by C. S. Graham
Hadley started to turn away but stopped when Lance added, “And start looking at hotels in the city that take cash. She spent last night someplace. I want to know where.”
“I’ll get on it,” said Hadley.
Lance leaned his hands on the windowsill and stared out over the sprawl of the half-ruined city. From here he could see the wide brown coil of the Mississippi River winding its way between the levees. He opened his cell phone and punched in a number.
“Fitzgerald?…Lance here. I’m in New Orleans. When were you planning to fly in?”
Paul Fitzgerald might dress like a Texan, but his voice still carried the flat intonations of his northern childhood. “This afternoon. Why?”
“Better make it this morning. I’ll explain when you get here.”
“Trouble?”
“Maybe.”
Lance hung up, then put in another call to his wife. “Hi, honey; it’s me. Looks like I might not make it home for another twenty-four hours. Tell the kids I miss them, would you?”
Tobie was the first customer through the door of her bank when it opened at nine o’clock that morning. She filled out forms to withdraw $650 from her savings account—which essentially cleaned it out—and another hundred dollars from her checking account. Then she waited in line, her throat constricted with anxiety, until a bored teller with ebony skin and bright red hair called out, “Next.”
Tobie stood with her hands gripping the edge of the counter, her gaze darting warily about the bank lobby while the teller typed the account information into her terminal. Tobie half expected the woman to look up and say, “I’m sorry, your accounts have been closed,” or to see burly men with ominous bulges under their coats advancing toward her.
But then the woman was counting out the bills and stuffing them into a long white envelope. It wasn’t until Tobie felt her breath gusting out in a long sigh that she even realized she’d been holding it. She shoved the envelope into her bag, said, “Thank you,” and walked rapidly toward the door.
A minute and a half after October Guinness walked out the double glass doors into the bright sunshine of a cloudless morning, the bank manager received a directive from Washington, D.C., freezing both her accounts.
Hoarding her resources, Tobie bought a bare minimum of toiletries and other necessities from the Rite Aid down the street, then headed for her friend Gunner Eriksson’s antiques store near the corner of Magazine and Felicity.
Gunner called it an antiques store, but most of his business came from his furniture restoration business. The grime of centuries obscured the shop’s front windows, nothing on the floor had prices, and half the stuff piled inside looked as if it’d been picked up off the curb when people were gutting their houses after the hurricane. Tobie had to lean her shoulder into the heavy old timber door and push hard even to get it to open.
A cowbell attached to the top of the door let out a melodious jingle. But the shop was empty.
“Hello?” she called, her voice echoing in the dusty stillness.
Gunner’s El Salvadorian wife, Pia, appeared at the top of a long flight of stairs leading to their second-floor living quarters overhead. An artist, Pia also used the big open space as a potter’s studio.
“Tobie! Thank God!” She clambered down the steps, a small, lithe woman with straight black hair that brushed against her slim shoulders. “We’ve been so worried about you, and you haven’t been answering your phone. Are you all right? The FBI were here this morning looking for you. They said you were missing.”
“They were here?” Tobie spun toward the dusty window, her gaze darting up and down the street, panic clawing at her. How had they known to look for her here?
Pia came up beside her. “They’re gone now. Tobie, what’s going on?”
Tobie’s breath was coming in quick little pants. She rubbed her hands against her face, trying to calm down, trying to think. If they knew who her friends were, where could she go? “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said to Pia. “Some men came to my house last night claiming to be from the FBI and asking questions about Henry Youngbood. Then they tried to shoot me.”
Anyone else might have thought she had finally cracked. But Pia had grown up in a country were people frequently “disappeared” into government prisons, never to be seen again. “Madre de Dios,” she whispered.
“I need to talk to Gunner,” said Tobie. “Is he here?”
“No. He’s at the Save Our Heritage demonstration in the French Quarter—”
“Where in the French Quarter?”
“Jackson Square. It’s one of the few places in the Quarter you can plug in a PA system.” If there was a demonstration in New Orleans about anything, from the latest genocide in sub-Saharan Africa to the recent push to require all purveyors of liquor in the Quarter to put in bathrooms, Gunner was sure to be there with his public address system.
“If anyone else comes looking for me,” said Tobie, turning toward the door, “tell them you haven’t seen me.”
Pia snagged her arm. “Tobie, wait. I don’t understand. Why would the FBI want to kill you?”
“I don’t know if they’re really the FBI or not. It all has something to do with Dr. Youngblood.”
“You think these are the men who killed him?”
“Yes.”
Pia fumbled in her pocket for her cell phone. “Let me call Gunner. He can leave the—”
Tobie touched her friend’s hand, stopping her. “No. I’ll go there.”
Pia looked up, her straight brows twitching together, her soft dark eyes haunted by memories of the war-torn land of her childhood. “Don’t you think you should stay here? If those men are out there looking for you—”
Tobie shook her head. “If they’ve been here once, they could come back.”
Pia reached up to wrap her arm around Tobie’s neck in a quick hug. Tobie had never been hugged much as a child. Her mother was too nondemonstrative, too German. But Pia was always hugging her friends. She held Tobie close in a rush of warmth and affection. “Be careful. You know we’re your friends,” she said. “If there’s anything we can do…”
Tobie’s arms tightened convulsively around her, then let her go. “I know. Thank you, Pia.”
