The Devil's Muse

by Bill Loehfelm

“My point is,” she said, “these streets are kind of closed, except for emergencies.”

  “I know,” Rob said, “but I’ve got four cases, I mean, three, four bags of ice that we’re trying to get back to Delachaise Street with, for the sausages. That we have.”

  Rob’s friend snickered. “Dude. Snausages.”

  “I lock you up,” Maureen said, looking around Rob at Don, “and it’s Thursday when you get out. Next Thursday, Don. I don’t care who your daddy is. I will fucking lose you for a week. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

  Don squirmed in his seat, looking away from Maureen, clutching at his crotch. “Bro, I gotta piss. Fuck.”

  “Holy shit, Officer, I’m so sorry,” Rob said. “Don’s a fucking retard. Seriously, it’s, like, a medical condition. Our moms are best friends.” He frowned. “How do you know Don’s dad?”

  “Okay, I don’t know his father, I’m just guessing that…” She stopped. Was she really trying to explain herself to these two? She started again. “I know it’s inconvenient, but I’m going to need you to remain in the vehicle and stay here for a few minutes. Turn the engine off, please. And put the emergency brake on for me, please.”

  “But I’m not in any trouble, right?” Rob asked. “My shit’s gonna melt, though. Can I call my, uh, mom, and let her know I’m gonna be late with the ice?”

  “No, no calling anyone,” Maureen said. “I need you to be patient, and be quiet, while I deal with”—she gestured at the man draped over the hood of the car—“whatever this is.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rob said.

  Maureen walked to the front of the vehicle. She ordered the guy off the car. He did not move, did not acknowledge her. She tried it again, louder this time.

  “Sir, you need to get off of the vehicle. Sir, I know you can hear me.” She tapped the back of her gloved hand against his hip a couple of times. Up close, she noticed he was considerably younger than she’d thought. Couldn’t have been more than a teenager. The kid was sickly thin, too, wasting away, bony at the knees, wrists, and ankles. “Sir? Sir. You are trying my patience here. We need to get this vehicle on its way.”

  Maureen noticed that several people were now watching the proceedings, some of them recording the scene with their phones and creeping ever closer as they did it. Getting themselves a dose of authentic Mardi Gras madness, she thought, to show the folks back home. She’d been warned to stay aware that recording devices were everywhere these days. Some she would see; others she would not, but they would be there. She had no desire to star in anyone’s vacation videos. She turned her attention back to the kid in the pink tights. She saw that the strain of maintaining a grip on the hood of the car had turned his knuckles white. He couldn’t hang on like that, she thought, if he really was unconscious. She was eager for more officers to arrive, not for help with the crazy kid, but with herding and distracting the curious onlookers.

  “If you don’t let go of the car,” she said to the kid, trying not to glance at the cameras as she spoke, “I’m going to have to remove you from it. I will use physical force to do that.”

  She stepped back and waited a long moment, got no response. Rob pumped the horn again. Maureen raised her hands. “Knock that off. You are not helping.”

  He leaned out the window. “I’m sorry, but the third-grade bladder in here is gonna wet himself. I just detailed the car. Can he get out and walk?”

  “He needs to hold it,” Maureen shouted. Her patience with everyone, with the whole ridiculous scenario, was running out. “Sir,” she said to the kid in the tights, “your present behavior makes you a danger to yourself and others.” She waited again for a response. Nothing. “I know you can hear me.”

  She leaned in close to his ear. “I know you can hear me. Do not continue to test me.” She thought she saw the slightest curl at the corner of his mouth. “All right, then. If that’s how you want it.”

  She seized him hard by the waistband of his tights, determined to rip him off the car in one quick motion, like a Band-Aid. At her touch, the young man exploded to life, as if Maureen had jolted him with a cattle prod. He jumped to his feet, his head whipping around at her, bending over his shoulder at a frightening and unnatural angle, his eyes rolling back in his head like a shark’s as he snapped his jaws at her, brown teeth clacking, as he tried to bite her face. She reared away from him as if from a rabid dog, bending far back, hanging on to his waistband with one hand, reaching for the pepper spray on her belt with her other. The man lurched away from her with surprising strength, breaking free of her grip.

