Quinn turned to him. “You shut the fuck up.”
“Help me,” Scales implored, panic raising the register of his voice. “Please. I don’t wanna die. I don’t.”
I don’t wanna die. Was that what Mike-Mike said, Maureen thought, before you choked the life out of him? Before you tricked his friends into setting him on fire? Scales kept begging. Maureen wanted to jam her fingers in her ears and her foot down Scales’s throat. The more pathetic he sounded, the angrier Maureen got.
“Shut up, Scales,” she demanded. “Shut your fucking mouth or I’ll fill it with mud myself.”
But Scales wouldn’t be quiet. He was crying now, wailing wordlessly. Sound traveled far along the river. Maureen worried someone would hear. People worked in salvage and shipyards. It wouldn’t be long before a tug or a tanker cruised by. What was happening wouldn’t be tough to figure out, two sweaty, furtive cops and a prisoner in orange, facedown in the mud. A part of her wanted to turn her back on the scene, to let Quinn finish what he’d started long before she’d even moved to New Orleans, and to let him live with the consequences.
But then she remembered that the Watchmen Brigade gunmen had gotten her address from somewhere, from someone.
Quinn was swearing at Scales to be quiet as he struggled to free his feet from the mud. He grimaced in pain, one hand snapping to his back as if he’d pulled something. Instead of coming closer to the shore, though, Quinn stepped in Scales’s direction, his feet sinking again in the mud. He lifted one foot, brought it down on the side of Scales’s face, grinding the toe box of his boot into Scales’s temple, driving his face down into the mud.
“Fucking shut it, you piece of shit,” Quinn yelled. “I fucking told you.”
Scales couldn’t cry out now, his nose and most of his mouth pressed into the mud. Maureen could hear him gagging and spitting.
Over Quinn’s shoulder, out in the river, a fish jumped. Pelicans reeled in the sky over the silent dredging ship. Upstream and down the river was empty of traffic. It wouldn’t last. Maureen could see the swirling currents running against and into one another on the surface of the water. She needed to end this. For a long moment, she fought against the need.
“Quinn!” Maureen yelled. Her instinct was to rush him, but she stayed where she was. “Quinn, stop it!” Her hand went to her weapon. “Please.”
Quinn lifted his foot. Scales drew one knee toward his chest. He was able to roll his face out of the mud, his weight forward on his forehead. His body heaved. He choked and spat, his nose full of mud. Maureen realized she felt nothing for him. She didn’t care if he lived or died.
Quinn settled his foot back onto the mud, taking a wide stance to steady himself and distribute his weight. He’d seen her hand go for her weapon. He showed no interest in his own, made no move. Maureen was relieved. With the mud and the sweat on his hands, he hadn’t a chance of beating her on the draw. She moved her hand away from her gun.
“Seriously?” he asked, almost smiling. “You think you could?”
“Easy,” Maureen said. “You’re a sitting duck stuck there in the mud.”
“Oh, I know you’ve got a good eye,” Quinn said. “I know you can hit the target. But could you pull the trigger? On a fellow cop?”
“If you made me.”
“Over this piece of shit?”
“How about over what happened to me this morning?” Maureen said. She pulled her weapon from the holster, held it against her thigh with both hands. “You gave them my address, didn’t you? Why would you do that, Quinn?”
He seemed genuinely perplexed, seemed to be thinking. He shook his head. “I didn’t know they were gonna shoot at you. I swear to fucking God. I gave your address to Caleb. You took the money from the party. He told me you were on the team. He said he had more for you, that he had something he wanted to discuss with you. I was trying to help you, Cogs. All I’ve tried to do since you pulled that goddamn truck over is help you, and you won’t fucking take it.”
“Look at where it’s got us,” Maureen said. “Look at where we are. You’re trying to murder someone, in broad daylight, to protect someone who tried to have me killed.”
“You talk fucking endlessly, this romantic bullshit about how you love it here. Well, lemme ask you this. Who’s worth more to this city? Scales or the Heath family? You know, the people who’ve been here for generations, who build shit, useful shit. People who stayed after the storm, who stayed during the storm, who fed and watered the police department you now belong to while this fucking baboon and his fucktard cronies took potshots at us from the project rooftops? The Heaths rebuilt half of this fucking city after the storm. They give to every fucking charity in the city. What’s this murdering, cop-hating gangsta slab of shit here in the mud worth? Who’s better for New Orleans? The builders or the asshole who only adds to the body count? Who’s worth protecting?