25
Michael Hadley was in a foul mood. His eye hurt. His head hurt. His shoulder was stiff. But more than anything, last night’s debacle had stung his pride. He was a Navy SEAL, for Christ’s sake. He’d been trained to kill. Had killed, more times than he could remember. And a pathetic, psycho loser of a girl had beat the shit out of him.
He pecked at the keys of his laptop, then let out his breath in an explosive sound that brought Palmer’s head around.
“What is it?”
“She cleaned out her bank accounts this morning as soon as the bank opened.”
Palmer stood up so fast he knocked his chair over. “What the hell? Those accounts were supposed to be frozen.”
“It took a while to get through to our contacts. The directive reached the bank about a minute too late.”
Palmer swore long and hard. “And the taps on her friends’ phones?”
“They should be in place by noon.”
Lance came to drum his fingers on the edge of the table. “It shouldn’t take long now.”
Hadley wasn’t so sure. “She seems to be playing it smart. She hasn’t called anyone.”
“She will. So far she’s been lucky. But she’s going to make a mistake, sooner or later. And when she does, we’ll nail her.”
Leaving her Bug in a lot at the edge of the Quarter, Tobie pushed her way through the crowds toward Jackson Square.
With each step, she penetrated deeper into a different world, a world of narrow shady streets and Creole buildings of worn brick and crumbling plaster, where banana trees were draped over iron gates and fountains whispered unseen from hidden courtyards.
As she neared the leafy outlines of the square, she could hear a speaker’s voice coming loud and clear over Gun
ner’s PA system. “The ancient buildings of this city are a priceless heritage that the people who run New Orleans are willing to squander in the name of greed,” said a woman, her voice throbbing with indignation. “They say it’s the only way to get this city back on its feet, to prevent the blight left by the storm from becoming permanent, and to provide our people with jobs. But who’s going to want to visit New Orleans once the very buildings that make this city unique have been knocked down to make way for some tacky casino and another dozen high-rise hotels that could be anywhere? Where will the jobs be then?”
A rousing cheer rippled through the growing crowd. Squinting against the morning sun, Tobie was about to cross the street when she saw a sign propped in the dusty window of a shop near the corner: PREPAID CELL PHONES. NO CREDIT CHECKS. NO HASSLES.
Changing direction, she ducked into the store and bought one.
Tobie circled the square, her gaze scanning the crowd. She could see Gunner Eriksson fiddling with the wiring of his PA system at the edge of the square. She sometimes wondered what the activists and agitators of New Orleans would do without Gunner Eriksson and the PA system he carted around in his old Chevy van. She made sure no one was watching him before she approached and said quietly, “Gunner, I need to talk to you.”
He swung around, his mouth going slack. A tall, tow-headed Swede originally from Minnesota, he looked like he’d be more at home at the helm of a Viking ship cutting through iceberg-filled northern seas than in the steamy heat of New Orleans. “Tobie!”
“Not so loud.” She threw a quick glance at the people milling about them. “Can we go someplace quieter?”
“Come over here.” Taking her arm, he drew her out the gates to the narrow alley that ran alongside the cathedral. “Pia called me,” he said, swinging to face her. “She said you’re running from the FBI.”
“They could be FBI. I don’t know.” Tobie shivered and clutched her arms across her chest. It was cooler in the alley, the air scented by the ancient dank stones of the old Spanish buildings around them. “I need you to tell me what you know about Keefe Corporation.”
His blue eyes opened wide. “Keefe? You think Keefe has something to do with this?”
“I’m not sure. Their name was on some documents I saw. What can you tell me about them?”
“Jeez. Where do you start? They’re in everything from oil exploration and drilling to every kind of big-time construction project you can think of. Airports. Chemical plants. Dams. You name it.”
“Ever hear of something called the Archangel Project?”
He thought a moment, then shook his head. “I know Keefe was in with Halliburton on that oil pipeline project the Taliban refused to let them build in Afghanistan. Maybe it has something to do with that. Now that we’ve taken out the Taliban, the pipeline project’s a go.”
“Gunner, we hit Afghanistan because of 9/11.”
“You think it’s all just a coincidence?”
Tobie stared off across the square, to the Moon Walk and the tops of the ships just visible over the looming mass of the levee holding back the river. She’d learned a long time ago not to try to argue with Gunner’s conspiracy theories.
“I know Keefe was providing a lot of the logistical support in Iraq when I was there,” she said.
Gunner nodded. “There was a big stink when they were awarded that contract. It was never put up for public bid, and the President’s brother sits on their board of directors. Some senator tried calling for an investigation, but the Administration kept saying the criticism was just politically motivated, and the guy couldn’t seem to get the press interested.”
“So he dropped it?”
“No. He was killed in a private plane crash.” Gunner watched a group of tourists in shorts and tank tops stroll past, their shoulders fiery red with sunburn. Tobie could see his eyes were troubled. “Have you thought about going to the police?”
