The Devil's Muse

by Bill Loehfelm

  “Don’t patronize me. I have a master’s degree.” Philippa took the card, dropped it in her bag. Her dog ate it. “Queso!” she scolded. The dog growled. She lit another cigarette. “Now he’ll be pooping pink.” She’d pulled the cigarette from a tarnished silver case. Maureen recognized the acrid smell of a discount brand. The hand-rolled had probably been bummed off someone else.

  “If I told you,” Maureen said, “that I didn’t kill that kid, that I tried to help him, would you report that, too? To your followers or friends or whatever. Or does that not serve your story?”

  “I didn’t see that part of it.”

  “Oh, I know that.” Maureen tried to smile, and knew she did a terrible job of it. “C’mon, you didn’t see any of it. You’re missing a big part of the story. You know, the truth. Find me on the route tomorrow, maybe I’ll tell it to you.”

  “I’ll be out here tomorrow,” Philippa said, “and we’ll see how my story matches yours. I’m not letting this go.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” Maureen said.

  “We have our eye on you. All of you. We’re everywhere. All over the route. Y’all are accountable now.”

  “Consider us warned,” Maureen said. “You know what? I want one of those cards.” She put out her hand. “Give me one before you go.”

  Philippa tried to hide her smile, and handed over another pink card.

  “Enjoy the parade,” Maureen said.

  Philippa’s phone rang. She answered the call, backing away from Maureen and Hardin, covering her mouth as she talked so they couldn’t read her lips.

  What was it like, Maureen wondered, to think of yourself as so brave and important? To think everyone was so interested in what you had to say. Or maybe, she reconsidered, Philippa felt the exact opposite of brave and important, and hence the act. Maybe Philippa spent her time chasing whatever the Internet told her was brave, important, and interesting.

  “Seriously,” Maureen said, turning to Hardin, “is Red Baron Barbie gonna make my life hell? Can she do that? With a cell phone?”

  “I looked her up on the Web after the first time I talked to her,” Hardin said. “While I was waiting for you. From what I can tell, despite what she says, nobody listens to her there, either. I think we’ll survive Jane Doe’s justice.” He smiled. “Didn’t kill you, did it, being nice to her.”

  “It did not. I know my bedside manner needs work.” She turned and stared down Laine and her crew. “Them, on the other hand, I refuse to like.”

  Cortez had the camera pointed right at her, but they made no move to follow her. She wasn’t sure the camera was even on. She thought of waving, or of flipping them the bird, but she did neither. Right then, she didn’t need any more enemies than she already had.

  “Take a walk with me,” Hardin said.

  22

  The crowd parted quickly around Hardin. He moved with the heft and authority of a tanker on the Mississippi. Maureen felt small, trailing in his wake. He didn’t have to ask anyone to step aside for him. Nonetheless he repeated, “Excuse me,” calm and steady, as he moved through the closely gathered people. Maureen mumbled the same as she walked behind him.

  The parade was still stalled, and in the break the riverside lanes of St. Charles had filled with people. Mostly little people. Very excited little people gone insane on sugar, lights, sound, and general overstimulation.

  Adults moved along the edges of the street, talking, texting, and taking pictures, their go-cups from last year’s parades in one hand, their Mardi Gras–only cigarettes hidden behind their backs in the other. Out in the street, dozens of kids made use of the free toys they’d accumulated during Babylon and Chaos. High-bouncing Super Balls, mini-footballs, and small Frisbees soared through the air and bounced in the street. Kids popped paper snappers at one another’s feet. Maureen found it remarkable how well the kids got along. They couldn’t possibly all know one another, yet they integrated effortlessly for the night, for the occasion, their games and groups forming and dissolving with equal ease and quickness, without reason or rancor. When an overthrown flying disk disappeared into the crowd, a mini-football instantly popped out to take its place and the games continued; the good times rolled on.

  As she moved among the wild, laughing children, Maureen felt like a diver moving through schools of darting, colorful fish. She felt invisible to them, which, she figured, was a good thing. On the best of nights, when the party went most smoothly, the police on the parade route were as much a part of the background as the peanut vendors and the bead hunters.

