A Perfect Cover

by Maureen Tan

  “Frankie and Johnnie’s,” Beauprix said immediately when I suggested lunch and asked him to choose a place. “Ever been there?”

  I shook my head and he smiled.

  “I think you’ll like it.”

  He had picked me up at the hotel that morning, so we used his car to drive from the station. As we drove, I got the impression something was very much on his mind, but he didn’t seem interested in talking about it and I didn’t press him. Except for a few nods in the direction of landmarks I already knew, the only real dialog Beauprix had was with the drivers sharing the road with him. He cursed the snarled traffic under his breath, making occasional suggestions about particular drivers’ skills and parentage, but he refrained from hitting his siren and moving the portable red flashing dome to his dashboard window. And, although he shook a cigarette out of the pack and placed it between his lips, he didn’t light it.

  I sat beside him, enjoying the show, unperturbed by the traffic. Though I kept my opinion to myself, I judged New Orleans’s drivers and the eccentric, inefficient layout of its roadways to be no worse than D.C.’s. About thirty minutes later, we ended up at the Riverbend, on Tchoupitoulas at Arrabela Street, and Beauprix parked the car.

  The atmosphere inside Frankie and Johnnie’s was noisy, informal and hung with the smell of seafood and frying. As Beauprix and I waited for our food, his attention was briefly drawn to a ball game playing on the bar’s TVs. The Cubs were winning and Beauprix nodded and laughed out loud at the disparaging comment that came from a knot of Tulane students. All around us, sitting at the crowded bar and tables, was a cross section of the city rarely seen by tourists—people in business attire, guys who parked their hard hats on the bar beside them, uniformed New Orleans Transit System workers, a pair of cops who Beauprix waved to as we came in and a scattering of family groupings.

  The menu offered local food fried, boiled or simmered; it was supplemented by a specials board that included boiled crawfish, seafood chowder and turtle soup. Beauprix and I each ordered Dixie beer and a fried oyster po’-boy. Beauprix had his “dressed,” New Orleans shorthand for tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise. I asked for mine plain.

  As we waited for the food, we talked about Little Vietnam.

  Beauprix had told me that he had been a regular visitor even before the murders. That was one of the reasons he’d noticed the odd crime stats and had made a connection between the murders that no one else had. Back in his rookie days, he said, he had walked a beat in Little Vietnam and still occasionally returned for the food and the shopping. He found the people to his liking—just like Tinh Vu, they were warm and hardworking. But unlike my uncle, the residents of Little Vietnam couldn’t see a friend or an ally in the face of a white cop.

  “No matter how hard I try to win their trust,” Beauprix said, sounding frustrated, “they keep me at arm’s length. Most everyone is polite and friendly, but when we talk, their smiles never reach their eyes. That attitude was inconvenient then. But now, damn it, it’s costing people’s lives.”

  It was then that I told Beauprix I intended to go undercover in the Vietnamese community.

  He was less than enthusiastic.

  “I don’t see that you have an alternative,” I said after we’d argued a bit.

  Briefly our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of our food. My crusty French-bread sandwich was stacked high with oysters. I mixed horseradish, ketchup and hot sauce into a cocktail sauce and drizzled the oysters with it, then picked up the overstuffed sandwich with both hands, considered the best angle of attack, picked out an edge where an oyster was threatening escape, and took a big bite. The bread crunched and broke beneath my teeth, giving way to a moist, tender interior and a burst of juicy flavor. I chewed happily for a moment, then swallowed.

  “You asked for help and now you have it,” I said, still holding my sandwich in both hands.

  For no particular reason, I noticed that the slate-colored shirt that Beauprix wore made his hazel eyes appear almost khaki green and that his dark hair had some gray in it. Then I recalled our near-silent ride across town.

  “If there’s something on your mind, let’s hear it,” I said.

  Beauprix followed my lead, focusing on taking a few bites of his sandwich before answering me. But he managed to scowl as he chewed. Finally he put his sandwich down on its plate and proceeded to tell me why he didn’t want me to do my job.