“And tell them what? That the FBI is trying to kill me? You know they’ll think I’m crazy.”
Gunner nodded. He knew about her psychiatric discharge from the Navy, and he knew how people treated her when they heard about it. “Where are you staying?”
“I’ve got a hotel.”
“You know Pia and I would be glad to have you come—”
“No,” said Tobie quickly. “I don’t want to put you in any more danger than I already have.”
“Don’t worry about—”
“Gunner, these men are killing people.”
He was silent for a moment. A hot breeze picked up, heavy with the smell of the river and crab boil from the restaurant on the corner. In the square, a new speaker had taken the mike.
Gunner said, “We should be finished here by noon. If you want, I can look into Keefe, see what I turn up. I’ll give you a call if I find something, but it would be better if we prearranged a meeting spot.”
“A meeting spot?”
“Yeah. Say, City Park? Maybe at Bayou St. John, near the stables?”
“Why the park?”
“It’s a nice open space. If they have either one of us under surveillance, we’ll know it. And laser and infrared microphones require a line of sight they won’t have among the trees.”
Once, Tobie might have laughed. Instead, she dug a notebook and pen from her bag and jotted down her new number. “I bought one of those prepaid phones so no one can trace it.”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “I thought I was the paranoid conspiracy nut.”
She punched him lightly on the shoulder and smiled. “Where do you think I learned this stuff?”
26
Jax found the house at 5815 Patton Street silent and baking in the hot morning sun. It stood on short piers, its weatherboard siding painted yellow with white trim and black shutters.
Pushing open the low gate, he walked up a path edged with liriope and white four o’clocks closed tight against the light. The neighborhood was quiet and smelled faintly of the dampness left by last night’s rain. His footsteps echoed dully as he climbed the two wooden steps to the front porch. He was about to knock, then noticed the door stood slightly ajar. When he touched his knuckles to the panel, the door creaked open about half a foot.
“Hello?” he called, not expecting an answer. Young women living alone in cities with New Orleans’s crime rate didn’t leave their doors unlatched.
He glanced around the covered porch, with its fanciful gingerbread trim and white rocking chairs, to the street beyond. A black Suburban parked at the corner had its windows up and the engine running, probably for the air conditioner. The windows were tinted, so he couldn’t see the driver, and from this angle he couldn’t get the license number. It probably meant nothing. Just some soccer mom waiting for her kid to finish his piano lesson.
Jax put one hand on the Beretta Cougar he wore shoved in a waistband holster at the small of his back. “Miss Guinness?”
There was no answer. He pushed open the door and went inside.
The house had been efficiently but thoroughly ransacked. Walking through the living and dining rooms into the kitchen beyond, Jax studied the half-emptied grocery bag with an overturned tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream that had melted and run down the counter. Across the room, a neat bullet hole showed in the fractured glass of the utility porch door. The door was still open, and the bullet had obviously been fired from the inside.
He made a quick search of the bedroom, then moved to the small side garden. He was expecting a body. He didn’t find one.
Wandering back inside, he put in a call to Matt. “Looks like whoever got your Dr. Youngblood might have also taken out the girl.”
There was a silence at the other end of the phone. Then Matt said, “She’s dead?”
“I don’t know. Someone’s torn her house apart and shot up her side door. There’s a blood smear on one of the kitchen cabinets, but it’s not much. Looks like she ran. She could have got away.”
“Any idea yet who’s doing this?”
“
No. But I don’t see anything that links back to the Company.” Jax hesitated. “Although there is a black Suburban parked down the street.”
Matt grunted. “Everyone drives SUVs down there. They need them to evacuate for hurricanes.”
“Do you want me to come in?”
“Not yet. Something is obviously going on. I’ve got some info on the girl I’ll be sending you.”
Jax gazed out the open door at a swaying clump of butterfly iris in the side garden. “I have tickets to the Opera House tonight. Turandot.”
Matt laughed and hung up.
Stepping carefully around a pool of melted ice cream on the floor, Jax walked over to inspect the scarred wood of the back door frame. A bullet had buried itself in the wood. He was fingering the gouge when he heard a soft meow.
He swung around. An orange and white cat stood before the refrigerator, shifting restlessly from one front paw to the other.
“Hey there.” Crouching down, he scratched behind the cat’s ears and smiled as the cat closed its eyes in purring bliss. “Where is she? Hmmm? Do you know?”
From where he was parked down the street, Sal Lopez put in a call to Palmer.
“Our girl’s got company. Some dude in a G6. Late twenties, early thirties.”
“Is he in the house?”
“Affirmative. Want me to check him out?”
“Negative. Get out of there. He’s probably calling the cops.”
Lopez jotted down the G6’s license number. Then he threw the Suburban into gear and hit the gas.
27
In Jax’s experience, if you wanted to know what was really going on someplace, you talked to the secretary.
The secretary of Tulane’s psych department was a fleshy woman named Chantal LeBlanc. She wore a lime green and aqua striped shirt, inch-long false fingernails, and enormous gold hoop earrings that bounced against the ebony skin of her neck when she moved her head. At the sight of Jax’s press card, her eyes widened and a big smile spread across her face.