“Nothing,” she said. “You just remind me of someone.” The grin faded. “Okay. But I’ve got some uniforms checking the house out. The DEA says they’re sending someone, but they didn’t sound too keen. None of them know you, and in the neighborhood where we’re headed, civilians people don’t know carrying guns make everyone nervous. Let me do the talking.”
“Sure. Makes sense. It’s your town.”
They had entered an area lined with older houses and run-down one- and two-story buildings housing various businesses, mostly closed now. A few bars and small stores were lit up like beacons. People stood about on the concrete outside, drinking from red cups and watching the shiny new car go by with wary eyes. Wyatt stared back.
“Not what you expected when you came to New Orleans, is it?” Cahill said.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” he admitted.
“Good. Hang on to that feeling. And follow my lead. Think you can do that with a girl?”
He looked from the window back at her. “I can follow the lead of a fellow officer who knows the area. Will that do?”
She nodded. That grin was back. “Yes, Sheriff McGee,” she said, “that’ll do just fine.”
LANNY KNIGHT HAD been looking forward to the end of the shift, a beer or five in the Old Arabi Bar, then an early bedtime back at his house in the Lower Ninth Ward, with how early being determined by what kind of strange he came across in the Old Arabi. So when the call came for him to check out the place on Esteban Street, he grunted with irritation. But he acknowledged the call and took the turn that would take him to the narrow, potholed back street. “One more broke-dick street in this broke-dick neighborhood,” he muttered to himself. His cell phone went off, and he glanced down to see who was calling. Delphine. He smiled. Maybe this night was looking up. He opened the line. “Hey, girl,” he answered in the gravelly baritone he knew made cocktail waitresses and bored housewives want to drop their panties. “You decided to take me up on my offer?”
“Not tonight, Lanny,” she said, “shut up and listen, okay?”
Normally, he’d have some biting retort for being told to shut up, but there was something in her voice that got his attention. “What’s up?”
“You need to be on your toes for this home check. You know Chance Cahill, right? Working a liaison with the feds?”
“Cahill…” Lanny thought for a minute. “Little bitty girl. Curly hair. Maybe a dyke.”
“Oh, for the love of…just because she won’t fall into your bed…” Delphine broke off and recovered her composure. “Try to stop thinking with your dick for five goddamn minutes. You think you can do that, Deputy?”
Lanny knew better than to push his luck. Cormier may have been a hot little number, and he thought she’d given him some promising looks around the station and in an after-hours gathering or two, but she still could be a ball-breaker, and those sergeant stripes she wore gave her the hammer and tongs with which to do it. “Yes, Sergeant,” he said with as much contrition as he could muster.
“Good. Now listen up. The fed she was working with, a guy name of Winslow, was set up across the street on the house. He went dark a few minutes ago. Cahill can’t raise him.”
Lanny was beginning to get a bad feeling. “You think he got got? By whoever he was watching?”
“The guy in the house is a little shit-heel named Angus Charlebois. You know him?”
Lanny thought for a moment. “Seen him around,” he said. “Didn’t look like much. Hangs out with a pretty little redhead.”
“You’re right. He ain’t much. But he and his girlfriend are mixed up with some heavy shit. So be careful.”
“Shit, Delphine,” Lanny said, “you think maybe I should wait for some backup?”
“I’m arranging it. Cahill’s on the way. And the DEA. Maybe. What we need first is eyes on the situation. So just look it over. Don’t even go to the door unless it looks okay. But keep the place under surveillance. And get back to me. Okay, shug?”
The endearment made him think that maybe there might still be a chance there. “You got it, darlin’.”
“One more thing. The girlfriend, Savannah Jakes, is a CI for the feds, too. But she’s in the wind, probably headed there. She’s driving a stolen truck. So pick her up. Hold her and get her back here.”
“Got it. Anything else?”
“Yeah. Just to make things extra interestin’, her two sons are headed into town to meet her there. They got warrants in North Carolina. So hold them there if they show up.”
