by Lisa Regan
“You could if you were with the Cirque du Soleil.”
“Okay. But just as a point of discussion, where do we take her if she’s alive?”
Skip grabbed his arm. “A.A.! Look. In the right-hand corner.”
Peeking out of the balcony’s open French door was a tiny head. “Oh, God, it’s a kid.”
“Hi, baby!” Abasolo hollered. “You can come out. Nobody’s going to hurt you now. Those men are gone.”
“Hello, darlin’,” Skip called. “What’s your name, baby?”
Gingerly, the child stepped slightly forward, a little girl, five or six maybe, in shorts and a pink T-shirt with a white heart on it. “My grandma dead.” Day-ed, she said.
“Honey, don’t think that! She might be alive. Can you throw us the key so we can come up and try to wake her up? I see it right there.” Josie had a bunch of keys waiting on the café table where they’d seen her sitting, anticipating their arrival with the water.
“I cain’ do that. My grandma say don’t talk to strangers.”
Skip thought about trying the old “a policeman is your friend” story, but that was sure not going to work on this kid. “Are you thirsty, baby? Your grandma told us she needed some water.”
The kid brightened. “You the water po-lice?”
“We sure are.” Evidently Josie had mentioned them. After that, it still took a bit of persuading, but eventually the kid dropped the key, and they used their flashlights to climb the two, pitch-dark staircases to the third floor. They had to walk the halls and bang on doors, yelling, “Josie? Josie’s grandbaby? We’re here with the water.”
Finally they heard, “We in here.”
When they’d finally found the right key and wrestled with the lock in near total darkness, Skip knelt to hug the girl, but she looked so disappointed Skip was taken aback. “You okay, baby?”
“Where’s my water?”
“Oh, Jesus.” They’d left it lying on the street.
A.A. said, “Let’s see about your grandmother first,” and raced over to the body.
“Skip, she’s breathing!”
Stunned, she stared at him. “Unconscious?”
“Yeah.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure we can’t get an ambulance.”
“Or even a taxi.”
The little girl raced excitedly to Abasolo. “She really alive?”
“She really is! Look, see how her chest is moving? We’re gonna get y’all somewhere safe.”
Skip sighed, wondering how the hell that was going to work. She heard Abasolo ask the girl her name again. She spoke loud and clear. “Destiny.”
Oh, brother, Skip thought. You said it.
Abasolo said, “Hey, I’ve got an idea. “How about we just go out on the street and recruit a couple of guys? I hate to ask you to babysit, but...”
“No, it’s good. I’ll look around, maybe make some calls.” She pointed with her chin at Josie, hoping he’d know what she meant. “You go. Just throw us up a couple of bottles of water.”
She had plans for the few minutes his absence would give her. She checked Josie again, seeing she had a wound to her midsection, just above the waist, and found some towels to use for pressure. Kneeling by the older woman, she said, “Destiny, come talk to me while I take care of your grandma.” The girl knelt too, mesmerized by the rise and fall of her grandmother’s chest.
“Y’all live here?”
“No, ma’am. We live on Tennessee Street.”
That was ominous. “Just the two of you?”
The girl nodded.
“Does the rest of your family live near you?”
“They stay in Lacombe.” She looked at the floor. “All ’cept my mama. Don’ know where Mama is.”
That was sad for Destiny, but Skip was relieved—if her mama had lived on Tennessee Street, there was a good chance she’d be dead. Josie’d been wise to bring her granddaughter here—they lived almost on the banks of the Industrial Canal, which inundated the neighborhood when the levee broke. They were almost certainly homeless now.
She asked if Destiny knew whose condo they were in, but all she said was, “My grandma work here.”
“Okay, then, I’m going to try to find out. Can you sit here and hold this towel on your grandma? Hold it really tight now.” She figured a task was the best babysitter she had access to.