  His overprotective male aspect was obviously in full ascendancy, I thought, and I didn’t waste my time arguing with him. I just kept eating slowly, enjoying the delicious sandwich, letting the crunch of the bread in my mouth break up his words.

  “…too dangerous…no back up…can’t allow it…another way…against policy…irresponsible if I…”

  Finally he ran out of steam. Or so I thought. I put my sandwich down, took a sip of cold beer and returned the bottle back onto the table. I was about to tell him what I thought when he started up again.

  “Yesterday, at the morgue, you helped me, helped this case,” Beauprix said. “You confirmed what I felt, gave me something more substantial than a hunch to go on. But there was nothing dangerous about you looking at that kid in the morgue. I should have stopped things right then.”

  He reached across the table and put his hand on top of mine.

  “Lacie, you’re smart and perceptive and you know your stuff. And, hell, it doesn’t hurt that you’re pretty. I wouldn’t mind spending more time with you. Professionally. Or personally. But there’s no way I’m going to let you risk your life for me.”

  I stared at him, taken off guard by his touch, his admission, my body’s reaction to it. But, unlike Anthony Beauprix, I wasn’t about to let my emotions get in the way of my better judgment. Or doing the work I was committed to.

  “I’m not doing this for you. Even with Uncle Tinh’s information, how long will it take you to identify members of this gang? And gather enough evidence, enough witnesses, to bring charges against them?”

  “I’ll go to my superiors with the information I have. I’ll keep at it, keep pushing them, talk to Tinh again. I’ll find another way….”

  “If Uncle Tinh is right—if this gang is also responsible for the three murders—how long do you think it’s going to take before they kill again?”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but I stopped him by pulling my hand from beneath his and pointing to his sandwich.

  “Be a pity to waste that,” I said.

  His eyes searched my face, spending a moment apparently trying to read my thoughts and evidently not succeeding. Then he picked up his sandwich.

  I waited until he had a mouthful of food before I spoke again.

  “I’m going to do this,” I said quietly. “You can help me. Or you can cut me loose. With no backup. No support. But I’m a civilian, I’m not breaking any laws and, bottom line, you can’t stop me. Besides, the risk to me is minimal. I speak the language. I have the skills. I can look the part. Like it or not, Anthony, I have a perfect cover.”

  That was something Uncle Duran was fond of saying just before sending me on another undercover assignment.

  “I know you can do this,” the senator would say, usually as he chewed the end of an expensive cigar. “For me, for your country, for these helpless people. But most of all, Lacie Reed, I want you to do this for yourself. You have the skill and the talent to do this job. Like it or not, your greatest gift is a perfect cover.”

  After his decision to give up smoking, Uncle Duran rarely lit his cigars, merely persisted in waving them around when he felt passionately about something. Not so Anthony Beauprix. By the time we stopped arguing, the cigarette pack was out of his pocket again and he smoked two in a row.

  Later, Beauprix dropped me off on Magazine Street between Jackson and Napoleon. There, I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping, relaxing and making a point of not looking over my shoulder for men in feathered masks. A random act of terror, I kept telling myself. Although instinct kept telling me otherwi
se.

  New Orleans’s “street of shops” had everything I needed to buy for the next day’s undertaking and many things I simply enjoyed looking at. I went into thrift stores, antique stores and dollar stores, and carried packages out of a few. A quick late-afternoon cup of coffee at PJ’s and I was back in my room at the Intercontinental long before sunset.

  Except for a quick trip to the front desk to retrieve an envelope sent over by Uncle Tinh, I didn’t leave the hotel for the rest of the day. Then I gave myself the gift of self-indulgence. I took a leisurely bath, ordered a late dinner from room service, watched the local news and went to bed.

  That night I slept deeply and dreamed that I was running through the narrow alleys of the French Quarter. As I ran, I glanced repeatedly over my shoulder. And though there was nothing behind me but darkness and empty streets, an overwhelming sense of dread spurred me forward. Thunder rumbled and crashed, and suddenly it was raining. But instead of droplets, black and red feathers fell from the lightning-ripped sky.

