“You’re okay?”
“Yes. You talked me down. The important thing is to get the shipment out. Then regroup.”
“Don’t expect me to be gentle.”
“Does it look like I’ve just had a bubble bath? Rip it the fuck off.”
“Let me get a knife.” Dress shoes tapped across hardwood, returning from the kitchen with a pair of scissors instead. “I figured this might work better, considering your night.”
Once the tape had been cut away from his wrists, ankles and chest, his visitor left. Ray stood in front of the bathroom mirror, his body vibrating in a rage. His skin appeared to have melted in some spots and his remaining body hair was mangy, with lacerations and bruises on his face. He couldn’t go to the hospital. Best to take pain pills, clean up, and bandage the bad areas. After he retrieved the stolen client list Cozy found in the safe, he had to make sure that bitch suffered an excruciating death.
#
Walking on the side of the unlit road in the middle of nowhere reminded Cozy of the myth about the teenaged girl walking home from prom in a bloody dress, who is picked up by a stranger in a passing car. When the driver finally pulled up to the girl’s address, she had disappeared from his front seat. He then learns from the people living at the house that their daughter had been killed the year before hitchhiking from the prom. She felt chills shudder up and down her spine.
It took an hour of trudging along the side of the road towards Uptown before finding an open cab to take her to the hotel room. She changed into jeans and a T-shirt, grabbed her purse carrying the gun, and kissed the alligator pendant before headed toward the club. One last stop before this whole thing came to a head.
The finality of her mission loomed. With a Saints cap and fake Walgreens glasses, she hiked into the heart of the Quarter, weaving in and out of faceless pedestrians on Bourbon, as it was blocked off to traffic at night. The crowd-heavy street allowed for perfect cover until entering Molly’s Girls like any other dancer. She pulled her cap and glasses off and stopped at the bar. “Can I get a cup of water, Chris? I’m here to see Tabitha. She’s in the back?
He slid the water to her. “Yeah, she’s back there.”
Cozy walked into Tabby’s office and closed the door, falling against it with her back. “Thank God you’re here. Jesus, what a trip.”
Tabby was on her cell, but held up a finger to Cozy. “Just calm down. Breathe Ray… breathe. Yeah… That’s right… Okay.” She hung up and threw the phone down. “That was Ray. He’s lost it. He’s got his gun and he’s out looking for you because you tortured him. Cozy, you lied to me.”
“I gave you deniability. Where is he now?”
“He wouldn’t say, but he was just on the phone calming down Senator Folsom, who you also tortured. Cozy, I don’t think you’re going to make it out of this alive.” Her hands wiped down each side of her face, waiting for a response.
“If not, so be it. But, they’re going to get a hell of a fight.” She gripped her purse.
“Well, I expect Ray to show up here at some point.” Tabby stared at her.
“I better not be here when he does.”
“Want to tell me about Folsom?”
“Likes to be dominated. Yet doesn’t like real pain.”
“Is that all?” Tabby perked up straight, waiting in silence. Cozy scooted forward, holding back the tears. She reached out her hands and Tabby hesitated in reciprocation, but caved. “Talk to me.”
“You ever wonder why some of your dancers don’t come back from these parties?”
Tabby pulled her hands back and turned away. “Ray says they quit.”
“He sells them, Tabby. They get sold and shipped to Russia, Brussels, fucking Prague. Some stay right here in the United States. Can you believe that? In our own country. That senator told me everything, and believe me, Dick Cheney couldn’t have got more out of him. Haley was going to be sold before they murdered her. Doesn’t that piss you off?”
“Sold? No, Ray would never sell his girls. Would he? Oh, God.”
“It’s true.”
“True or not, these are very dangerous people. They will kill you if they don’t already have a bounty on your head.”
“I don’t have a lot of time, then.”
“I had to tell the cops about the party, but I also had to call them to shut it down. The police are probably at the mansion right now, but these guys prepare for these situations with a clean -up crew. They won’t find anything, so my guess is those detectives are coming right back here.”