“Use your fucking head, Coughlin. We have the power to make the trouble we’re gonna be in go away. All we gotta do is put a guy who killed an old man and a twelve-year-old in the river. And the people we’re protecting by doing that are worth more than him and me and you combined.” He raised his shoulders, his hands spread out in front of him. “Christ. How is this hard for you? I don’t understand.”
“You’re delusional,” Maureen said. “No matter what good Solomon Heath does, his son is no better, no different than Scales. He bankrolls hate groups and militias. Armed gangs. For fun. To be a big shot. He gives people money that they use to buy guns that they’re gonna use to kill cops. Think what he coulda done with his name and his money, and he’s a fucking terrorist instead. He chose it. He’s no better than some asshole in a desert cave. How is this hard for you?”
“There’s no proof of any of that shit about Heath,” Quinn said. “Nobody’s got any proof of Caleb putting up that money.”
“The proof is lying right there in the mud,” Maureen said. “Isn’t that why the three of us are out here in the fucking first place?”
“So he spits out some white guy’s name he saw on the side of a building because your dyke rabbi is putting the screws to him. You wanna blame somebody for us being out here standing in the river, blame Atkinson. Me? I don’t care what he said under pressure, I know what he’s done, to that kid, to that old man, to you. I’m taking out the trash. Should’ve been done a long time ago.”
“Why haven’t you done it already?” Maureen asked. “You could’ve done what you’re doing today at any time in the past few weeks, ever since you and Ruiz busted Shadow, when there was a lot less attention, and you didn’t do anything. You criticize Atkinson. You’ve been putting the screws to Marques, scaring him into keeping his mouth shut. Now you decide to take out the trash? Come on.”
“We woulda never hurt that kid,” Quinn said. “Or let anyone hurt him. You believe that, right? What do you think I am?”
“What about me?” Maureen asked. “What about the innocent people who live on my block? Getting rid of Scales only lets things like that continue.”
“What getting rid of Scales allows to continue,” Quinn said, “is the work the Heaths do for the city.”
“And the money they pay you, too,” Maureen said. “That keeps coming. Stop with the benevolent-benefactor shit. You’re gonna spend your life in jail for an extra few grand a year? You think Caleb is gonna protect you if you go down for this? You think he’ll put up money for you? Pull strings? Pay your child support? Protect your boy from the bullies? His daddy is hip-deep in city contracts. What makes you think Solomon will let Caleb anywhere near you? What he’ll do is send some crazy freak from the Watchmen after you for five hundred bucks and a fistful of pills. You think he’ll return the favor you’re doing him now? He’ll cut you loose faster than he did Scales. He might cut your throat for this favor you’re doing him.”
“We’ve known each other over half our lives,” Quinn said. “I’ll talk to Caleb. He’ll listen to me. I can get him to rethink what he’s doing, if it’s like you said, which I doubt
. Even if it is, he didn’t mean any harm. He’s no terrorist, he’s a rich kid that didn’t know any better. They’re part of the city. Always have been. They like to go slumming, these Uptown kids. Cheap drugs, bossing around black people, white-trash pussy. Caleb’s always been that way. Makes him feel tough.”
Maureen saw over Quinn’s shoulder that, upriver, the awesome prow of a container ship had turned the bend in the river.
“He’s not an Uptown kid drinking at F and M’s anymore,” Maureen said. “He’s a grown man. You think it gets better from here? It won’t work like this. I can’t let this go. Atkinson needs Scales. She’ll come looking for him, and she’s not Ronnie Drayton.”
“She’ll fucking thank me,” Quinn said, “for saving her the effort.”
She could argue that the feds wanted Scales, Maureen thought, but she knew that strategy would backfire, only further persuading Quinn to kill Scales.
“And I know what you’re gonna say next,” Quinn said. “Fuck the feds.”
