by Lisa Regan
“Oh. Arnold Acrobat told me. That little dude with the bun. You know…the one who calls everybody ‘mega-babe.’”
Skip hadn’t had that pleasure, but she was fairly sure she knew who Dawn meant. “Hangs with the circus punks?” Gutter punks who practiced circus routines in Washington Square Park.
“That’s the one.”
“He’s a neighborhood guy, right? Not a gutter punk?”
“Oh, yeah. Dickie did a little business with him sometimes.” A little illegal business, Skip figured, but who really cared? She did a certain amount of illegal business herself—or Jimmy Dee did and shared with her.
“He was all freaked out,” Dawn continued. “He dropped by and pounded until I came out. He said he’d seen Dickie lying in the street. And he was sorry to have to tell me, but Dickie was a gone pecan.” Her eyes flashed outrage. “You believe that? That was how he told me.”
Skip just shook her head in sympathy. Arnold had never struck her as Mr. Sensitive, but he was probably loaded on his own wares. “He took you there?”
“No, he wouldn’t do it. He said he was too freaked out to go back. He just told me where he was.”
Poor Dawn. She’d had to “discover” the body herself.
“You can get him picked up, right? He can’t just lie there!”
“Oh. Yeah, I’ll try. I’ll call it in right away.” It was so weird to be saying that. In normal times, she’d have called it in from the scene and waited there with Dawn, until district officers arrived; and then homicide and the coroner. But she hadn’t bothered because she knew she wasn’t going to get any action. Dickie was just one of dozens, maybe hundreds of dead people lying in the streets, not to mention the many more victims in houses and nursing homes, the unlucky people in places they couldn’t escape from.
There was a plan in place—a temporary morgue in St. Gabriel—but Dickie would have to wait his turn to be collected.
She called it in now, with Dawn listening, so the wife in her could at least have that satisfaction.
“Maybe he was robbed,” Dawn said.
Skip produced the wallet. “Oh, I almost forgot. I found this on him. Did he take any money with him?”
Dawn took the wallet and opened it. “We only had fifteen dollars left—with no ATMs working. I gave him five dollars just in case.” She pulled out a sopping, five-dollar bill. “It’s still here.” Under the circumstances, chain of evidence be damned—Skip was glad she’d rescued a third of the Horvaths’ minuscule fortune.
“Well, it wasn’t robbery. Any idea who’d do this to him?”
Dawn just shook her head. And Skip found herself remembering the weird conversation she’d had with Dickie—the one in which he’d offered to sell her information. A creepy-crawliness wriggled up her spine. She’d felt the same thing at Trent’s.
“Can I call someone to come stay with you?” Exactly how she was going to do that she wasn’t sure.
But Dawn shook her head. “Everyone we know here evacuated.”
“Listen, you’ve got to get out of here. I can get you on one of the buses.”
She shook her hear violently. “I couldn’t leave Dickie.”
Skip left to get Ollie to babysit Dawn. She was going to owe her big-time, but it had to be done.
She had expected something along the lines of “Are you kidding me?” followed by a lengthy negotiation. But Ollie just said, “Sure,” and stood to go next door.
~~~
The rumor about cops as executioners was really bothering Skip. She didn’t like that Dickie had claimed to know all about it, had offered to sell the information, and had ended up dead. Who knew who he’d shot off his mouth to?
If Ollie was her neighborhood rock, she also had a professional one—Adam Abasolo, her sometime partner, and one of two other cops who had her complete trust. The other was Cappello. If anything unkosher was going on, these two wouldn’t be involved.
She headed to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, where a lot of the action had shifted in the last few days, with a quick stop off to change clothes. She’d developed a habit of wearing plain clothes when working in her own neighborhood, and at least a uniform shirt, no matter how grubby and wrinkled—would help identify her at the Convention Center and the Superdome. In crowds, people had to be able to see she was a cop. But, Lord, it was hot for that!
