Let the Devil Out

by Bill Loehfelm

  Shadow was slow to recover. He managed to slide out of the chair and roll over onto his back. Maureen circled him. She crushed out his lost cigarette under her boot.

  “Fucking motherfucking pigs,” he spat, his stoner cool evaporated by fear and rage. A surprising amount of rage, Maureen thought, for someone so stoned. “That’s it, huh? Shadow going in the river, too. Fuck y’all. I hope them white boys kill all y’all.”

  Maureen strode toward Shadow, him crab walking on his back to get away from her, coughing, fighting for breath. She’d struck him a good one, knocked the wind right out of him. His eyes were tearing. Even if he could get to his feet, he had nowhere to run. Maureen knew it. Shadow knew it. She could see the knowledge, the fear, electrifying his eyes. She wanted to see just how much electricity she could generate.

  She reached into her leather jacket, pulled out the ASP. She flicked her wrist and the weapon extended with a metallic snap, the end quivering with the weight of the leaded end. She put her foot on Shadow’s chest, pushed him flat on his back on the floor. He was transfixed by the vibrating tip of the ASP, drool running onto his bottom lip.

  Maureen looked at Wilburn and Cordts. “Y’all do not have to be here for this. I got it from here.”

  “If he’s got something to say,” Cordts said, “I wanna be here to listen.”

  Maureen narrowed her eyes, trying to read the other cops. Cordts was both eager for and frightened by what might happen next, like a kid at the top of that first roller-coaster peak. Wilburn was clouded and distant. And hostile. What he wanted, and feared, was harder to read.

  She thought of the strange men she had taken down in the dark. She had to admit it. This might be better. She didn’t have to hide behind a hood. She tightened her grip on the ASP. She could feel Shadow breathing hard under her boot. His red eyes stayed wild with terror. Maureen realized she was sweating like crazy, beads of it trickling into her eyes. When had the bar gotten so warm? The ASP became as heavy as a sledgehammer in her hand.

  Looking down at Shadow shaking under her boot, Maureen tried conjuring the fresh memory of Preacher in his hospital bed, tried to hear the fear in his voice as he told the story of being shot. She tried to imagine the cries of the widows when the most horrible news of their lives came to their doorsteps. She tried to think of these things, and she failed.

  Instead Maureen could only feel her heart beating so hard it made her body shake. She could smell the black mud of the Mississippi. She saw again how Officer Quinn had put Bobby Scales’s head under his boot, pressing his face into the mud at the riverside to suffocate him. She breathed in the brackish waters of the Arthur Kill and recalled how a year ago she had scrambled and crawled through the muck and the cattails of the dark shoreline to get away from Sebastian as he marched toward her, fists clenched, destruction on his mind.

  Both men were to her in those moments nothing but monsters.

  Is a monster, Maureen wondered, what she came to this city to be?

  She lifted her boot. She collapsed the ASP, tucked it back into her jacket. “I told E to tell you that you would walk away from this meeting. That is how this will go.”

  Shadow raised up on his elbows. Maureen righted his chair, pointed to it. Never taking his eyes off her, Shadow climbed into the chair.

  “The Watchmen,” Maureen said. “Talk.”

  Like a pendulum, Shadow’s red eyes moved from the hidden ASP to Maureen’s face and back again. He straightened his vest. “What? Yeah, I made introductions. It wasn’t my idea. Ruiz and Quinn, they wanted Shadow doing it. Either that or they tell Big Mike I’m gonna hit him with the double cross when he makes his big move. Big Mike hear that kind of talk and he’s gonna hit Shadow with two in the chest, feel me? So I make the connect for the cops. What the fuck Shadow care what white boys do? They wanna play soldier, get y’all’s attention for once, that works for me.”

  “So you meet Edgar Cooley,” Maureen said. “At the daiquiri place.”

  “Right, right.”

  “But then there’s a second meeting,” Maureen said. “After Cooley left the picture, you met with Clayton Gage.”

  “If you say so,” Shadow said. “Fuck if I remember they names.”