“Damn,” Lanny said, “that’s a lot of people to hold.”
“I got help on the way. In the meantime, you be careful, okay?”
“I’m always careful, darlin’. Except where you’re concerned. You make a man wanna be reckless.”
“Easy, cowboy,” she said. “Business before pleasure.”
“Does that mean there’s gonna be pleasure later?”
“You just keep a lookout, okay?”
“10-4,” he said, undaunted. “By the way, who are these lowlifes mixed up with?”
“Well, it’s supposed to be confidential. But…”
“But right now, it’s me hanging my ass out.”
“Fair enough. These people are getting ready to roll on Wallace Luther.”
Lanny whistled. “Luther. Holy shit.”
“So that’s why you need to be careful.”
“No worries, baby. I know better than to fuck around with the likes of Wallace Luther.” He’d reached the house. He pulled another half block down the narrow street. “Okay. I’m here. I’ll get back to you.” He didn’t wait for her to respond. He killed the engine and sat in the car, looking at the house over his shoulder. He got out, sliding his police baton into the ring on his belt. He walked slowly down the cracked and uneven sidewalk, listening to the cicadas singing in the tall grass in the vacant lot next to the house he was approaching. The shades were drawn, but he could see light through them. Someone was home. He stopped at the small front stoop and looked the place over. There was a flicker of movement behind one of the front curtains as someone pulled it aside to look, then dropped it back into place. Lanny stopped. In another moment, the curtain was twitched aside again and another face looked out, one he could see more clearly. One he recognized. As he mounted the steps he heard footsteps behind him and the unmistakable ratcheting sound of a shotgun slide being pumped. He didn’t turn around. “Tell Mr. Luther,” he said slowly and clearly, “that Lanny Knight is here. And I got somethin’ he needs to hear.”
CHARLEYBOY COULDN’T believe they were inviting another cop into the house. But this was someone Luther seemed to know. “Lanny,” the old man said. “Good to see you. How’s the family?”
“Fine, sir,” the cop said. He was a soft-looking man of medium height, with curly black hair and a dark complexion, dressed in the uniform of the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff’s Department. He had an obsequious smile pasted on his face that only slipped a little bit when Zag reached out and took his gun out of the holster on his hip. “I’m glad it was me they called out. I mean, what are the odds, eh?”
“Better than average,” Luther said curtly. “You ain’t the only St. Bernard cop on the payroll.”
“Right, right.” The cop looked over to where Winslow lay in the doorway to the bedroom, where Zig had dropped him. “Is that guy the fed they’re lookin’ for?”
Luther’s voice sharpened. “What makes you think he is?”
The cop flinched at the tone. “Because that’s what I’m supposed to check out. The feds had this place under surveillance. Someone was talking to that guy,” he motioned toward Winslow, “and he got cut off. There’s backup on the way.”
“Shit,” Zag said. “We got to go.”
Luther just nodded, unperturbed. “Zig, go get the van. Zag, Angus, get Sleeping Beauty over there. We’ll take him out to the farm where we can wake his ass up and find out what we need to know.” He turned to the cop. “Good work,” he said. “You’ll be
gettin’ a little somethin’ extra this week.”
“Thank you, sir,” the cop said. “But…” He looked troubled.
“What is it, boy?” Luther said.
“A fed? That’s…that’s gonna bring down a lot of trouble.”
“Don’t you worry,” Luther said. “I got it handled. Of course, if you’re thinkin’ that you might want to change sides, maybe give us up to save yourself…”
“Oh, no, sir,” the cop said. “Nothin’ like that. I know better.”
“Good. Now I need you to stay here. Call off any backup. Tell ’em you knocked and there weren’t nobody here. Think you can handle that?”
“Yes, sir,” the cop said.
“Fine.” He looked at Charleyboy. “What are you waitin’ for, Angus? Get a move on.”