  This was not, however, she reminded herself, the best of nights.

  “What’re you having?” Hardin asked as they approached the corner of St. Charles and Sixth, where a local grocery and po’boy shop, called, inventively enough, the Grocery, sold hot and cold food and drinks and shots and cigarettes through an open window.

  Outside the front door, a man sat on a barstool collecting a three-dollar cash fee to use the roped-off Porta-John on the sidewalk behind him. He had a large stack of bills in his hand. He nodded at Maureen and Hardin. The police got free access to the real restrooms in the back of the store. No business on the route minded having the police around, at least not during Mardi Gras, and offered what they could to help.

  “Good gumbo, excellent Cubans. The muffalettas, too. They press ’em, serve ’em hot. We got a long way to go tonight.”

  “Oh, I know it,” Maureen said. “I’ve been here before. I never got my coffee from Cordts. I could use one of those.”

  “I got you,” Hardin said, tipping his cap to a group of stoned young women hustling away from the window, giggling and ripping open their bags of Zapps, the wine and weed stink hanging like an echo in the space they’d left behind. The jowly lady at the counter took a long drag on a long cigarette. She set it in a notch in a cracked plastic ashtray, and exhaled the smoke over her shoulder away from Hardin and into the kitchen.

  “Dammit, Ma, I’m tryin’a quit!” somebody yelled from the kitchen.

  “How you living, Madge?” Hardin asked.

  Madge zipped up her red hoodie, smiling mischievously at Hardin. “Evenin’, Sarge. I keep telling that boy there’s no point quitting anything until Ash Wednesday. He don’t listen.”

  “I’m guessing it’s not the first time he hasn’t taken his mother’s advice,” Hardin said.

  “Ain’t that the truth? If only.” She leaned around Hardin to get a better look at Maureen. “Hey, sweetheart. You holding up okay?”

  Maureen hesitated to answer. She hadn’t yet adjusted to people recognizing her. But she’d worked in the neighborhood for months now, and had been out on the route for almost every parade. Even on regular duty, the Grocery was one of her regular stops for supplies. “I’m doing just fine, Madge. You making that money?”

  “Always, dear. Always.”

  “Just two coffees for now,” Hardin said.

  Madge passed the small white cups through the window. Hardin stuffed a few singles into the tip jar. When she had first seen it there last week, Maureen had been amazed that Madge kept the tip jar, an old plastic mayonnaise jug, anywhere near the window. That was until Madge explained that the jug was nailed to the counter for the duration of the season. I should know better, Maureen had thought, than to question anyone who makes it through this craziness year after year with their sanity and their business intact. Everyone on the route, she remembered, whether it was for partying, policing, or doing parade route business, had a system. So much that looked like chaos wasn’t. Which didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of it to be had. She just had to learn which chaos was worth reacting to. Like jazz. Or porn.

  “Is it true what I heard?” Madge asked Hardin. Maureen’s ears perked up. She wanted to see how Hardin handled this. A line was forming behind them. She knew she wasn’t the only one listening to Hardin’s answer.

  “Depends on what you heard,” Hardin said, his tone light.

  “I heard the gangs were going at i
t on the other side of St. Charles. That it was bad. That there was a dead kid on the route, right by here.”

  “That’s an exaggeration,” Hardin said, shaking his head. “A big one. No dead kids. You know better than to believe parade route gossip.”

  “It’s every year now, Sarge,” Madge said, “with the guns. And it’s not just on the other side of the avenue. It’s not just down by the Popeyes and the highway anymore. Now they come over this side. Fat Tuesday last year we had a shooting two blocks from here. On Fat Tuesday. You can’t tell me I’m wrong. That’s no gossip, that’s fact.”

  “I’m not saying your concern is unfounded,” Hardin said. “I worked that Fat Tuesday shooting last year.” He paused. “We had a shooting, yes, I’m not gonna lie about that. You know me. No fatalities, though. No dead kids.”

  “Thank the Lord,” Madge said, blessing herself.