She had her back to the street, her key in the door leading to her courtyard, when she heard some kind of small noise behind her. Without thinking, she spun around, and a fist landed on her jaw. A big, meaty one, judging from the way it felt. She was reeling, trying not to fall, when she heard someone shouting.
“Hey, stop that! Goddammit, leave her alone.” She heard someone running toward her as her knees buckled, and she broke her fall with her hands, so that she slid slowly down the door, back still more or less to the street.
Then she heard her assailant running and her rescuer chasing him. It was definitely a “him.” She hadn’t noticed much else except a ball cap and shades, but he was bigger than Skip, and she stood six feet tall.
Quickly, she scrambled up, turned the key, and tumbled into the courtyard.
She shot the deadbolt and then sat down at Jimmy Dee’s glass-topped café table, trying to decide whether anything was broken.
She was still a few moments, just breathing, waiting for the pain to subside. It could have been anyone, she thought. A mugger, maybe…who knows?
She knew in her heart it wasn’t any mugger—she’d been targeted.
This week, no one was going to miss her if she took a few minutes to try to hide the damage, but she called Cappello anyhow. “Anything urgent? I’m kind of delayed over here.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing bad. Anything I should know?”
Cappello sighed. “Oh, there’s always something. People are shooting at rescue choppers. You believe that?”
Skip considered. “Oh, sure. And they’re taking bodies out on a barge.”
Cappello laughed. “Yeah, you right. I don’t have any firsthand reports. I do believe the takeaway of the week might be don’t believe it if you didn’t see it with your own two orbs.”
“You’re the only person I know who can get ‘yeah, you right’ and ‘orbs’ in the same sentence.”
“Nah. A.A. could do it. He’s the one who taught me ‘orbs.’” She meant Abasolo, who was detailed to the Sixth District these days.
“God, I miss him.”
“Well, he’s working the Superdome. Bet you could find him there—and they can use everyone they can get over there.”
“Oh, yeah. Roving gangs of thugs.” Another rumor.
“Girl got killed in the bathroom. Somebody slashed her throat. Or was that the convention center?”
Okay, then. She had her orders, such as they were. She went into her own bathroom to find some makeup. A cop with a big, black bruise on her face just didn’t inspire confidence.
A quick cover-up and two Advils later, she was out the door.
She found Abasolo trying to talk to some guy from FEMA who’d come to pick up bodies. “What? You’re telling me good news is…fake news? I’m not covering anything up. Why the hell would we hide bodies? And the bigger question is where. In the river?”
Skip felt a prickle at the base of her scalp.
“I got a report you got two hundred bodies in there, and I’ve got a refrigerated truck to take ’em away. Why have you guys got a problem with that? You can’t just let ’em rot in there.”
“Go get ’em, Rambo. You see me stoppin’ you?’
“I’ve already been in there.”
“Yeah—how many bodies you find?’
The FEMA guy looked sheepish. “Six. I know there’s gotta be more somewhere. I got a job to do.”
“Well, I got a woman to hug.” He turned to Skip and caught her up in the mother of all bear hugs. “Whereyat, Langdon? Been missin’ you down here. I could use a little sarcasm now and then.”
&
nbsp; “You people,” the FEMA guy said. “You just can’t be serious about anything, can you? What kinda place is it where cops make out in public?”
Skip couldn’t help it, the irony of that struck her funny bone. She and Abasolo were so not a couple. And they’d needed that hug like a baby needs its mama.
Everything she’d been holding in for days escaped in a giggle. Abasolo caught it, and the next thing you knew they were laughing so helplessly she was afraid someone was going to come along and slap them sober.
The FEMA guy went away muttering about everybody down here being nuts.
“Yeah,” said Abasolo. “That’s why they call us the Big Crazy.”
And that set Skip off again. When she recovered, she said, “He’ll be the first one on Bourbon Street tonight. Hollerin’ and dancing on tables.”
“Hey, mind if I ask you what’s up with the face?”
Skip touched her jaw and winced. “You can see it, huh? I thought I covered it up.”
“Sorry to say your makeup job has suffered a meltdown.”
