and locks the gate. He gets back as the kitten moves to the water bowl for a drink. He locks the door and makes sure the downstairs port holes are only cracked an inch and the screens are secure so the little tyke doesn’t get out.

  He sits on the carpet and picks pick up the kitten, puts her in his lap, tells her about Buck.

  “I found him in the rain too. Catahoula puppy. Right outside. That’s his scent you’re smelling, I’m sure. He’s with my uncle now, where he belongs, along the great Cajun floating prairie, chasing rabbits, coons. A houseboat’s no place for a full grown Catahoula hound dog, although I miss him very much.”

  The kitten is on her back now and he brushes his hand over her and she swats at it but her claws are not bared. All fluffy dry now, the kitten’s hair is long and thick.

  “Sad Lisa is just the right size for a kitten isn’t it?”

  Beau has no dislike for coyotes. Both the Sioux and the Cheyenne believe when the world ends the top creature to survive will been the coyote who will feast on the rats and vermin for eternity. The coyote is too wily to destroy. But if there’s one or a pack hunting the cats here at West End, then John Raven Beau, whose Cajun father taught him how to hunt, will kill all of them, toss their bodies into the lake for the crabs and fishes.

  •

  Beau realizes, when he wakes and moves his feet, the kitten is curled atop the sheet. She raises her head and looks at him.

  “How in the hell did you get up here?”

  Did she climb the steep stairs? He scoops her, pets her and she purrs. He brings her down, fills her food and water dishes and realizes he’d better get some litter for her. There are aluminum pans in the warehouse, the disposable kind used to bake a turkey. He’s surprised it’s five in the evening already. Time to shower, eat an MRE, and get ready.

  Later, he’s gratified to see the kitty take to her new litter box and do her business, covering it up. The litter is the clotting type, which he can scoop out, instead of letting it fester until the box is full. When he shaves, he nearly nicks himself with a new blade when he spies the kitten sitting atop the close toilet seat and watching his every move. She’d eaten a good breakfast.

  He dons a charcoal gray tee-shirt today with POLICE in black across the chest. It’s easier putting on the ankle holster before climbing into black tactical pants. His Sioux relatives, a people who think things happen for a reason, would appreciate this. Three months BK, Beau had to replace the small washer and dryer aboard ship, opting for pretty experience models, the washer running off electricity, the dryer off propane or natural gas. The machines work damn well.

  The obsidian knife tops off his digs and Beau rubs his chin, forgot to splashes on after-shave, learns that’s one way to get the kitten out of the bathroom. When he steps out for the night with his ice-chest and tactical bag, after filling the kitty’s food dish and water dish, he sees she’s exploring the sofa area. He locks her in.

  Gotta think of a good name.

  •

  SA Linda Pickett comes out of the hanger, her hair down this evening but she’s still in khakis and carries a black flak vest, holding it up as she arrives.

  “Try this on.”

  “Never wear one. Too constrictive.”

  “Just try it on. Humor me.” She doesn’t smile but those green eyes give him a look that is almost intrusive, almost intimate. No way Beau can ignore the large eyes of a pretty woman. He puts on the vest, doesn’t fasten it.

  “I got it a size too large so it wouldn’t slow you down.”

  “At least the printing isn’t glow-in-the-dark, is it?”

  The word POLICE is printed in muted color on the front and back.

  “Pink?”

  “You worried about the color?”

  “No, I’m worried about the weight and how it constricts movement.”

  “Pink stands out when hit by a spotlight, where yellow and orange are too obvious to the naked eye.”

  Beau puts the vest in the back seat of the Escalade, thanks her.

  Aligood hustles up, asks Linda if she’s joining them tonight.

  Her eyes are still talking to Beau’s eyes as she says, “I have another assignment. Maybe another night.”

  Beau points a finger at her and says, “Later.”

  “Later.”

  An hour and a half after sunset, Beau takes them along Robert E. Lee Boulevard, past the refrigerator still in the street and the car the pickup with the orange hood had clipped, slowing as he goes. It’s an old cliché, criminals returning to the scene of the crime. Doesn’t work this time.

  “Think we’ll get lucky tonight?” Aligood asks as Beau turns up Beauregard Street, running along Bayou St. John now toward the lake.

  “Naw. Probably another slow night,” Beau says.