  “Indeed,” Hardin said. “And the other guy the EMTs came for, he was an OD. Sad, but it had nothing to do with that other incident. Separate things. And the shooting looks like a random beef or something. I don’t want you to worry. We’re on it. We’re handling it.”

  “Okay, if you say so,” Madge said, shrugging, as if to let the doubt in her voice roll out her ear. “It’s not like we have a choice. We can’t afford to stay home. You know what this time of year means, Sarge. And we’re just gettin’ started. The big parades have hardly even got goin’ yet. The weather sucks, and they sayin’ it’s not gettin’ any better until Sunday for Bacchus. We can’t have people havin’ another reason to stay home this year.”

  Hardin reached into the service window, covered Madge’s small, dry hand with his. “You’re getting worked up for nothing.”

  “City says I have to put a new hood over my stove,” Madge said. “This weekend is supposed to pay for that, long as people come out.”

  Hardin leaned down so he could meet Madge’s eyes with his own. “We got this. The parades will keep rolling. Everyone will make their money. I promise you. We got it. If I can find a fix for the weather, I’ll do that, too.” He picked up a coffee cup in each hand. “We pull it off every year, don’t we? This year’s no different. Now keep doing what you do.” He tilted his head toward the man on the barstool by the Porta-John. “And tell your husband if he’s gonna concealed-carry he better have that permit like it oughtta be. I can’t let that go. Not on the route. Speaking of guns. You know how we are about that.”

  Madge’s face clouded over for a brief moment. “We’re not the ones…” She let the rest of her comment trail off. “He’s good. He’s okay. He has it with him. I made him promise me.”

  Hardin smiled. He raised his coffee at Madge’s husband then turned back to the window. “I never had any doubt. I’m just sayin’. Let’s keep cool and have a good time. We’re all family out here.” He handed a coffee to Maureen. “Come with me, Officer.”

  Maureen took her coffee. She turned to say thanks to Madge, but the woman was already back to business, taking an order from the next set of customers.

  23

  Maureen peeled back the lid on her coffee cup and, sipping the hot liquid, hustled after Hardin, who strode ahead of her down Sixth Street, away from the parade and toward the relative dark and quiet of Prytania Street, the next street parallel to St. Charles, a different world entirely from the circus on the avenue.

  They stopped at the corner of Sixth and Prytania, where a yellow wooden barrier closed the street to traffic. Across Prytania Street the white brick wall of the Lafayette Cemetery ran the length of the block. Here I am, Maureen thought, a carnival raging at my back, the city of the dead ahead of me, while I stand on the corner under the stars and the crepe myrtles drinking hot coffee. If only my mother could see me now.

  “This is your chance,” Hardin said to her, “to tell me your side of the story.” The casual jovial tone he’d employed with Madge was gone. “There’s no one else around to hear it, so I want it straight.”

  Maureen set her coffee on the curb. It was flavorless, but it was hot. She lit a cigarette. “All due respect, Sarge, and I’m not trying to change the subject, I swear, but we caught that kid, the shooting suspect. We have him hooked up in a unit. I know him. I know his name. Todd Goodwin Curtis. Don’t you want to talk about that instead? A lot of good work went into that.”

  “Not right now,” Hardin said.

  “But why don’t—”

  “Coughlin. Leave it.”

  “Yes, sir.” She paused. “Okay, my story. That boy came running through the crowd. I saw him coming, there was some chatter on the radio, too. We knew about him. I tried to intercept him, and he threw himself on the hood of someone’s car. A couple of rich kids, couple of jerk-offs. Anyway, I wanted to get them out of there. I was, we were, Cordts and I, trying to avoid a scene and keep traffic moving.”

  “Any info on the two kids in the car?” Hardin asked.

  “I never took any,” Maureen said. “The driver said they were going to the party on Delachaise. No one was hurt.”

  “We could use a statement from them,” Hardin said, “about the condition and behavior of this John Doe.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t really think about that,” Maureen said. “I didn’t figure I’d be in a position where I’d need witnesses on my behalf. I didn’t think the kid was going to die.”

  “Ah, let’s face it,” Hardin said, shaking his head, he seemed so tired, “anything gathered at a Mardi Gras parade isn’t worth much.”