  She clenched her fists, fearing he’d leap on her, biting at her face again. But he seemed to forget she was there. He shook his rubbery limbs wildly, screaming as loud as he could and slapping the hood of the SUV. “You’re killing me! You’re killing me! You’re killing me!”

  Please, God, Maureen thought, don’t let him piss himself.

  Laughter and gasps erupted from the crowd.

  The kid collapsed to the pavement, where, again, after a few twitches, the last gasps of a fish in a boat, he decided that he was unconscious.

  Maureen looked at her hands. Her gloves were shiny with snot and rain and cotton candy. Only another few hours of this tonight, she thought. She wiped her gloves on her uniform pants. Maybe I won’t dry-clean my uniforms after the holiday, she thought. Maybe I’ll just fucking burn them.

  The kid now lying at her feet didn’t appear injured, but she was concerned about what bizarre drug he had taken. It was something powerful Maureen couldn’t name, and she had a hard time recognizing its effects. This impressed and unnerved her, because there wasn’t much she hadn’t seen, or tried, at least before becoming a cop nearly a year ago. She couldn’t decide what to do next.

  Lying motionless in the street, the kid reminded her of a squashed roach, appendages sticking out in every direction, but not nearly as dead as it wanted you to believe. His hip bones protruded from the waistband of his tights. Maureen could see each of his ribs. She watched his lungs expand and contract as he took rapid, shallow breaths.

  She tapped at the bottom of his bare foot with the toe of her boot. Nothing. No reaction.

  So now what? She did not want to deal with arresting him, but she couldn’t very well leave him lying in the middle of the street. He was blocking traffic, for one thing. She had to hand it to the kid. He was putting on quite a performance, playing possum and hoping, she guessed, that Maureen would lose interest in him if he lay there long enough on the cold wet pavement. And it just might work for him, she thought.

  She sniffled, wiping her top lip with the back of her gloved hand. She flexed her fingers, trying to keep the blood in her hands moving. She sniffled again. She had tissues in her pocket but they were already wet. She tossed them in the street. No matter what she did, she couldn’t stop her nose from running. She’d dressed like she’d been told, as the other cops had coached her: tights and an extra-long-sleeved T-shirt under her uniform, three pairs of socks, extra everything in plastic bags in a gym bag back in a patrol car that she’d lost track of an hour ago. The parades she’d worked the weekend before had rolled in beautiful early spring weather, sunny afternoons and cool but clear nights. Tonight was another story.

  The temperature was fifty degrees, maybe, and dropping, and this kid wasn’t even shivering. Despite the cold, his whole body was slick with a peculiar greasy sweat that was more than a cotton candy coating, as if he’d been dipped in cooking oil. Maybe she didn’t need the extra clothes. Maybe she could do with a dose of whatever this kid had taken.

  “Can I go now, please?” Rob asked, leaning his head out the window. “I’m sorry, uh, whatever.” His face was chalk white. He’s terrified, Maureen thought. He thinks I hit this guy with the Taser or something, and that I’m going to get him next.

  “One more minute,” Maureen said.

  If she wasn’t going to arrest the kid at her feet, then she really had no reason to detain these two idiots in the SUV. Neither of them should be driving, b
ut there was nowhere to put the vehicle. Bringing out a tow truck would be a joke. They’d laugh at her if she called for one. And these piss-heads wouldn’t get above five miles per hour. Delachaise Street, where they were headed, was less than a mile away. Once they were gone, maybe she could drag Druggy the Clown here out of the street and onto the neutral ground. Though without another cop around to bear witness, she was reluctant to put her hands on him again in front of the cameras.

  She spoke into the radio mic on her shoulder. “Cordts, Wilburn, can I get an assist over here? One of you? St. Charles and Seventh, lake side.”

  3

  Maureen sighed and looked over her shoulder, waiting for either Wilburn or Cordts to answer her or emerge from the crowd. She growled in frustration. Then she saw Cordts raise his hand above the crowd. In another few seconds he appeared.

  He stopped dead in his tracks, shock freezing his face when he saw the sweaty clown at her feet. He locked eyes with her.