“I’m going to the Apex dock to get the evidence I need to shut this down. The party was tonight, so I’m guessing the girls will be moved tonight. Your career is done here, Tabby. I love you.”
“I can’t go with you, Cozy. This is your mission, however tragic the ending.”
“Tragic for who?” Cozy hopped to her feet. “We can be together after all of this, if you just give in to it.”
“It’s not meant to be, honey.” Tabby stood and rounded the desk.
Cozy accepted her advance, putting her face in Tabby’s neck, squeezing tight. After a moment of listening to Billy Idol’s Mony Mony through the thin walls, Tabby cupped Cozy’s cheeks and kissed her tenderly.
“If you end this tonight, if you get the vengeance you want for your sister and make it back to me, then yes, I’ll run away with you. But, you have to get out of here. Now.”
“Walk me out?”
“Sure.”
With their fingers entwined, Tabby led her into the hallway, but before entering the main room, she stopped short and clenched Cozy’s hand. “Ray’s here.”
At the entrance, Ray’s eyes scanned the crowd until falling on Cozy. He reached behind his back and came back with a gun and barreled toward her, needing to dodge other patrons and dancers who hadn’t noticed anything wrong yet.
“Oh, shit. What do I do?”
“Damn, he was on his way here the whole time.”
“He’s probably upset with me,” Cozy said with a nervous laugh. “I’ll leave out the back.”
“He’ll chase you down. The bathroom has a window,” Tabby offered. “He’ll think he has you trapped while you escape. Hurry, before he makes it back here.”
Cozy was well on her way toward the bathroom when a shot echoed and splinters of wood exploded in front of her. Screams from the main room overpowered the music as her shoulder slammed against the bathroom door, opening it just enough to squeeze through, not realizing Tabby had been behind her the whole way. Cozy fell onto her butt near the sink as Tabby barricaded the door with her entire body.
“Lock it.” Cozy whispered.
“There are no locks. Go! The window.” Tabby propped her back flush against the door until her butt hit the tiled floor, using her hands and feet for leverage. Bullets penetrated the door above Tabby’s head.
Cozy climbed onto the toilet of the middle stall and opened the tiny window wide, revealing a well-lit courtyard shared by the adjoining building. “What’s back there?”
“There’s an alley that will lead you to Royal. Go.”
“What about you? I’d say you’re done here after this.”
“I’ll be fine. Get out of here.” Her body jolted forward as something akin to a battering ram thumped against the door.
Cozy gave her one last smile as the door almost jumped off its hinges. Ray got his foot in the bathroom and used his leverage to push Tabby across the floor. When Cozy saw the gun, she wasted no time sticking her arms and head out of the window, pulling her body out and landing hands-first in a garden. More shots followed and she prayed his aim was at her and not Tabby. She cringed when she realized she forgot the purse with the gun in the office.
Her feet uprooted hunks of a flowerbed while escaping, scurrying through the dark alley to the wrought iron gate and onto Royal Street where she steadied her pace to match the crowd. If anything happened to Tabby, Ray would come to sorely wish she had killed him.
Chapter 37
<
br /> The LeCoure Mansion had been abandoned. No cars were in the lot or around back where staff usually parked. George Singer, the overweight, bearded plantation manager, met us on the front steps as we arrived, looking around perplexed. After a short introduction, he opened the huge double doors wide.
He flipped on a switch that lit up every chandelier in sight. “I thought they’d be here all night. This place is clean as a whistle. Maybe they canceled it?”
“Who should be here?” Tara asked.
He pulled a piece of paper from a large manila envelope. “Ryan Diamond. He rented the place for a retirement party. Paid with cash.”
I moseyed near the adjoining rooms. “No credit card on file for a damage deposit?”
“All cash. Came in a fancy briefcase and all.”
“That didn’t signal any red flags?”
“Unusual, yes, but what method of payment is illegal?”
I turned away from him. “So, no paper trail.”