  “I do say so. This second meeting, this was back at the daiquiri shop again?”

  Shadow shook his head. “This Gage didn’t want to do nothin’ out in the street. I got the feeling things didn’t work out so well for the first guy, know what I mean? Gage was more careful. Cooley and the other one who came around, the money man.” Shadow hung his head, snapping his fingers as his brain tried to resurrect the name.

  Maureen could see that, in spite of his circumstances, Shadow was starting to enjoy himself, almost even forgetting he was talking to a cop. She realized that his role in solving the puzzle fed his ego. She could see what drove him on the streets. Knowing things, moving the pieces around. Systems, relationships, conspiracy. Moving parts. He didn’t want to drive the race car; he wanted to build it and watch it run in circles around the track. And he wanted to be able to walk away when the car hit the wall and burst into flames, driver be damned. A man who could build a good race car could always find another driver. She’d have learned none of these things, she realized, if she’d left him picking his teeth off the barroom floor.

  “Heath,” Maureen said. “Caleb Heath is the name you’re looking for.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Cooley and Heath, they was into it”—he switched into his version of a white man’s voice—“being down, being gangsta, whatever the fuck. But Gage, he was business, and he was cautious.”

  For all the good it did him, Maureen thought. “So this second meeting, where was it?”

  “At Gage’s apartment,” Shadow said.

  “Clayton Gage had an apartment in the city?” she said.

  Holy shit, she thought. She was getting it done. Shadow was giving them one fucking lead after another. Wilburn and Cordts had caught her excitement. They rose from their barstools again. Cordts tapped his wrist. She had their attention, but she was running out of time.

  “I was there,” Shadow said. “It was nice. New. New paint. New shit. We had to go there late at night, when shit in the ’hood was quiet. Not the kind of place you can be bringing guns in and out of. Which was pretty much the point of me being there. Finding other places to stash the guns.” Shadow straightened up in his chair. He put his hand on his chest. “I gotta say, Officer. You scared me some there.”

  “The apartment,” Maureen said. “Where is it?”

  “Around the way,” Shadow said. “In them new places. The Harmony Oaks. In a building where no one was renting yet.”

  “The houses that Solomon Heath built,” Maureen said. “Gage worked out of an apartment he rented from Caleb Heath.”

  “If you say so,” Shadow said. “You got another cigarette?”

  “They’re around here somewhere,” Maureen said, her mind spinning. “I guess I should put the table back.”

  She righted the table, set the ashtray back on it. The mason jar holding the candle had smashed on the floor, spilling wax onto the wood. She walked to the bar and laid another five over the ten she had tucked under the ashtray. She hoped LaValle hadn’t heard too much of the commotion. Shadow brought his chair back to the table and sat. Maureen tossed him the pack of cigarettes and her lighter. Shadow lit up, set the pack and the lighter back on the table.

  He said, “So what now?”

  “Any chance you remember an apartment number?” Maureen asked.

  “It was months ago, and I didn’t go but that one time.” He sat up straighter. “But it’s easy to find. First floor, in one of the brick buildings right off Louisiana, one of the old ones they saved from the projects.” He laughed. “They got like a pool and shit there now. In the old Magnolia. Looks nice. I only seen it through the fence.”

  Maureen adjusted her ponytail. It was helpful information, sure, about the apartment, but her earlier excitement was waning. Clayton Gage ha
d been dead six weeks. The apartment had probably been cleaned out and rented by now. But Caleb Heath had bolted after Gage was killed. Maybe he hadn’t had time to clean up. He didn’t seem the type to do much of that to begin with. And Maureen doubted Caleb had told Solomon what he was doing with the apartments he was supposed to be supervising on his father’s behalf. It was worth a look. They might get lucky.

  Shadow stood up. “If there’s nothin’ else you need from me.”

  “I think that’ll do,” Maureen said. She tapped her own chest. “Sorry about that. Bruise’ll heal in a couple of days.”

  “Ain’t no thing. Shadow’s had worse. Believe that.”