“Damn heat! Well, it’s a story. Actually, I really need to talk. But how about you—you do okay?
“Not so much. My house is underwater.”
“Jesus. Where are you staying?”
“The less said about that the better.”
“For god’s sake, stay at Jimmy Dee’s. I’m kind of insecure right now, you know? So I’m happier in my own nest. But I’ve been feeling guilty because I told him I’d keep an eye on it. You’d be doing us both a favor if you stayed there.”
Abasolo gave her a half-smile. “My mama always said, ‘you don’t have to pretend; just say thank you.’”
She smiled back. “You’re welcome. Are you done with the FEMA guy?”
“So done! Guy brought four docs and a refrigerated truck to pick up all the bodies he thought he’d find. Know what it boils down to? Looks like about six people died in the Superdome, just about everybody from natural causes. Although one guy did jump.”
A.A. was suddenly serious. “This is hell, girl. Hell squared, truth be told. The other five probably died of fright. Come on, walk with me. I’ve got a report of a body on South Diamond Street. Weird thing. Second time in two days. Although what we’re gonna do about it I have no idea.”
Skip thought about Dickie. “Yeah. One of my neighbors got killed. He’s still lying in the street.”
“Hope it wasn’t a friend.”
“Nah. Asshole, actually. But God, I hate to see it. It’s just not decent.”
They walked in silence for a bit, while Skip tried to figure out how to talk about what was on her mind. Finally, she blurted, “A.A., I gotta ask you something. You hear anything about some…order…to…um—”
“Round up the usual suspects and kill them and throw them in the river?”
“Jesus, it’s all over town. What do you know about it?”
“Are you seriously asking me if it’s for real?” He was outraged. “Who the hell would give an order like that? Right. No one. And no one, but no one would do it without an order out of the kindness of their cold, cold heart. Just to clean the city up.”
“Well, when you put it like that, I’m pretty reassured. If there’s no profit motive, nobody’s doing it. Nobody in this department, anyhow.”
“Not even the Dirtbaggs.” It was their nickname for Elvis and Kirkus Baggs, a couple of cop brothers everybody knew were dirty, but who kept skating, probably because their family was old-line, cop royalty.
They’d reached Diamond Street. “Okay, here we are. Start looking for a body.”
Already they could see there wasn’t one. The street was only a couple of blocks long, divided by a neutral ground as big as a park. But just in case, they strode its length, looking in doorways and behind anything that hadn’t been blown away.
Then they walked the other side.
“Officers! Hey, y’all po-lice?” It was a woman’s voice, coming from above.
On a third-floor balcony sat an African American woman who looked to be about seventy-five. Drinking a cup of something at a small table. “You need something?” Skip hollered.
“Yeah. Ran out of water yesterday. Afraid to go out and try to find some.” Along with electricity, there was no available safe drinking water. She held up her cup. “This is warm Coke and it’s nasty.”
“I got an extra bottle,” Skip said. “Can you catch?”
She reached into her backpack and threw the bottle. It took several tries to get it to her. The woman wasn’t very agile to begin with and seemed a little groggy. Dehydrated, maybe.
“Hot up there?” Skip asked. The woman was in a loft building of about four stories.
“Not so bad. I got the balcony.” She looked slightly gray.
Abasolo said, “What’s your name? We’re going to get you some water. You got food?”
“I got food. My name’s Josie.”
“I’m Adam. And this is Skip.
“Skip? That ain’ no name for a girl!”
“Look, Josie, we’re gonna holler for you when we get back and you can throw us down a key. All right?”
She looked dubious.
“Or you can come down and get the water. We’ll try to get you a case.”
“Key’ll be okay.”
They walked around the block, toward the Convention Center, the second big evacuation scene, along with the Superdome. Skip said, “Somebody over there’s gotta have water.”
“Yeah, the military. And all the journalists. I’ve made friends with a few.”
Skip just bet he had. Female ones. “Okay, here’s a riddle for you. How many cops who have an entire world of chaos to police does it take to keep one old lady from dying of thirst?”