  “Would you come over here and help me, please?” Maureen said.

  Cordts shook off his shock and walked over to her, looking down at the kid in the street. “I have to admit,” he said, “for a second there, I thought, well, Cogs has gone and done it, she’s finally gone and killed somebody.”

  “That’s a hell of a thing to say in front of people.”

  Cordts looked around. “Put your phones away, people, and live a little,” he shouted. “There’s a parade rolling. Greatest free show on earth. Go watch it.” To Maureen’s surprise, for the most part, his admonishments worked, and people wandered away, turning their attention back to the parade.

  “Fucking sheep. Like they give a fuck about him.” He looked around again. “Or us, for that matter.” He checked his phone. “Why is this car here? Anyone trying to drive through this is a moron.”

  “That’s exactly why this car is here,” Maureen said.

  Cordts shook his head. “Fucking useless white boys. What’s the point of closing some of the streets if you’re just … you know what, never mind. They gotta move.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been working on that.”

  He lifted his foot at the kid in the street. “So what’s the story here? Nice pants.” He nodded at the car. “They hit him?”

  Rob started yelling. “I didn’t hit nobody. He ran into me.” He climbed out of the car. “Officer, ma’am, you saw, you saw the whole thing, you can’t put this on me.”

  Maureen raised her hand. “Whoa, whoa, back in the car, please. You’re fine, I got you covered. Back in the car, please.”

  “So the knuckleheads didn’t hit him,” Cordts said, “is the impression I’m getting.”

  “He came running up the street,” Maureen said, “and threw himself on the car. He’s super fucked up on God knows what.”

  “Happy fucking Mardi Gras,” Cordts said. “So this has nothing to do with them.”

  Maureen walked over to the car. “You’re not hurt?” Rob shook his head. “The car isn’t damaged. You want to file any charges? We could charge him with assault or something. Attempted … whatever.” Rob shook his head again. “Okay, then.” Maureen turned back to Cordts. “Nope. We don’t need them.”

  “Let’s get rid of them,” Cordts said, walking up to the driver’s window and staring down Rob. “Look at me, junior.” He made a V with his fingers, touched a fingertip under each of his eyes. “We see you. Okay? We know. And now you know we know, so keep it tight. You got me?”

  “Holy shit,” Don said. “Damn.”

  Rob looked like he might puke on himself in terror. “I got you, Officer.”

  “As long as we understand each other,” Cordts said. With an exaggerated sweeping motion of his arm, he dismissed Rob and his friend. “Be on your way.”

  “If you could back up,” Maureen said, rushing over to the car, “and drive around him, you can go.” She forced a smile. “May as well avoid actually running him over.”

  Rob backed up, eased around the kid in the street, and pulled away, driving so slowly they could’ve walked where they were going faster.

  Cordts walked up to Maureen. “We should get back to Wilburn. He gets surly with the tourists if we leave him alone too long.”

  “We gotta get this guy out of the street,” Maureen said.

  “I think I know what this is about,” Cordts said. “Wilburn was telling me that Perez was telling him about some joker’s been rampaging his way down the parade route, smashing shit up as he goes. I figured someone else would get him before he got to us.”

  “Which is probably what everybody thought,” Maureen said. “Which is how he got this far down the route.”

  “He ran through the Hamburger and Seafood Company knocking shit off tables. Glasses, silverware. He flipped chairs. The bartender chased him out of the Columns Hotel with a paring knife. He has to be the guy who tackled the cotton candy vendor and punched a peanut guy a couple of blocks back. The cotton candy guy might need stitches.”

  “Wow. He covered a lot of ground.”

  “I know, right?” Cordts said, laughing. “An athlete, this one. I’ll radio the EMTs about scooping this guy up.” He shrugged. “I mean, we don’t want him, right?” He paused to think. “He did make a mess and do property damage. I think the peanut guy is okay, but you never know.” He smiled. “Hollander asked him if he felt like a salted peanut, but I don’t think the guy got it. You’d think being a peanut guy he’d heard ’em all.” He shrugged. “Figure him and the cotton candy guy, they’re not gonna give up a night’s work talking to us and filing charges over this, right? Stitches or not.”