  The next morning I showered, had a room-service breakfast and began packing. Except for a handful of toiletries and my hair dryer, I folded all of my clothing into the pair of suitcases I’d checked in with. After adding my briefcase and purse with most of their contents to the largest of the suitcases, I closed and locked each lid.

  Then, for modesty’s sake, I wrapped myself in the folds of one of the hotel’s voluminous terry bathrobes and I phoned the front desk. I asked them to send a bellhop to my room. When he arrived a few minutes later, I sent him away with a generous tip, my baggage and instructions to store my belongings until I returned.

  After locking the door behind the bellhop, I shed the robe, wrapped myself in a towel instead and went into the dressing room where the tools of transformation awaited me. I spent a few minutes considering my reflection, then picked up a pair of scissors.

  Tommy, the boy at Uncle Tinh’s restaurant, was my fashion inspiration.

  I chopped off my hair, holding it out from my head in long, thick strands and sawing everything off to a three-inch length. Then I dipped into the bag of rubber bands and used them to gather my hair into uneven clumps all over my head. That done, I pulled on a pair of disposable gloves, readied my comb and a roll of cellophane wrap, and got artistic.

  Within the hour I had towel-dried my hair, applied a hair product that looked and smelled like thick white glue, spent a few minutes with the hair dryer and tiny, metallic hair clips and stared in the mirror at the results. My head was now capped with poorly accomplished spikes of matte black, magenta and pink hair. Some slicked-down bits were anchored with the high-contrast silver clips.

  Nasty, I thought, smiling at my reflection. But not nasty enough.

  I smoothed on a thin layer of foundation in a shade that was just off enough to muddy my complexion, then laid on eyeliner and mascara with a heavy hand. Thin wire earrings hung with a few red beads and a cheap earcuff completed the look.

  Then I stepped back from the mirror again. Better, I thought, and briefly considered having my nose or tongue pierced to enhance the look. Decided against it and, instead, applied lipstick in a color that did not exist in nature and slicked on nail polish in a shade of badly bruised.

  As I waited for the polish to dry, I sat in the desk chair with my feet on the bed and considered my strategy. I needed a job. Something low level and unremarkable that offered lots of public contact. Then I would immerse myself in the environment and see what developed.

  Thirty minutes later I bent my fingers over my palm, examined my nails, brushed a fingertip lightly across the palm of my hand to test the nail for tackiness and judged the whole lot to be dry. That done, I dragged several overstuffed plastic bags from the closet and dumped the contents into the middle of the bed.

  My trip to the Salvation Army thrift shop had given me lots to choose from. I selected a pair of faded flared-legged jeans, pulled on a skimpy black tank top that was decorated with a pink rhinestone heart and pulled tight across my full breasts, threaded a wide macramé belt thorough the waist of the jeans and topped the whole outfit with a lightweight army-surplus jacket.

  On the off chance that someone might actually catch a glimpse of them, I’d traded out my expensive underwear for the discount store’s best black sleazy stuff. For comfort’s sake, I’d kept two pairs of my own shoes—the black, round-toed and thick-soled Skechers and a pair of gray-on-gray New Balance cross-trainers. I spent a little time with sandpaper and the tips of the scissors making the Skechers look worn. The sneakers were a favorite pair and already looked worse for the wear.

  I put the Skechers on, stepped in front of the full-length mirror mounted to the closet door and looked myself up and down. There’s a fine line between a teenage girl trying to look grown-up and a hooker working on a Lolita look. I vamped in front of the mirror for several minutes, shot myself wide-eyed looks, sullen stares and shy glances, and decided I’d definitely stepped over the line into hooker. I considered the problem and then resolved the issue by scrubbing my face, going a bit easier on the eyeliner and mascara, and blotting my lipstick to a lighter shade. Finally, I put on another black tank top, a size larger than the original.

  Good, I thought, looking at myself again. I was the kind of girl a sixteen-year-old boy like Tommy could fall in love with.

  Except for the rhinestoned shirt, which I discarded in the wastebasket, I jammed my remaining wardrobe into a beaten-up Samsonite suitcase with a duct-taped handle. A thin leather belt took the place of its sprung locks. Tucked inside its lining was two hundred dollars’ worth of twenties. Part of Uncle Tinh’s delivery to me at the hotel. I added a pair of binoculars, a powerful little flashlight and my set of illegal picklocks to the suitcase.