  He straightened his down vest. Stretching his neck, he touched his cowrie-shell necklace with his fingertips. He seemed to be lingering, Maureen thought, in order to savor the fact that the cops were letting him go. “I have to admit, Shadow thought for a hot minute he wouldn’t walk out of here.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Maureen said. “I’m sure you’ve got business to attend to.”

  “Shadow always has the business to do.” He turned, sauntered to the door. He tipped an imaginary cap to Wilburn and Cordts. “Irie, gentlemen.”

  Wilburn stared him down, but Cordts was smirking. “We’ll see you soon, Shadow. Real soon. We’ll tell Big Mike you stopped by.”

  That last crack almost broke Shadow’s cool. Almost. He threw a glance over his shoulder as he slipped out the door.

  “Big Mike’ll fucking kill him,” Maureen said, “if he hears Shadow talked to us. About anything.”

  “Fuck that mope,” Wilburn said. “We’ll be better off, and it’ll be an easy solve for Homicide. Everybody wins.”

  “Just giving him something to think about,” Cordts said.

  “You’re the one about kicked his heart out his back,” Wilburn said, stepping forward. “Now he’s your pal.”

  “I was working him,” Maureen said. “Aggressively, but it was work. These are extreme circumstances. He’s not my pal.”

  Wilburn stormed outside, slamming the door behind him. Maureen could hear him shouting curses then calling for his partner.

  “I take it we’re done here, too?” Cordts said.

  “I gotta make a call,” Maureen said, “start moving on Shadow’s information. And I’ll let LaValle know he can finally go home. But, yeah, we’re done. Thank you, the both of you, for having my back. And for showing some flex.”

  “Watching you work,” Cordts said, “was interesting. Keep us posted on how it goes from here.” He tilted his head at the door. “Don’t worry about Wilburn. He could give a fuck how you treated Shadow. I think he’s just pissed you let the mope walk. Long day today, for all of us.”

  “I’m gonna make sure someone pays for it,” Maureen said.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed,” Cordts said, “we’re all chasing that same result. Including the two guys who helped you conduct your secret interview with a wanted man.” He duplicated Shadow’s hat-tipping gesture and walked out the door.

  Maureen took several deep breaths before calling Detillier. She poured another shot but didn’t drink it. Detillier was fully awake when he answered this time.

  “I have new information on Clayton Gage,” Maureen said. “The location of an apartment he used in the city until his death.”

  “Should I ask where you got this information?”

  “Through a CI of Preacher’s,” Maureen said. “It’s reliable. It makes sense. It’s an apartment that Caleb Heath provided the Watchmen through his father’s stock of properties. That it’s connected to Heath makes me think it’s legit. He also puts Caleb Heath in that apartment with the Watchmen. He gives us back what we lost with Quinn and Scales and Leary.”

  “Where’s the apartment?” Detillier asked. “You have an address?”

  “Not an exact one,” Maureen said. “It’s in Harmony Oaks, the CI said, in one of the two brick buildings. One of them is part of the rec center, so there’s only one building it can be.”

  “There are some logistics I have to work out,” Detillier said, “but I bet we can get in the apartment by morning.”

  “By morning? How can you wait that long?”

  “Listen to me, Maureen, very carefully,” Detillier said. “The Sovereign Citizens and people like them, they booby-trap their homes before they go out on their missions. I’ve seen it several times before. We have no idea what could be waiting for us there. Please trust me on this. Don’t go looking around there yourself.”

  “I believe you,” Maureen said. “It’s just, it’s our best lead.”

  “It is,” Detillier said. “And I’m taking it very seriously. I’m on it. I’ll roust a couple agents out of bed and send them to sit on the building overnight.”

  “I can do that for you,” Maureen said.

  “Y’all are shorthanded enough as it is,” Detillier said. “Believe me, I have the manpower I need after today.”

  “Don’t cut me out of this,” Maureen said. “This is my lead. I tracked this down. I want to be there and see what comes of my hard work.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of freezing you out,” Detillier said. “But I’ll take it from here. Keep your phone close. Trust me.”