Quinn rocked in place, losing his balance for a moment as one foot sank a few inches farther down in the mud. Scales had rolled onto his back again, and was trying to blink the mud from his eyes.
Maureen saw that the ship coming downriver had to be the size of a city block. Quinn hadn’t noticed it. Or maybe, Maureen thought, he knew better than to be afraid.
“Besides,” Quinn said, “if anyone really needs Scales, the current’ll spit him back up in a day or so.” He shrugged. “Or it won’t. I don’t much give a fuck. Now help me get him out there.”
“Think,” Maureen said. “Whether he surfaces or vanishes, the trail’s gonna lead straight back to you. You’re the one who checked him outta jail. Atkinson already knows it was you. She told me herself.” She knew she should be watching Quinn, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the approaching vessel. It seemed to be running so close to shore. An optical illusion, she told herself, caused by the curving riverbank. “There are witnesses at the sheriff’s department, there are cameras everywhere.”
“This is the same sheriff’s department,” Quinn said, “that dumped your crazy-eyed purse snatcher in the emergency room and went out for tacos, and then lied to you up and down about it. They’re a bunch of lazy fucking amateurs. You think I can’t cover a trail? That I haven’t before? I’m pretty good at this shit.”
“You think any deputies you buy or bully will hold up,” Maureen said, “when Atkinson comes calling? Or the FBI?”
“All they have to do is play dumb. They’re good at that.” He kicked at Scales. “Help me here. Help me make this look like an escape. Prisoners slip out of the Tents with alarming frequency. Scales is another one lost. A minute or two facedown in the mud under my boot and he’s finished. We pop the cuffs off, shove him out into the current, and let the mighty Mississippi do the rest. He vanishes, and nobody knows but us.
“If there’s nothing left to do but bust a couple of cops for Scales’s disappearance, Atkinson will back off, especially if one of those cops is you. She’s smart. Don’t let her fool you. She knows the game. She knows Scales isn’t worth screwing over good people, like you, like the Heaths.”
He paused, letting her think it over. The ship looked to be running too close to their side of the river, Maureen worried. Surely there was a reason for that, she thought, something about currents and river depth and navigation and whatever.
“Bring him in to shore,” Maureen said. “Away from the water. Or leave him there, and you come in. Come closer. We’ll talk about it some more.”
Quinn looked over his shoulder, seeing the ship. “Is that what you’re staring at? Forget it. Nice try. Good acting. You do look terrified. But watch when it passes, that ship won’t be anywhere near us. Before she got knocked up, my ex and I brought her dog here once a week. I’ve seen this before. The river plays tricks.”
She wanted to tell him it wasn’t the giant ship that made her nervous, or even how close it ran to their bank. What unnerved her was the huge wall of water foaming at the peak of the ship’s prow, and where that water would go as the ship passed their location and headed downriver.
“Before I come in,” Quinn said, “you need to help me get him in the water. You have to prove you’re on my side. Otherwise, I’m just surrendering.”
Maureen said nothing. She didn’t move.
“C’mon, Coughlin. Think of the bad shit Scales did, and the bad shit now he’ll never get to do. Think of the good shit we get to keep doing. We’re protecting ourselves here, and Rue, and Preacher. There’s a hundred other routes for the FBI to take to the Citizens. Caleb will owe us huge. He’ll shut down the Watchmen’s New Orleans operation. Think about it, Maureen. Scales dies. Everybody wins. You can’t deny it.” His eyes got wide. “Okay, what about this? I can turn Caleb against them, right? I can flip him for us. I know I can. Wouldn’t even be hard. That would be huge, us handing the feds a witness against the Sovereign Citizens like Caleb Heath. What he cares about is being the big shot, it don’t matter to him who he gets to play it in front of. He can play at being an FBI secret agent. He’ll love it. We’ll get promoted. You could walk onto the task force at the Sixth or any other district. Preacher’ll be fucking thrilled.”
Maureen wanted to tell Quinn he was delusional about their futures, and about his friend Caleb Heath, but she’d be telling Quinn things he’d known and chosen to ignore long before she’d come around. She toed the mud, testing it, staring at Quinn, thinking about where she stood. From what she could tell, and she was guessing, she was at a safe-enough distance from the water. Quinn, on the other hand, stood at the edge.