  The flashes and concussions of sound strike immediately, from the right, from the ruins of the old Spanish fort.

  “Jesus!”

  Beau feels the bullets strike his Escalade and he guns it, turns left to a side street, drives half a block, slams on the brakes to pull between two mud-covered parked cars. He jumps behind one of the parked cars as Aligood came around with his M4.

  Zip! Bang! Ratta-ratta! Boom! Boom! Boom!

  The firefight back by the fort is intense and Beau turns to the Escalade, points the keychain at it, locks it. He tells Aligood to stick with him and bolts through a front yard to an oak. He rounds it and heads for the corner of the brick house facing Beauregard.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! The SAWS tear up ground and splay the bricks of the fort’s ancient wall, worn by time and look more like earthen mounds.

  Zip! Bang! Ratta-ratta! Takka-Takka! Fire from both sides, incoming from three positions at the fort and outgoing from M4s in the Humvees. Beau races across Beauregard to flank the shooters, reaches one of the big oaks and stops, Aligood plowing into his back. It’s forty yards to the levee where the fort sits atop to their right now. The fort was built to cover Bayou St. John from invaders from the lake. There are two oaks and Beau uses them as he runs flat out, zooms over the levee to the oaks beyond.

  Zip! Bang! Ratta-ratta! Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Aligood is still behind him and Beau leads the way to the oak nearest the fort and spots a dark figure running straight for them. Beau goes down on one knee, using the oak as a shield and aims at the approaching figure. Aligood plows into him again and he falls away from the oak, rolls on his belly and acquires his target again, just as the approaching figure sprays the area around the oak with automatic fire. Beau feels a burn on his left arm.

  Beau sets his sights dead center and squeezes the trigger, his heart slamming in his chest, hands wet, perspiration rolling into his left eye. The Glock fires and fires again and Beau puts four quick rounds into the approaching figure, closer now, a big man that slows and goes straight down.

  The firing continues and Beau searches for more shooters, sees none, glances back at Aligood who’s on the ground on the other side of the tree. He’s in the prone firing position, like Beau, with his M4 pointed. Doesn’t appear hit. Beau refocuses on the fort as the firing on the other side continues. Can’t get closer or friendly fire will take them out.

  Wait here. See if any more come. He strains to see anyone firing from this side. Nothing. He sees the oaks next to the bayou are so huge their heavy branches reaches all the way
to the ground, thick bunches of leaves hiding what’s beyond. The seconds drag and Beau looks at his left arm. No blood. The ground next to it is chewed up. Heat from bullets so close to his arm, singed it.

  The firing stops. Beau crawls around the oak, whispers to Aligood, “You OK?”

  Aligood raises his right hand slightly. Beau watches the figure lying in the grass about twenty yards from them. It hasn’t moved. Finally, two guardsmen come over the levee and Aligood calls out to them. It’s Garcia and Goins, both puffing as they arrive at the body. Flashlights show it’s a black man in a green tee-shirt and dirty jeans, six feet, over two hundred pounds. Two neat holes dot his chest, a third through the throat now pooled in blood. An AK-47 lies next to him, a semi-automatic pistol tucked in the waistband of his jeans. The man has a wide face, tattoo of a brown raven on his left cheek. Beau picks up the man’s left hand, checks for a pulse. He isn’t bloodying his fingers check the carotid. No pulse.

  “We got wounded back at the Humvees,” says Garcia.

  “Avery’s called in medivac.” Goins adds.

  “Stick together,” Beau tells them as they move a few feet from one another and search the area. It isn’t until Beau circles the next oaks that he remembers the rickety wooden bridge across the bayou about fifty yards on the far side of the fort. He reaches it with the three guardsmen and knows there’s another neighborhood on the other side of the far levee, which provides a perfect firing position for anyone crossing the bridge.

  Aligood leans next to his ear. “Your flak jacket is in the back seat.”

  Beau positions Garcia and Goins on either side of the bridge while he and Aligood creep across, hugging the half-broken rails on each side, until they reach the far side. They hunker down for the other two to cross. They crawl up the levee, two at a time. Beau finds a half-smoked cigarette, still lit, on the street beyond the levee. He finds part of a paper plate and scoops the cig. There are fresh tire marks in the dirt on the concrete street.