The condo was a very high-end loft, one of the nicest Skip had seen, with two bedrooms, one of which Josie and Destiny were obviously occupying, and an office. Heading for the office, she rifled drawers until she found household bills addressed to Alice and Hutchinson Campbell. That was a start. She retrieved Josie’s purse from the bedroom, where she found a driver’s license for Josephine Tompkins and a phone. The battery was dead, but somewhere in there, she was willing to bet, was a number for her employers.
She pocketed the phone and took the purse out to wait for Abasolo, trying to text any locals in her directory who might know a doctor. She struck gold with her brother.
“Skippy, how ya doin’? Hangin’ in there?”
“You still in town?”
“Out here in my duck boat with the Cajun Navy—best time I ever had.”
That was Conrad. Did he really think rescuing people was an amusement that nature had devised just for him? She liked to think that was only half of it—maybe, deep down, he also had a half-decent heart.
“Good for you. Got a situation.”
“Need somebody rescued?”
“Gunshot victim, hospitals barricaded.”
“Came to the right place. Taking people to a doctor in your hood.” She’d never known Conrad to sound so confident. He really was having the time of his life. “Guy never left. Running a trauma clinic in his office. Even has a nurse. Brave, huh? Most docs’d worry about getting sued.”
She heard noise in the hall, probably Abasolo returning. “Gotta go. Address?”
Abasolo barreled in with three good-sized men, two black and one white, all scruffy and smelling none too great, but Skip was just glad there were three. She was strong, but still not confident she’d be much help—and someone had to wrangle Destiny. The largest one, was as big as a grizzly bear and twice as confident. “I’m gon’ make a stretcher,” he said. “Y’all got a screwdriver?”
Someone risked Harland’s ridicule by producing one on a Swiss Army knife, but he took it without comment and proceeded to remove the Campbells’ bathroom door, onto which they loaded Josie and, guided by the light from Skip’s flashlight, wrestled her downstairs, where Abasolo had lined up a makeshift ambulance—a news van complete with driver. “Got money?” he asked Skip, but Harland looked at Josie, now lying on the floor of the van, as if she were his own grandma. “I don’t want no money for helpin’ this lady.” The others were too intimidated not to follow suit.
After shaking hands with “Dan from CNN,” Skip said, “I’ve got the address of a doctor.” It was the corner of Frenchmen and Decatur. The doctor was outside smoking a cigarette.
She couldn’t help herself. “I thought doctors didn’t smoke.”
He stared at the little white stick as if he couldn’t figure out what it was. “First cigarette in thirty years. Not that this thing’s getting to me or anything. I’m Martin Moreau. And you are?
“Skip Langdon.” She flashed her badge. “Got a lady with a gunshot wound.”
He sighed and ground out the cigarette with his foot. “You Conrad’s sister? He said you were coming.”
By the way he walked, she could see how tired he was.
They stuck around while he looked Josie over. “She needs surgery, but the bleeding’s stopped.” He shrugged. “Since she’s stable, I’m going to have to send her to the airport triage center. Hate to, but I can’t do surgery here. Got some drivers shuttling people out there. But…” he waved unobtrusively in Destiny’s direction, “what about the little girl?”
Skip and A.A. looked helplessly at each other. Wha
t if they sent Destiny with her grandmother and Josie died? What would be her chances of finding her family again? But if they didn’t, the same reasoning applied.
Abasolo finally said, “Think what that scene’s like,” and the mental picture was enough. Skip said, “We’ll figure something out.”
Quickly, she scribbled a note and put it in Josie’s purse. “Destiny’s with me. I have your phone and keys.” She signed it with her name and phone number, gave the purse to Martin Moreau, and crossed her fingers that these two would see each other again.
Skip borrowed Dan’s charger while he drove them back to their cars, Destiny a miniature storm cloud in the back. As soon as she was separated from her grandmother, a car-filling aura of darkness had formed around her, landing on the other three like a sodden blanket of calamity. She didn’t cry, only shrank into herself and emanated misery.
They were all so disturbed, they could barely thank Dan properly when he dropped them. “I want to thank you,” he said, “for letting me help.” Skip understood completely.