“Only this form and copy of the receipt I gave him, which I can assume by the looks on your faces probably has false information. He showed me a driver’s license with his picture on it. Gave me his business card.” George handed it to me.
“You didn’t verify this business address?”
“These weren’t college kids on Spring Break. We host these kinds of parties all the time. Usually we offer our staff to serve drinks and hors d'oeuvres, but they paid extra to clear the house tonight. Normally, we’d never do that, but he…”
“He let you have a taste,” Tara finished.
George’s puffy cheeks flushed under his impeccably groomed beard. “Thirty thousand for the night. Four grand in my pocket. Said he was happy to pay extra for the privacy. Too much to turn down, detective.”
“Would you recognize him?”
“Sure. Older man, maybe upper sixties or a good-looking seventy. He was a little over six feet, short gray hair, very expensive suit. And thin lips. I remember lips because I look at them while people talk. I’m slowly going deaf.” He pointed at his ears.
“Sorry to hear that… To know that,” I said.
“He was driven here in a limo. It was supposed to be a retirement party with professional types.”
“Any video cameras around the property?” Tara asked.
“Sorry. The guy requested they be shut off. Said some big-shot celebrity was coming to perform and didn’t want to be recorded.”
“Seriously?” I asked as my teenage daughter would.
“You should hear what some of these celebrities want. One time John Goodman had a party here and…”
“Mind if we look around on our own?”
“Knock yourselves out. I’d like to see if anything was stolen myself.”
#
As expected, our search of the mansion resulted with a goose egg. We watched from my car as George’s tail lights floated down the Oak lined entrance and disappeared onto River Road. Tara fidgeted in the passenger seat as I stared into the ghostly darkness, disappointed having just missed the party.
“Cozy could be in the Mississippi by now,” I said.
“Don’t think like that. It seems they knew we were coming. They cleared that place out pretty fast.”
“Think Tabitha’s call warned them? Like that was an abort number? She was dressed as if she’d be attending some kind of gala.”
“That makes the most sense,” Tara agreed.
“Tabitha and Captain Dobson were the only ones who knew where we were going.”
Tara popped a stick of gum in her mouth. “Wheelhouse didn’t have to tell us where Cozy was in the first place.”
“Knowing she could warn them in time.”
“Or Captain Dobson… Or anyone Dobson might’ve told. That’s just great. Is it too far-fetched to think those Feds are working both sides of the fence?”
“I never thought of that.” We stared at each other under the glow of the dashboard. I spoke after a moment of silence. “C’mon, let’s get back to Molly’s and question Ms. Wheelhouse.”
Just before putting my car in drive, Tara’s cell rang. “Gray.” She listened for a moment. “What? No. What? We’re on our way.”
“Where to?”
“Your in-law’s house.”
My eyes grew wide. “Why?”
“There’s been a fire. Your in-laws’ house burned down.”
#
We arrived to a smoking, charred shell of a house. Two fire trucks were parked in front, but their hoses had been put away and cops had the block cornered off. I advanced as far as the firefighters would let me with Tara at my side.
“I’m Detective Peyroux. Where’s my wife? My daughter?”
The fire captain answered, “Calm down, detective. So far, we haven’t found anyone inside the house. It appears to have been empty.”
“I looked around the crowd for Heather. “Empty – you’re sure?”
“We checked thoroughly.
I looked at the cops that had conjugated while dialing Heather’s cell. “I need to find out where my family is.” My eyes went from the driveway to the street and I didn’t see Heather’s car. Her cell phone continued to ring.
Tara waited in anticipation. “Maybe they went out to dinner or a movie. The good news is no one is in there.”
“Or they were taken.” I took a deep breath of burnt wood. “She’s not answering.”
The responding officer put his hand on my shoulder. “Let the fire chief do his job here and we’ll let you know if we find anything at all.”
I nodded. “Where’s the security detail that was watching the house?”
“Don’t know of any detail.”
My cell rang and I looked at the display. “It’s Chance,” I said to Tara.