  Maureen laughed out loud. “And what do I do until I hear from you?”

  “You keep doing your job,” Detillier said. “And you wait.” He hung up.

  Maureen slipped her phone into her pocket. She picked up her plastic cup of whiskey, looked down into her drink. She raised it halfway to her mouth and stopped. It came to her what the look on Wilburn’s face had meant, the tough-to-read frown he’d worn as she’d roughed up Shadow. She knew that look. What Wilburn saw when he looked at her was what she had seen when she’d looked at Quinn, when she’d seen him for what he really was.

  She knew it wouldn’t make a real difference to anyone, but she poured the shot of Jack down the sink anyway.

  33

  Maureen waited outside the Big Man for LaValle to lock up, then walked him to his car. He said nothing to her when she thanked him for his patience. When she offered him a business card, he wouldn’t take it from her. She stood a few long moments in the street after he’d driven away. One of his taillights was out. She’d stop by the bar one night and let him know. Before he got pulled over and ticketed.

  On her way back to the car, she pulled out her phone and called Atkinson.

  “Very strange,” Atkinson said. “I was about to call you.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In the East,” Atkinson said. “A domestic double. Father and son, it looks like. Just when you think you’ve seen it all.” Maureen heard the snick of her lighter as she lit a smoke. “We pulled a second print off the handle of Madison Leary’s razor.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “An idea, yes,” Atkinson said, “but we haven’t heard back on it yet. I may have to hit up Detillier for help, those FBI resources. Anyway, what’s on your mind?”

  “I may have something for you on the Watchmen murders.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Me and the others have been working CIs in the neighborhood,” Maureen said. “We’ve uncovered an apartment that Clayton Gage used in the weeks before he was killed. We know he did Watchmen business there. And we know Caleb Heath was there, too.”

  “An apartment where?”

  “Right here in Central City,” Maureen said. “In the Harmony Oaks development.”

  “Wow. Okay. That makes sense. You found Cooley’s body right across that empty lot from there. And it explains what Gage was doing uptown when he was killed. Could be where he was headed with Madison the night you pulled them over.”

  “I was thinking the same things,” Maureen said. She leaned against the hood of the cruiser.

  “So you’re there now?” Atkinson asked. “At the apartment?”

  “No,” Maureen said. “I’m on the street. I’m going back on patrol. I told Detillier about it.”

  “Does he thi
nk Leon Gage is in there?” Atkinson asked. “There’s a weird logic to it. A hide-in-plain-sight thing.”

  “I didn’t get that impression,” Maureen said. “Though Detillier told me he was dispatching agents to watch the building. We don’t know exactly which apartment it is, but we know which building. He’s getting a warrant and a team to search the place in the morning. And of course, they’ll pick him up if he tries to get there, or if he’s in there and tries to leave.”

  “Did you tell Detillier about Caleb Heath being at the apartment?”

  “I did not.”

  “Keep it that way,” Atkinson said. “As an extra precaution. I’m sure you asked him to let you in on the raid?”

  “I did. He said he’d keep me in the loop.”

  “Listen, I may need a favor from you,” Atkinson said. “As a professional courtesy, early tomorrow morning, Detillier should let me know that he’s found this apartment, since I have a murder victim with a history there. He should invite me over for a look around. If he doesn’t do that, I’m going to need you to let me know what’s happening so I can be there. I want a look at that apartment whether the FBI has their manners or not.”

  “You got it,” Maureen said. “I’ll keep you posted on everything.”

  “I have to ask,” Atkinson said. “How did you make this happen?”

  Maureen tried to suppress the pride she knew would flood her voice. “We got to Shadow.”

  “Really?” Atkinson said, astonished. “You have Shadow? You flipped Shadow?”

  “I had Shadow,” Maureen said. “I had to do some dealing to get the information. So he’s back on the streets. But he walked away thinking that I now have whatever Quinn and Ruiz had over him, so I don’t know if he’s flipped, but he might be useful to us in the future. At least until he finds out I’m full of shit.”