This was what was up with Conrad. She heard the other side of it from Jimmy Dee and her boyfriend Steve every time she talked to them. “I just feel so helpless! I need to be there, doing something!” She wondered briefly if Ollie could be persuaded to take Destiny for a few days, to do something. But only briefly—Ollie was about as maternal as Harland, the grizzly.
She tried Josie’s barely charged phone, and found a number for “Alice.”
It was the right Alice, nearly crazy with what Skip was now dubbing Conrad syndrome—the desperate need to do something—and with worry about Josie and Destiny. It seemed Josie was her housekeeper, whom she’d persuaded to stay in her condo when Josie declined to evacuate. “She said she had to take care of her Aunt Lou, who can’t walk and has ‘the sugar,’” Alice sobbed. “She didn’t bring Aunt Lou with her?”
“No, only Destiny. She’s one of the reasons I called. Look, I hate to put this on you, but Josie’s gone, and I don’t know who else to ask. Do you know if Destiny has any relatives here? I need somebody who can take care of her.”
Suddenly Alice spoke with confidence, obviously happy to have a task. “I’ll find you somebody. Give me your number.”
As it turned out, she didn’t know any of Josie’s relatives, but she did know someone with a generator. She called back in five minutes, with instructions to deliver Destiny to a house on St. Charles Avenue with a sign in the window that said, “You loot, we shoot.” Skip gave the kid a big hug and handed her over to a handsome couple in their late fifties who in no way looked like they knew what to do with a young child. It was a sad goodbye. The girl clung and cried when they tried to peel her off.
“Lap of luxury,” Abasolo said. “She’ll be fine. They’ll probably paint her nails for her.”
Skip managed a laugh, thinking they probably would. But she knew he was only trying to make her feel better. It was going to be a long time before Destiny was fine.
“Let’s go secure the condo.”
“Yeah. And see about Kaynard. He must be missing us.”
“Well, he’s not gonna get up and walk away. We never did take that ride out to his house. And we could check on Billy—my Katrina-night guest. Maybe he came home.”
Kaynard’s house had taken on water, which had now receded, but it smelled like a wet dog, and worse. It already had an X on it, showing that it had been searched. The system worked like this—in each crook of the X was written a code: date, number of bodies inside, searching agency, and number of animals, dead or alive. This one said no people, no animals, and CHP, so that was good—they’d had enough death for one day.
But the place had been thoroughly tossed, maybe before the searchers even got there. Everything that could be dropped on the floor had been.
“What do you bet are the odds,” Skip said, “that all that crack’s missing?”
“That’s one bet I wouldn’t take.”
It was, of course. And once again, there was no sign of Billy.
They headed back to Diamond Street, but found it as absent of bodies as the first time they’d searched.
“Guess he did walk away,” Skip said.
Abasolo gave her a wry grin. “Why am I not surprised?’
“Yeah. It’s the Street of Disappearing Bodies. First, we get a report of one and that’s wrong, and then we find one and now it’s gone. Know what I’m thinking?”
“Sure. I’m a mind reader. You’re thinking that first report was right all along.”
“And what else, Uri Geller?”
“Probably what I think—that whoever these guys are, they’re working in tandem. Someone dumps a body, somebody else picks it up.”
Skip grimaced. “Sure hate that idea.” She sighed. “But here’s a worse one. Then they gut them and throw them in the river.”
Abasolo winced. “We need to surveil this street.”
“That’s lot of manpower to use up with so much to do out there.”
“Yeah. Okay. One at a time then.” He looked up, assessing. “We could do it from the condo—obviously, Josie could see everything. Need fuel, though. You had lunch?”
“Oh, hell. Lunch. Who eats lunch these days?”
He nodded. “Tell you what. Why don’t I go loot us some lunch from the press guys at the Convention Center?” He kicked at one of the bottles of water they’d spilled earlier. “Then we can take turns. Meanwhile, you could gather us up some of this nice water and see if anybody drops off another package.”
“Yeah, that’ll work—the entrance is on South Peters, so you can get in without anyone seeing you from here.”