“Answer it.”
I slid my finger across the screen. “Chance.”
“Where are you?” He sounded frantic.
“Believe it or not, I’m standing in front of my in-laws’ house that was burned to a crisp and everyone is missing, including the cops assigned to guard it.”
“I just heard about the fire. They’re with me. Everyone… Alicia, Heather, and her parents.”
“Why are they all with you?”
“I got nervous with Harry and you going to Alexander. I didn’t know something was going to happen specifically, but like I told you, I know the type of people you’re investigating.”
“Scumbags.”
“Just breathe easy. Everyone’s safe.”
“Jesus, Chance. As soon as my heart defibrillates, I’ll be right over.”
#
Our embrace lasted an eternity, Heather and Alicia cried in my arms as my in-laws sat upset, albeit impressed with the Mayor’s palatial house. Chance’s assistant offered everyone tea as we sat around the dinner table. He had brought pizza at Chance’s request and stayed to help. The same detail that had been positioned outside of my in-laws’ was staked out in front the entrance and on the street.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” I said to the room.
My daughter spoke up, “Why are they trying to kill us, Daddy?”
I grabbed Alicia’s hand. “Because I’m trying to send some very bad people to jail.”
“Then stop. Let someone else do it.” Tears ran down from her searching eyes.
“Listen to your daughter,” Heather’s father demanded. “You’re going to get us all killed.”
My shoulders collapsed. “Then, we should stop.”
“My people in Shreveport are fine. I’ll support any decision you make, Lucas.” Tara lifted her glass of tea at me.
Chance walked in front of us, used to having control. “Lucas, you know my opinion. But, my home is open to Heather, Alicia, your parents and with all the protection it has to offer. I can have round the clock staff and security.”
“That’s great, Chance, but they have to leave the house sometime.” My eyes found Heather, however our connection was disturbed when my cell rang. I answered. “Peyrou
x.”
“Lucas, is Tara with you?”
“Yeah, did something happen with Corondelet?”
“Jesus, I hate when you do that.” My captain spoke more seriously, “Yes, I need you and Tara over at Molly’s Girls.”
“What’s going on?”
“I got a call from the station. Shots fired. Witnesses say Corondelet shot up the place. Uniforms are there trying to sort it out, but apparently Cozy Robicheaux was there, but bolted and Corondelet’s on the lamb.”
“We’re on our way.”
“Lucas, wait.”
“Yeah?”
“This may be my last official order to you. I’m resigning.”
“Wait – why?”
“Just know it’s been a pleasure working with you. And don’t blame yourself. I was on board the whole time.”
“They got to you.”
“We’ll talk soon.” She ended the call and I found Heather’s curious face. “Shots fired at Molly’s Girls. Corondelet’s gone ballistic. He was trying to kill Cozy.”
Her face softened and she nodded, standing behind Alicia with her arms around our daughter. Heather’s face nestled near her ear. “Baby, there’s a young girl out there, just a little bit older than you and she’s in trouble. Your Daddy has to find her before these men hurt her.”
“Will you find her tonight?” Alicia asked.
“There’s a good chance.”
Alicia and I nestled into a hug, something I had been missing for a very long time. Her grip on me tightened as she spoke, “Go find her, Dad. We can stay here one more day.”
#
Two squad cars and an ambulance had taken position in front of Molly’s Girls. The entire block was quarantined, however people were able to watch from their hotel balconies, some drunk and dangling beads for the boys in blue.
I approached the first cop just outside the door. “What happened?”
“According to witnesses, the owner, Raymond Corondelet, came into the main room firing his gun. Everyone scattered and ran out. One witness says he walked towards the back offices before shooting. One of the bouncers said he might have been shooting at an ex-dancer named Keri.”
“Any casualties?” Tara asked.
“No casualties, however two people were injured while fleeing and the manager, Tabitha Wheelhouse, has a concussion. Officer Harvin is trying to get her in the ambulance.” His thumb jutted over his shoulder.
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