  The rest of the items from Uncle Tinh went into a beaten-up black nylon backpack that was waterproof, with adjustable, padded straps that could be comfortably slung over a shoulder. Into its zippered interior pocket, I tucked a slip of paper with an address on it and almost fifty dollars in cash, small bills and loose change. Finally, I added a new drawing pad, an assortment of pencils and a small pocket knife to sharpen them with.

  Then I turned my attention to the denim purse I’d left out on the bed. It had frayed edges, metal studs and looked as though it had been attacked by a bottle of bleach. I bulked its soft sides up with items essential to a teenager: makeup, comb, styling gel, chewing gum and tampons. I carried no gun, no ID, no checkbook. Any of those risked blowing my cover.

  For a moment, even though I had promised I would carry it with me, I considered leaving my cell phone behind. But even in the hands of a runaway teenager, a cell phone would be unremarkable. A risk only if it fell into the hands of someone who was already suspicious about me. Besides, it was easy to conceal and, if necessary, easy to discard. And it didn’t fail to occur to me that a piece of technology smaller than the palm of my hand was the lifeline between who I was and who I intended to be.

  Chapter 9

  Weighed down by the blue suitcase and the black backpack, I left my hotel room and walked down the long, carpeted hallway to the elevator. As I passed by a couple just leaving their room, I noticed that the gray-haired woman reached back to the closed door, testing the room’s security by giving the knob a quick tug. The house detective, who spotted me stepping out of the elevator, trailed me through the lobby. The cute blue-eyed doorman, who had held the door and smiled at me throughout my visit, now regarded me with the same narrow-eyed suspicion that the house dick had. He didn’t offer to flag me a cab.

  I hadn’t, anyway, intended to take a cab where I was going. Instead, I walked to the bus stop on Canal Street, waited a few minutes for the No. 66 Express to pull up, and paid the exact fare with quarters scrounged from the bottom of my purse. Lurching from the bus’s movement away from the curb, I made my way to the nearest pair of empty seats, slid in next to the window and put my suitcase between me and the aisle.

  For forty-five minutes, I watched the traffic and scenery bey
ond the window as the bus took me along I-10, past the levee that holds the waters of Lake Pontchartrain away from the lower-lying city center, and “over the high-rise,” into New Orleans East. The area was a patchwork of marshes and canals, railroad yards and shipping berths, heavy industry, a variety of shops and business, and residential areas. Housing included everything from high-density to single-family to fishing resort, and the residents ran the economic gamut from ultra-wealthy to absolutely poor.

  The bus crossed the bridge over the busy Inner Harbor Navigational Canal and then, for a time, the elevated roadway of I-10 passed over a no-man’s land of heavy industry and forsaken marshland. The place where the bodies of three residents of Little Vietnam had been dumped.

  In the distance I could see the towering quayside cranes swinging out to move containers from ship to shore and from shore to ship. The rectangular containers—some of them more than fifty feet in length—were stacked like building blocks on ships and barges for transport across oceans and along the Mississippi. On land, the containers moved across the North American continent loaded onto flatbeds to travel by rail or dropped onto wheels to travel the roadways as the trailer portion of a tractor-trailer rig.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if some of the containers I could see from my window hid desperate immigrants. It was a problem the INS was fighting at all the nation’s large port cities. People risked death to come to America by ship, promising future earnings to pay as much as seventy thousand dollars in travel debts. Once in the U.S., many found themselves enslaved by those who had purchased the immigrants’ debt-bondage contracts from the smugglers. A handful of forged documents were the prize—often unobtainable—for servitude in sweatshops and the sex industry. I couldn’t believe my kindly Uncle Tinh could be involved in any aspect of this heartless business.

  Just past Downman Road, where I-10 jogged northward toward Slidell, the No. 66 left the interstate and continued east on Chef Menteur Highway. To the north was a narrow corridor of businesses and residences that followed the contours of Lake Pontchartrain. To the south, lightly populated marshland and Bayou Bienvenue.