She picked up some water and walked around the corner, dreading the grim climb in the dark building. The relentless misery and discomfort, along with the heat and long hours, were beginning to take a toll, she supposed. Still, it was good to be here, to be part of the disaster effort. Those who weren’t seemed in even worse shape.
By the time Abasolo arrived with a couple of brown bags, she’d set up a nest of pillows on the floor, far enough back that it was out of sight if someone looked up from the street. She’d even rooted around in the office and come up with a pair of binoculars.
He tossed her a bag. “From our buddy, Dan. With his compliments.”
“Omigod, an apple! It’s been days since I’ve seen anything fresh.”
“Yeah, they’ve got a supply truck or choppers or something.” He unwrapped a sandwich. “Damn! Ham and cheese again. That’s all they’ve had the last three days.”
“A.A., there’s a car out there.” Skip abandoned her lunch and looked through the binocs as someone got out, carrying something large and flexible, like a garbage bag. “Holy shit! It’s a cop in uniform.”
“Are you kidding me?” Abasolo commando-crawled almost to the edge of the balcony. “What the hell is he carrying? Is that…?”
“Yeah. I think it’s a body bag.”
The cop pushed open a gate and disappeared behind it. When he came out, he was dragging the body bag. And now it was full. He was walking backward, grabbing the body around the shoulders. Abasolo said, “That’s why he’s wearing the uniform. If another cop sees him—or anyone sees him—they’ll think he’s just doing his job. Wish we could see his face.”
“I think I can read his plate number. Can you jot it down?”
“Sure.” When they had it, they both rolled out of sight, just in case.
The cop turned halfway around, enough to see that he was wearing sunglasses. “Aw, hell.”
He opened the truck and wrangled the body into it. “Well, the body bag was a nice touch, but a body in the trunk is just downright unprofessional.”
“Probably doesn’t want the car stinking. Which is what he’d say if anyone came around. This frontier thing leaves a lot of loopholes.”
After he’d closed the trunk, the cop turned around again, looking up very deliberately, and then framed his eyes with his hands, as if that was going to bring Josie’s body ba
ck into view. Evidently, he’d noticed that somebody’d moved it. “Hey,” he called. “Y’all all right up there?”
His voice was familiar…maddeningly familiar. Skip knew she knew it. But she couldn’t place it.
Getting no response, the cop took off his shades. Elvis Baggs! Definitely. But she knew him only by sight. Why was his voice familiar?
When he finally shrugged and left, they shifted back up to sitting. “Was there any doubt in your mind?” A.A. asked.
“Had to be the Dirtbaggs. And I’m damn glad it is. I don’t need to know any more crooked cops.”
Abasolo seemed surprised. “Think they’re working alone?”
She considered. “Maybe not. Why don’t we tail them? Each take one?”
“Great idea! But we just missed El.”
She stood up. “If the rumors are right, he’d go to the river to dump Kaynard, right?”
“Yeah, but a lot of choices there. They don’t call it the Big Muddy for nothing.”
“It’s not about how big it is, it’s how accessible. And also…the rumors. People have seen this, supposedly. So it has to be a place where they could.”
“The Moon Walk promenade along the river would be really easy. Almost too easy. You know where those steps are?”
“You can practically dangle your toes.”
They closed the balcony door and ran down the dark stairway.
They didn’t catch El in the act, but instead caught a piece of luck—a radio call for his brother Kirk, making him easy to find. He drove to the Iberville Projects—the only project still livable—parked, and strode in, evidently having a destination in mind. A few minutes later he came out lugging a cardboard box, which he loaded into his car. Wiping his brow, he rested a few minutes and drank some water, obviously winded. Finally, he made a call.
“El, betcha anything,” Skip said—and waited until someone joined him.
But it wasn’t Elvis; it was a retired cop Abasolo knew named Mike Weber, who helped Kirk carry out several more boxes, each time locking them in the trunk.
“Wonder what it is?”
“Looks like gold bars, the way they’re carrying on. It’s gotta be some kind of contraband.”
Abasolo said, “Who are we kidding? Drugs. What else? Especially given the Kaynard experience.”