Her phone rang on the passenger seat. She checked it quickly before the light turned green. Preacher calling. She hated answering the phone while driving. Letting it ring as she tried to navigate, she hoped the call wasn’t too urgent, probably a generic follow-up to see how things had gone with Atkinson. It could wait. Panic tapped its rough, eager fingertips along the edges of her eyes and her lungs, probing for a grip. Her chest tightened and a headache burned at the base of her skull. She could feel her heart beat against her breastbone.
She needed to get out of the traffic, out of the confusion. Out of the car if she could.
Poydras Street, the main artery through the CBD, finally materialized before her. Relief shot through her belly and down her thighs like a blast of cool air. The main streets she knew. She’d be fine. When the light changed, she made an illegal left turn to put the Superdome and the medical district at her back and drove toward St. Charles, where she could turn uptown.
At Lee Circle, she pulled into an abandoned gas station and gave her heartbeat a minute to settle. She turned off the car. She listened to a streetcar, its big bell clanging, roll through the Circle. She focused her vision on the wall of an office building in front of her across a weedy lot. Two squiggly black lines, starting to fade, were painted large across the orange bricks. Some kind of funky art installation, Maureen recalled, from some citywide art project a couple of years ago. Before her time. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out what the picture was supposed to be or mean. Black hair ribbons tossed on the floor? That was what the painting most resembled. Maybe it was a public Rorschach test. Check your psyche against what you saw, learn about yourself on your way downtown. Or not.
Better than a plain old ugly building, she guessed. Somebody had gotten a paycheck for painting those black ribbons. Good for them, she thought. Take it where you can get it. She wondered what had been abandoned longer, the dirty gas station or the art looming over it.
She lit a cigarette and returned Preacher’s call.
“What’s your twenty?” Preacher asked.
“On my way home from meeting with Atkinson.”
“You’re one of those people,” Preacher said—she could hear the smile in his voice—“who has to pull over to talk on the phone, aren’t you?” A pause. “Atkinson’s on day shift now? Took you quite a while to drop off a couple of files at HQ.”
“We had lunch. I was in traffic. St. Charles is busy. I was being extra cautious. More people should drive like me.”
“Lunch. Since you’re out and about disobeying orders for the afternoon, drive over to the sno-ball stand at South Tonti and Washington. Our favorite animal rescue vigilante has had a busy afternoon. With mixed results, naturally. Ah, lament the best intentions of mice and crackheads.”
“You’re having a sno-ball with Little E?”
“It’s a complicated story,” Preacher said. “It’ll make more sense when you see it with your own eyes. Believe.”
“Since I’m working these murders,” Maureen said, “does today count as my last training shift?”
Preacher hung up.
Maureen tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. She started the car and looked up at the painted building one more time. Whatever you say, Preach.
24
The sno-ball stand was a tilting butter-yellow shack about the size of a toolshed, squeezed between a set of row houses and an empty lot that had been fenced off and then abandoned. A large dead oak in the center had collapsed, its top branches smashing through the fence. The area had become a dumping ground: tires, busted appliances, torn and dirty baby clothes, along with the usual litter caught in the tree branches. Preacher had parked the cruiser halfway up on the sidewalk by the oak. Flouting traffic laws seemed to be his preferred way of expressing his authority. Maureen had parked her Honda parallel to the police car. He’s rubbing off on me, she thought, getting out.
A young mother in white short shorts and a hot-pink T-shirt, a pink cell phone pressed to her ear, dragged a sticky-faced young boy by the arm into a dramatic detour around the cars and out into the middle of Washington Avenue. Between the cars and the tree, no room to pass remained on the sidewalk. If the young woman cared about traffic, she didn’t show it. She glared at Maureen the whole time, even over her shoulder as she walked away, talking a mile a minute into the phone—a true multitasker. Maureen returned the stare through her sunglasses, hanging her badge over her belt. The woman made a show of noticing the badge. Maureen could read her mind: Like I give a fuck.