“Relax, Langdon. They’re loading the last of the buses. Things are better! We’re still doing our jobs. Let’s just do it in a low-key way for a few, while you tell me about the face. You never got to that, you know. That man-bear of yours slip and fall on it?”
She laughed. Her man-bear, Steve Steinman, was the gentlest of men. “Nah, He’s in L.A., lucky dog. He doesn’t understand why I don’t call him three times a day. None of them do. Jimmy Dee, Cindy Lou…”
She stopped. Their friend Cindy Lou was his sometime sweetie. “You talking to Cindy Lou?”
Abasolo sighed. “Yeah, briefly. I just can’t—”
“I know. Can’t focus on anything but this. And too tired. And don’t want to tell the story ten times a day. Right?”
“Yeah. So about the face.”
“Well, I kept hearing that rumor—about us taking out the gangs—and then the first person I heard it from ended up dead. I think he was murdered.”
“How?” he asked.
“Stab wound, I think, but pretty hard to say. You know”—she waved an arm—“with all this.” And all that was missing too. Like an autopsy. “So I might have asked a few people a few questions.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And then someone slugged me.” She told him how it happened.
He was quiet for a while. She let him contemplate it until they ran into a reporter he knew—yes, female, Skip noted—and negotiated a water deal: a case for thirty seconds on camera, which would probably irritate the chief, but he could go screw himself, according to Abasolo. “Did you know he told Oprah that people were raping babies in the Dome?”
Skip gasped.
“And other stuff. Like we confiscated thirty guns from people who fired in the Convention Center. Nobody fired a gun in there. Well, maybe one person. I talked to the SWAT team. I’m about over this goddam gig,” he said disgustedly.
“Yeah.” Just about everybody felt that way right now.
Abasolo was silent as they walked back to Josie’s. She could almost hear him thinking. They were trading off carrying the water, both wishing they’d brought A.A.’s car. They were on Josie’s street, though—almost there. Skip was trying to take the case from him when suddenly he dropped it, causing bottles to scatter all
over the sidewalk and prompting them both to look down.
“Jesus, what’s that?” A.A. was reaching for his gun.
It looked like a body.
And there sure as hell hadn’t been one on this block half an hour ago. Forgetting all about Josie, they broke into a run. It was a dead man with a bandaged head, but they didn’t think a head wound had killed him. He’d been stabbed in the belly. Not exactly gutted, but close enough. It was a long, lethal-looking cut, nasty enough to give rise to the gutting rumor. Which was seeming more and more like reality.
Skip searched the man’s pockets and came up with a wallet. She took out the driver’s license. “I know this guy!”
She passed it to Abasolo, who whistled. “We just caught a big one. This is Kaynard Cochon.”
“You’re kidding! You know him too?”
“Yeah, sure. He’s a lieutenant in the Corner Boys Gang.”
“You’re kidding me,” she repeated, trying to take it in. “They’re the biggest wholesalers in the city.”
“One of ’em,” he agreed. “There’s more, but they sure move a lot of crack. How do you know him?”
“His kid rode out the storm with me.” Quickly, she told him the story of Billy and the two pools of blood they found in his house.
“One of the blood spots had to be from Kaynard. Body’s fresh, but he could have gotten the head wound that night.”
“Want to take a ride out there, check the place out?”
“Sure. Soon as we get Josie squared away.”
As if on signal, they both looked up at her balcony. She wasn’t there, but something was. It looked like a pile of clothes topped by the blue-and-green muumuu she was wearing when they met her. “Holy shit,” Skip said, and they both started running, yelling her name, Kaynard be damned.
The muumuu had blood all over it—fresh blood, still red—and the pile didn’t move. They stood in the neutral ground, swearing. Finally, Abasolo said, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That whoever dumped Kaynard saw her watching and shot her? Doesn’t seem like much doubt, does there? These guys don’t care who they kill.”
“I wonder if I can somehow swing onto the second-floor balcony and then, maybe…”