  “Oh, hell no, we don’t want him,” Maureen said. “I’m not trying to get a unit over here. But what’re we gonna do with him?”

  “He is the very definition of drunk and disorderly.” Cordts looked around, measuring the growing crowd. “It’s gonna be a bitch getting him to the lockup van. It’s like ten blocks away. Maybe we can sneak a unit through, toss him in the backseat.”

  “Of whose unit?” Maureen asked. “Who’s gonna want in on this?”

  “Good point,” Cordts said.

  “And if we do get him in a car, then what?” Maureen asked. “We drive him to the jail van, or to lockup ourselves?”

  Cordts shook his head. “Then we’re two short on the route. Who knows when we’d get back here? Sarge will never go for that. He’d want us to handle this ourselves.”

  Maureen gestured at the shirtless, shoeless kid now balled up on the wet pavement. “This here is clearly a medical situation. Clearly. Right? If the vendors or anyone from the restaurant want him later to press charges, we can find him at the hospital.”

  “No, you’re right. You’re right.” Cordts spoke into his mic, requesting the EMTs. “He’s obviously not well. Just look at those pants. What kind of choice is that? Let’s get him outta the goddamn road for now, we’ll deal with him later, if we have to.” Cordts’s radio crackled. He lowered his head to listen. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

  “What?”

  “Is he breathing?” Cordts asked in a huff.

  Maureen checked. “He is.”

  “Is he bleeding?”

  “He is not.”

  Cordts spoke into his mic, waited for a response. He shook his head at the one he got.

  “EMS doesn’t want him. They won’t come get him with an ambulance. Best they’ll do is send a bike.”

  “You’re kidding. EMTs on bikes can’t take him anywhere.”

  “They don’t want to take a van out of service for something like this.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Maureen said. “It’s their job.”

  “They’re stationed on the river side of St. Charles,” Cordts said. “Completely on the other side of the parade.” He turned and pointed at a traffic light about half a mile up the avenue. “At St. Charles and Louisiana, by the Porta-Johns and the corn dog truck. If we bring him to them, they said, they’ll take him to Touro.”

  “If we could get him to them,” Maureen said
, “we’ve pretty much carried him to Touro ourselves.”

  “I think that’s what EMS is hoping for,” Cordts said.

  She was frustrated, but Maureen understood the predicament.

  The EMTs would have to bring the ambulance across the parade route and maneuver through the crowd, then double back and do everything again once the clown was loaded in. Either that, or they’d have to take him to the medical complex in Mid-City, which would keep them out of service for far too long, cleaning up after a drug-induced vandalism spree. Bad things did happen along the parade route. Serious injuries, accidents. Life-threatening things.

  Maureen didn’t want to answer for costing their already thin resources a perfectly good ambulance when some bead-chasing kid got his leg run over by a float, or some drunk rider did a header onto the pavement. Taking another look at him, she noticed he had become more still, and his breathing was deeper and more rhythmic. Slower. Had this nutcase fallen asleep in the street? One good kick in the balls, she thought, and she’d be able to diagnose exactly where he was really at; she didn’t need the EMTs for that. But the NOPD does not need, she thought, a viral video of me kicking somebody lying in the street.

  “You ever seen anything like this?” Maureen asked.

  “A Mardi Gras OD? Only every year. Surprised it took us this long to get one.”

  “But this weird?”

  “The cotton candy facial is different, I guess.” Cordts frowned, giving Maureen’s question genuine consideration. “And that greasy sweat, like he got dipped in bacon grease. That’s a new one. I mean, I don’t know. I been at this six years. I don’t remember every weirdo I’ve come across.”

  “If the EMTs don’t take him,” Maureen said, “what’re we supposed to do with him? Leave him in the street? He’s in the way and he’s half-dressed and it’s not getting any warmer out here.”

  “We could carry him across the way to the sidewalk,” Cordts said. “Kind of lay him down gently in the roots of one of the oaks. Keeps him kind of out of the way of the traffic and the parade. He’d be sheltered by the tree if the rain picks up.”