Something about the boy, his unlaced sneakers, his little legs churning to keep up with his high-strung mom, picked at Maureen’s brain. She thought, of course, of the boys she was looking for, but they were twice the age of that child. They hadn’t always been. Somebody had once towed them around the neighborhood by the arm. Then they let go. And now the city was having trouble finding someone to claim Mike-Mike’s body.
Preacher called her name. She walked his way.
He stood over by the twisted fence, a sno-ball in a paper cup in one hand, his shades on, his big blue belly hanging over his gun belt, and a smile on his face—like they were meeting for an evening stroll in Audubon Park. His lips were purple with flavored syrup. Sitting on the ground, his back against the fence, was Little E. One arm, wrapped in a white towel, hung limply across his lap. He didn’t appear to be handcuffed. In his other hand he held a sno-ball that he ignored, the melted ice dripping down the sides of the paper cup and onto his dirty jeans.
A shapeless line of adults and children gathered in front of the service window at the stand. The quiet adults, outnumbered three to one by the chattering kids, threw occasional hard glances at Preacher. They watched Maureen approach, speaking only to correct unruly children, their eyes remaining on her as they did it. Maureen could feel their resentment hot and thick in the air like the humidity. They were just buying the kids a cold treat on a hot summer day, yet here were the cops, right in the middle of their afternoon for no good reason, putting the lean on a guy from the neighborhood. Making a spectacle and scaring the kids in the process.
Preacher waved to her with his free hand. Do as I say, Maureen heard Atkinson say, not as I do. She wished Preacher had picked a less public locale for his interrogation. He certainly knew what the people around them were thinking; not that he cared. He was not one for advancing the cause of “community policing,” another catchphrase beaten senseless at the academy. This oughtta be good, Maureen thought. This better be good.
“Officer Coughlin, you look flushed,” Preacher said as Maureen joined them in the high grass at the edge of the lot. He raised his sno-ball, his fingers stained with purple. “Get yourself one of these. My treat.”
“No, thanks,” Maureen said. She lifted her chin at Etienne. “I see you’ve got company.”
“You, him,” Preacher said. “There’s nothing better than a sno-ball on a hot day, and I can’t give one away.”
Little E whimpered a bit. “My arm hurts.”
“You’re lucky you still have it,” Preacher said. “You owe me that arm. That’s my arm. And probably your skull, too.”
Maureen noticed small bloodstains on the towel around Little E’s forearm. “Uh, Preach? The arm?”
“So there I am,” Preacher began, “making the rounds, actually with an eye out for my man here, ’cause he’s a good man to know. And while I’m rolling down Josephine Street, about all out of hope, who should appear in my field of vision but our hero, a pack of hysterical, screaming children jumping around him and an angry twenty-pound puppy hanging from his arm.”
“They bad to that dog over there,” Little E said. “They don’t feed him or nothing. That’s what makes him mean.”
“He’s healthy enough to take a chunk outta you,” Preacher said. “Now shut it.” He turned to Maureen. “E knows how I am about the dogs, so every dog in the ’hood now he’s trying to snatch up and deliver unto Caesar. There’s a difference between rescue and theft that I can’t seem
to clarify for him.” He dug at his sno-ball with a plastic spoon. “Between the two of you, I wonder why I even try.”
“I understand this is important to you, Preach,” Maureen said. “I do. But we have people we need to find.”
“Turns out,” Preacher said, “the dog wasn’t his biggest problem. Because as I’m getting out of the car, out on the front porch comes an angry young brother with a baseball bat, and I’m wondering if it’s for Little E or the dog.” Preacher raised his cup and sucked in a mouthful of ice. Maureen could hear him crunching it in his jaws. “It wasn’t for the dog.”
Maureen turned to the cruiser, checking the backseat.
“Not me,” Little E said. “I know them people, them kids.”