“Me and you,” Quinn said, “we could make a deal. We could make this work.”
The huge black hull of the ship, a rushing thundercloud, seemed so close as it swept past them, sending fat, rising swells of gray water like bull elephants rolling toward the shore. Maureen marveled at how quiet it was, something of that size and speed going by. She imagined the giant propellers churning under the river’s surface. She felt miniaturized. She took a quick step in Quinn’s direction, her foot sinking into the mud. He’d been right about the ship. It was farther out on the river than it had appeared. Maybe she could reach him before the water did.
She looked at Quinn, who frowned back at her. He could feel it coming. Maybe, if she could free herself from the mud, she could pull him out of the water. Scales was screaming. He might be beyond saving.
The big swells crashed ashore hard and took everything out of her hands.
Quinn barked out a yelp as a wave slammed into his back, pitching him forward. Scales disappeared under the water without a sound, swallowed. Quinn’s knees buckled in the undertow as his legs were sucked deeper into the mud. Knee-deep. Hip-deep. The deeper he sank, the faster he sank. He bent backward then forward in the rushing water, flopping about in the push and pull of the river like a stuffed toy in the jaws of a playful dog. His arms flailed. He had for some reason that Maureen couldn’t fathom pulled his gun. He wouldn’t let go of it. His hand was black. Mud and dark water ran down his arm. Another wave washed over his head and he went under, vanishing from Maureen’s sight.
With the river curling and seething around her ankles, the swirling water black with mud, Maureen fell back onto the stones, her foot popping free, bootless. She scrambled back to her feet and retreated. The waves kept coming, each one bigger and louder than the last, driving Maureen stumbling farther back up the rocky beach. She tumbled over backward again, falling on her ass, her gun bruising her tailbone. As she fought for breath, watching the river, the swells subsided. The river settled a few long moments later, the last wave washing over the mud as quiet as a sigh.
Every trace of Quinn and Scales was gone from the riverfront, as if they had never been there. She couldn’t find her boot, couldn’t even locate the hole in the mud where she had lost it. Maureen got to her feet, hobbling across the stones.
She climbed out onto the dirt embankment that surrounded the leaning willow
. She stepped up onto the exposed roots, and clutching a crooked branch, inched out over the water, searching the river for any sign of Quinn. She knew Scales was lost. Deep inside, she hoped she wouldn’t find Quinn, either, that she wouldn’t see him thrash to the surface a hundred feet from shore, calling for her help. She lacked the nerve to challenge the river on his behalf.
The river showed her nothing.
Atkinson came crashing out of the woods, two sweating cops in blue on her heels, their weapons drawn. She looked around, panting. “What the fuck, Coughlin?”
“They were here,” Maureen said, “and then they were gone.” She spoke standing on the exposed roots of the willow, as if the backdrop of the river added credence to her story. She was already thinking of all the things she could have said and done differently in the last few minutes.
“A giant ship washed them away. You can still see it. I couldn’t get to them. There was nothing I could do.”
Atkinson didn’t respond. She called for backup, including calls to the Coast Guard and the state police for search and rescue. She named it a rescue mission, but everyone on both ends of the call knew the truth. It would be a recovery mission before sundown. Maureen knew it, too.
Her calls made, Atkinson didn’t speak or reach out to Maureen to help her back to shore, as Maureen had suspected she might. Instead, she stared at Maureen, her radio clutched at her side, her blond curls blowing in the breeze, her eyes hidden behind dark shades. Maureen eventually had to look away from her. She watched from her perch under the willow as more cops appeared out of the woods. They wandered aimlessly, uselessly, along the rocky shoreline, shading their eyes in the cloudy haze as they looked out over the river for signs of life, whispering to one another.
Maureen knew, she knew, that her fellow officers understood her decision to stay on shore after the waves had died. They’d have gone into the river after Quinn, she knew, like she would have, if there existed any chance of bringing him back out alive, but they knew, like she did, the powerful river currents would have sucked them underwater. The Mississippi would have swallowed them, too, one after the other, like marshmallows tossed to the alligators at the zoo. No one on that rocky beach thought her a coward. Maureen knew that.
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