  “I didn’t tase that kid,” Maureen said. “I’ll turn my Taser in right now and you can check it. I haven’t used it. I’ve never used it.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” Hardin said. “Obviously, you didn’t attack the kid. Nobody that matters believes that you did.” He stepped closer to her. “But he died. And you made no effort, as far as I can ascertain, to get him medical attention before that happened.”

  “We were working on getting him help when we heard the gunshots, Sarge,” Maureen said. “Gunshots. We’re not supposed to respond to that?”

  Hardin gestured for her to stop talking. “I know, I know. But when we figure out who this John Doe is and find his people, the police department is going to have to answer for how he was treated.”

  “I’m not afraid to talk to whoever wants to ask me questions.”

  “See, we don’t want it coming to that,” Hardin said. “That would be bad. I’m going to have to answer for you and Cordts, for the decisions that y’all made. I want to be able to do that.”

  Maureen felt the moisture leave her mouth. “Okay, I never thought, from the moment I first saw him running up the street, that his life was in danger. I prioritized managing his encounter with the car. I made sure no one got hurt. The safety of everyone involved was paramount to me, including that kid. He didn’t make it easy, either. He tried to bite my face.

  “I don’t know what happened after we left him, I can’t speak to that, but I never, ever thought that he was in any danger. We’re taught what an OD looks like, a serious, he’s-gonna-die OD, and I’m telling you, this thing didn’t look like it. I don’t know what this was.

  “And even still, we were trying to help him, and to get him out of the street. That’s what we were doing when we heard the gunshots. Cordts called EMS. They wouldn’t come. You can’t tell me, Sarge, that we did the wrong thing running after the shots instead of playing this kid’s game about being passed out.”

  She sucked her cigarette down to the filter, pacing. “I’m sorry he’s dead. Obviously. I’d rather he hadn’t died, for him and his people as well as for us. I’m not without sympathy. But it was bad choices on his part, and bad timing in general that did him in, not bad police work. I can’t say I’d do any of it different. And, due respect, Sarge, I don’t think you would’ve done anything different, either, had you been there.”

  Hardin stared into the dark trees hanging over the cemetery. He was quiet for a long time. “One big question,” he finally said. “Will Cordts tell me the
same story that you did?”

  Maureen wanted to cross her fingers behind her back. Who knew what the fuck Cordts would say anymore? “I guarantee it.”

  24

  They both turned at the sound of footsteps approaching from the direction of the parade. Laine was walking up to them, but without the rest of her crew.

  “Something I can help you with?” Hardin asked.

  “The kid who died on the route,” Laine said. “It was one of my crew who found him.”

  “And we’re grateful for how promptly y’all reported that to us,” Hardin said. “And for your discretion and respect for the deceased. We’ll want to speak with Donna before too long, by the way. We’re going to do a full report on his death, try and find out what happened to him.”

  “Any idea when you’ll want to speak with her?” Laine asked. “I want to make her available, but we’re going to be working pretty hard these next few days. There’s a story here. Bigger than you might think.”

  “There’s money here,” Maureen said. “That’s what’s here. Exposure. Attention. Not truth and justice. Violence and money. That’s what you’re here for, and a very bad day for a whole bunch of people is suddenly a very good day for you. Like a true vulture.”

  “I told you,” Laine said, “we’re here for the real Mardi Gras, the real New Orleans. It’s not my fault it decided to show itself tonight. We didn’t make it happen.”

  “If you’re really interested in the real New Orleans,” Maureen said, “then go film the families having a good time together, go film the kids from different neighborhoods playing on the parade route. Or are the kids in this city only interesting to you when they’re shooting each other and dropping dead?”

  “You don’t know me,” Laine said, “you don’t know what I’m about. You google somebody and you think you know who you’re dealing with. Who said you get to decide what’s really New Orleans and what isn’t? According to Officer Wilburn, you just got here.”

  Maureen waved her hand over her uniform. “And as you may have noticed I plan on staying and doing something worthwhile with my time here, not running off to the next party where someone’s got their tits hanging out so I can throw it up on the Internet and call myself a journalist.”