“I know you know them kids,” Preacher said. “That doesn’t mean they know you, or aren’t afraid of you.” He turned to Maureen. “Because after the young man pries the puppy loose and tosses him inside, he comes down from the porch to talk to me. He tells me E’s been lingering in the vacant across the street the past few days, watching them kids in that yard, ain’tcha?”
Little E shook his head so hard Maureen thought it might fly off. “No, sir, that ain’t me, that ain’t what I do. I was watching that dog, the way they was mistreating it. Been watching for a couple of days. I was looking for a chance to take it, I admit that. But it was for the dog’s own good.”
“About the kid with that bat,” Maureen said.
“In a minute.” Preacher crumpled the paper cup in his hand and tossed it in the long grass. He pulled a bandana from his pocket, wiped his hands, wiped his mouth. “The thing is,” he said to Little E, “knowing how you feel about dogs, and knowing that your daddy would’ve put you on the bottom of the river a long time ago if you were that way about kids, I believe you, Little E. But that badass with the bat and the attitude doing his best to look out for them nieces and nephews of his? He thinks you came through that gate for that little girl and not that dog. And me being a cop, I don’t know how much he believes anything I tell him to the contrary, try as I might to change his mind.”
“Officer Boyd, you can’t do me like that,” Little E said, the barest hint of righteousness in his voice. “I mind my business. I do good for you when I can. I ain’t like that about little kids. I’d put myself in the bottom of the river if I was like that.”
“Let me see that arm,” Preacher said.
Little E unwrapped the towel, raising his arm so Preacher could see the swollen dog bite up by the elbow. Maureen leaned in for a look. White lint from the towel stuck to the puncture wounds. The bite wasn’t as bad as Maureen had feared. It looked to her like the bleeding had stopped. The wound needed a good cleaning, maybe a couple of stitches.
“You’ll live,” Preacher said. “I’m gonna call EMS for you, though. Make sure you get cleaned up right.” He keyed the mic on his radio, called in for nonemergency first aid. He turned to Etienne. “What’s the story when they get here?”
“I was trying to catch a stray,” Little E said, “and it bit me. I don’t know where it went.”
Preacher leaned forward. “You’re helping everyone out that way, E, including yourself. Remember that.” He turned to Maureen. “Stay here with him. I’m gonna get the first-aid kit from the car.”
Watching Preacher stroll over to the cruiser, Maureen wondered why he was bothering now with first aid. He’d already let Little E sit there for some time with nothing more than a bar towel for his wounds. Why not just leave it for EMS? Was he having second thoughts about the opinions of the spectators? No, it wasn’t that. It was CYA. EMS might wonder why E hadn’t received any first aid from the police department. Preacher knew that treated puncture wounds and a solid story from Little E would prevent questions. You have to be careful, Preacher had told her in the past. You never know when you’re gonna run into someone who actually gives a shit. If pressed by the medics, which was doubtful anyway, E would vouch for Preacher. Because when, not if, Little E got in trouble again, EMS wouldn’t help him out, but Preacher would.
Maureen squatted beside Little E, bringing herself down to eye level with him. “Who was the kid with the bat? What was his name?”
E shrugged.
“Where was this house with the dog? What block of Josephine?”
E said nothing. Had Preacher told him not to talk to her?
“The guy with the bat, does he wear twists and a shell necklace? You ever heard of a guy they call Shadow? How about Bobby Scales—what’ve you heard about him?”
E turned his head away. Maureen wanted to smack him.
Preacher walked up to them. He set down the big tackle box of first-aid supplies. He patted away the sweat from his face with his bandana.
“Do me a favor and do the honors, Coughlin.”
Maureen opened the box. She pulled on a pair of latex gloves, then dug out a couple of peroxide pads. She extended one gloved hand. E took the cue and settled his wounded arm into her hand, his eyes watching Preacher the entire time.
“This is gonna sting,” Maureen said.