Charleyboy moved towards Winslow, who was beginning to stir and moan. He had to do something to shut the DEA man up. If he started talking—and Charleyboy had no doubt that they could make him talk—his plan to betray Luther to Gutierrez was going to come out. And then he’d be meat for the dogs as well.
LANNY WATCHED THE black van pull away from the curb with a twisted feeling in his guts. He’d done well the past few years out of his relationship with Mr. Luther. The money that went into the safe sunk into the concrete floor of his garage was going to provide him with a nicer retirement than anything he was going to get from the parish or the state. The cocaine and weed Luther’s boys occasionally dropped off for him was always the best quality, and every now and then, after he’d slipped a particularly valuable tip about an upcoming drug raid, some hot little hooker would slip up beside him at the bar and whisper, “Mr. Luther sent me.” He’d been well taken care of, and Mr. Luther had always seemed to respect the one rule he’d laid out when he first began working for him. “I ain’t doin’ nothing that’s going to put another officer in danger,” he’d said, and Luther had nodded approvingly. “’Course not,” he’d said. Now, it seemed, the deal had changed. And the officer in question was a fed, no less. He didn’t know what they meant to do with the poor bastard they’d carried to the van, but it couldn’t be anything good. That meant real trouble, and real scrutiny, the likes of which Lanny wasn’t sure any of them could bear. He didn’t know what to do. If he told, he’d be putting his own nuts in the vise. He also remembered what Luther had said inside the house: You ain’t the only one on the payroll. If he rolled over, Luther would probably know within the hour. People who crossed Wallace Luther tended to disappear. He sighed and walked to his car. He was going to have to keep playing the game. He only had three years left until he could retire, but they stretched out in front of him like centuries.
As he was getting into his own vehicle, he saw a car coming up the deserted street, moving at high speed. It slid to a halt in front of the house. Chance Cahill leaped out of the driver’s side. An older man Lanny didn’t recognize got out of the other, more slowly.
“Knight,” Cahill called out as she recognized him. “You see anything?”
“Hey, Cahill,” he said, walking toward them. “Nope. No one. No one’s home at either place.”
Cahill slammed the door. “Fuck!” She strode to the door of the house and quickly up the steps. “Charleyboy!” she hollered, pounding on the door. “Open this goddamn door!”
Lanny looked at the older guy and noticed the shoulder holster. The man noticed Lanny’s attention and stuck out a hand. “Wyatt McGee.”
Lanny didn’t take the hand. “Uh-huh. And what’s your interest here, Mr. McGee?”
“Personal.”
Lanny wasn’t buying it. The guy had cop written all over him. But he was in plainclothes, with no badge, but with a firearm in a shoulder rig. The whole thing seemed off-kilter. As they stared at each other, Cahill came charging back. She looked mad enough to eat nails and spit rust. “I already knocked, Cahill,” Lanny said. “I told you, no one’s home.”
Cahill was smacking her hand against the top of the car in agitation, staring at the house. “Where the hell did he go?” she muttered. “Where…” She began walking across the street, to an abandoned house. Lanny assumed it was the place Delphine had mentioned, where the fed had been set up doing surveillance.
“So,” he called out, “I’m gonna just move along, okay?”
“No,” Cahill called back over her shoulder. “Stay there. Keep an eye out.” She stopped and turned back. “Give me your flashlight.” Reluctantly, Lanny pulled his Maglite from his belt and handed it over.
“Thanks.” She headed back to the house. The older guy, McGee, was following her.
“Fuck this,” Lanny muttered, but he stood by the car anyway. He didn’t know what else to do.
CHANCE PUSHED her way through the overgrown alley beside the house, headed for the back door. It opened up into a tiny backyard, also choked with knee-high weeds. The tiny sputtering flares of lightning bugs provided the only illumination until Cahill snapped on the flashlight. The back door was standing open.
“Wait,” McGee said as she drew her pistol and started inside.
She turned back, brow furrowed in irritation. She hoped he wasn’t going to pull any shit about going in first. “What?”
He was holding up a black cable. The silvered ends of the plugs gleamed in the light. “This was in the grass.”
She looked back into the darkness of the house. “That’s from the surveillance gear.” She paused for a moment, wondering. Then she headed inside; light held off and way from her body, pistol held out before her.
The house was empty and silent. Chance played the light across the walls and floor as she walked to the front room. The desk where they’d set up the recorders was empty. The place had been cleaned out, as if the operation had never occurred. She quickly checked the other rooms, knowing she wouldn’t find anything, but needing to make sure. She went to the front room again and stood there, trying to think, her frustration almost boiling over. She knew something had happened to Winslow, that it was almost certainly bad, and that it had something to do with Luther. She went back out.
McGee was at the back of the lot, examining the trampled vegetation. “Someone’s been through here,” he said. “Let me see the light.”
She shone the light on the space where a low, vine-covered metal fence marked the back of the lot. There was a metal gate in the fence, also nearly covered with vines. “That’s how we get in,” Chance said. “To avoid being seen from the road. There’s a vacant lot in back.”
McGee opened the gate. “Come on.” She followed, trying to hold the light high enough to shine it over his shoulder. She couldn’t reach. He looked back at her and chuckled. “Maybe you should go first.”
“Good idea.” She took the lead and he followed her through the short tunnel of long-untended shrubbery that led to the back lot. The grass here was also trampled down, as if a large vehicle had been parked there. She frowned. “We don’t leave a vehicle here. We get dropped off so as not to draw any more attention than we have to.”
“Well, someone’s been parked here. And recently. Who knows about this place? And how it leads to the house?”
“Well, Winslow and me, of course. Whoever’s in charge of this at the DEA. And…anyone who lives in the neighborhood.”
“Like this guy Charleyboy?”
“Yeah.”
“Does he, maybe, know a back way to his own house? Some way where you couldn’t see someone coming in?”
“I don’t know. But probably. That…that fucking lowlife!” She spat the last word. “He set Winslow up.”
“That fits the evidence.” McGee’s voice was calm.
Chance realized that her anger and outrage weren’t going to solve anything. She took a deep breath. “He’s alive,” she said, wishing it could be with more conviction. “Until we know for sure otherwise, he’s alive.”
“Yep,” Wyatt said. “That’s the only way to play this.”
She sighed. “And we have to let the DEA know.”
“Yeah.
Not going to be a comfortable conversation. But hey, if this was easy, we wouldn’t be pulling down the big bucks, right?”
She laughed and shook her head. “That’s exactly the kind of thing my dad always says.”
Wyatt smiled. “He in law enforcement?”
She nodded. “State police.”
“Retired?”
“Disabled. Injured in the line. He got shot.”
He grimaced. “That’s hard. But it sounds like he raised you to take over the family business.”
“Something like that.” She started for the front of the house. “Come on.” As she did, the flat bang of gunshots from the front of the house split the night.
“Shit,” Chance said. She broke into a run.
“TURN LEFT HERE,” Lana said. She was slumped down in the passenger seat, holding her phone up in front of her face. The shotgun they’d taken from the country store was propped up next to her. The harsh light of the screen accentuated the dark circles under her eyes and the light sheen of sweat on her brow. Tyler could tell she needed her “medicine.”
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Mick demanded.
Tyler looked out the window at the darkened streets. This area looked extremely sketchy to him. But then, where else would he expect to find his birth mother? The thought made him immediately ashamed. Then the shame made him angry. Why the hell should he even be here, looking for the woman who’d left him to be raised by others? The people who’d brought him up were his parents. He owed Savannah nothing.
Then he saw her.
They were stopped at a four-way intersection, with Lana and Mick squabbling over whether they were even in the right neighborhood and whether they should keep trusting Google Maps to guide them to the address Savannah had provided. A green pickup truck pulled up to the cross street and waited for them to go. When they didn’t, the person behind the wheel looked over at them impatiently, leaning forward slightly to get a better look. The sight of her face behind the glass hit Tyler like an electric shock.
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