E flinched as she dabbed at the punctures and swabbed around them, cleaning up the blood. She dropped one bloody pad in the grass, opened another, and went back to work. And just like that, she realized, the thought making an audible popping sound in her head, she was complicit in Preacher’s minor deception of the EMS. She would have bet her whole career that he didn’t even know what he was doing. It was ingrained in him that everyone fudged a little. Maureen understood. Preacher’s way, everyone carried some of the weight. Everyone had something to lose. This was how Preacher kept the information flowing and the moving parts moving.
She couldn’t argue with the logic. A couple of white lies did make everything better. E didn’t have to explain why he went crashing into a yard full of kids. A visit with a doctor, even if it was in an assembly line of an emergency room, would do E some good. His freedom, his life back on the streets, was already wearing heavy on him. He wouldn’t have to explain his new vigilante-style dognapping career. The SPCA wouldn’t come and take the dog. The kids wouldn’t lose their pet and, considering the animal’s response to Little E, their protector. And the little dog wouldn’t go to the pound and be put down for biting someone trying to steal him away from his home and his pack. There was someone at the house that Preacher thought important. And now that person might be less spooked next time someone in a uniform came to the house.
Maureen saw it all. She saw how everyone came out ahead by playing Preacher’s game.
And what was so bad about it? She couldn’t say, no matter who asked, either over a beer or under oath, that Preacher was a dishonest or dirty cop. Zero tolerance was the department mantra; she knew that. But was the lack of tolerance for breaking the rules or bending them? Or for getting caught?
She laid some clean gauze over Little E’s injury, encouraging him to hold the bandage in place with pressure. No point in taping it with EMS on their way. She could see them coming up Washington now.
“My arm hurts,” Little E said. “Worse than before. You shoulda left it alone.”
“The pain’s how you know the peroxide’s getting where it needs to be,” Maureen said. “The pain means you’re getting better.” She stood, massaging the small of her back. She lit a cigarette. “Don’t worry, E, you’re gonna be fine. We’re all gonna be fine.”
25
Once the EMTs had taken over Little E’s treatment, Maureen joined Preacher over by the cruiser. Preacher leaned on the hood, dipping the entire front of the vehicle. Maureen stood in front of him, toeing at the gravel on the sidewalk, arms crossed, a cigarette burning between her lips. She found herself wishing that she could work without the uniform, without the vest and all the equipment. She was dying for a cup of coffee.
“Little E wouldn’t tell me a thing,” Maureen said. “You tell him not to?”
“What would I do that for?” Preacher asked. “That’s on him. He doesn’t owe you anything. He’s not gonna help you becaus
e you’re a cop. You hafta earn it.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Even snitches have some degree of self-respect, Coughlin. It’s just another hustle out here, like a part-time job that pays under the table. You remember that, you’ll make more friends.”
“The kid at the house, who was he?” she asked Preacher.
“Nobody we’re looking for,” Preacher said. “But the house where he lives, where Little E was watching the kids, it’s over on Josephine and Danneel.”
That got Maureen’s attention. She knew that corner by reputation. Everyone on the job did; it had once been the heart of a particularly bloody stretch of Josephine Street, itself a war zone. Talk around the department, and not just in the Sixth District, said that the heart had started pumping blood again.
“This thing with Wright and the kids goes to Josephine Street? That’s what you’re telling me?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Where the Christmas thing happened last year,” Maureen said.
“Five shot, two dead,” Preacher said. “Two sisters, Christmas fucking morning.”
After that even the federales had made moves to shut down the J-Street Family, as they called themselves, taking doors up and down Josephine on Ash Wednesday, hauling eighteen suspects off to jail. Fifteen of them under thirty, every one of them with a record. Open cases, outstanding warrants. Half faced federal racketeering charges. A few were back on the streets. Three of them had been murdered since then by other criminals in what the police were sure were revenge killings. Investigations into those killings were proceeding slowly, to say the least.
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