by Tim Downs
48
Nick worked his way back between the rooftops, checking his GPS receiver as he went. It wasn’t far now—just a few more meters away. Straight ahead of him was a single-story house with an asphalt-shingle roof, no different from six thousand others in the Lower Nine—except for the fact that this might be the last house he would ever see.
Nick spotted the attic vent and motored toward it. The attic was the only portion of the house above water; if J.T. was there, he would be inside. He started to call out as he approached but decided not to—his voice would carry easily over the still water, and if Turlock had recently left, there was no sense in calling him back.
As Nick approached the attic vent, another boat slid quietly out from behind the house. It was Turlock—and he was holding a gun.
“Cut your engine,” Turlock said. “Do it now.”
“This used to be such a nice neighborhood,” Nick said. “Now they’re letting everyone in.”
“You don’t seem surprised to see me. I’m a little disappointed.”
“It’s sort of like hemorrhoids,” Nick said. “You know they’ll be back, you just don’t know when.”
“I know what you mean. I’ve had the same experience with you.”
“Glad to oblige.”
“You cost me a partner.”
“That wasn’t my fault, Frank—you’ll have to talk to the alligators about that. You know, I’ve been reading up on alligators lately. Here’s an interesting fact: Alligators can’t chew. They just rip off huge chunks of flesh and hold it in their jaws until it decomposes enough to swallow whole. That means your partner should be around for a few days—long enough to get a DNA sample and prove that he was there.”
“Now, who would want to do that?”
“Dr. Woodbridge might. She doesn’t like people shooting at her—she’s picky about things like that.” Nick glanced down at Turlock’s hand. “We both are.”
“You didn’t mention that Dr. Woodbridge was with you that night.”
“Didn’t I? Oh, yes, we’ve been spending a lot of time together lately. Take yesterday, for example—we made a very interesting side trip to the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court.”
Turlock paused. “You don’t say.”
“It was very educational. A sheriff ’s deputy there told us all about it—how the basement flooded, how all kinds of court records and case evidence have been destroyed.”
“Seems I heard something about that.”
“I’ll bet you did. That’s just the sort of news that would get your attention, now, wouldn’t it? I imagine the DEA spends a good bit of time at that courthouse. Orleans Parish—that covers the entire city of New Orleans, doesn’t it? I’ll bet you boys make quite a few arrests around there—some of them right here in the Lower Nine.”
“A few,” Turlock said.
“Just think about all those cases that might not make it to trial now—all the past convictions that might be overturned on appeal. All that work—all that time—it’s enough to break your heart.”
“You have no idea,” Turlock said.
“Oh, I don’t know, Frank—lots of people feel that way from time to time. Take me, for instance: I’ve been trying to catch a couple of murderers for a week now, and I’m getting nowhere—I keep losing all the physical evidence.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“I’m not the only one who’s frustrated. There’s a cop who’s been working in the Lower Nine—he keeps rescuing people all day long, but they still seem to keep dying at night. Poor guy, he just can’t seem to get ahead. Maybe you’ve heard of him—a guy named LaTourneau.”
Turlock didn’t answer.
J.T. stood with his ear pressed against the attic vent. He heard every word that Nick had said—and every word spoken by the man he called Frank.
When J.T. first heard Turlock call out to him he almost shouted back, but something warned him not to—something in the man’s voice. “I’m a friend of Nick,” the man said—but it wasn’t Jerry’s voice, and Nick never mentioned other friends. Maybe this was the man who put him here—the one who made him sick to his stomach and left him here to rot. Nick would never do that. Nick would never leave him in a place like this, a place so hot that you felt dizzy and weak and you sweated until your skin got cold and clammy and your tongue got glued to the roof of your mouth.
That’s why J.T. didn’t shout back—that’s why he lay down on the floor and pretended to be dead. He heard the man pry off the board—he could hear the squeaking of the nails. And when the man hammered the board back on again, that’s when he knew: This was no friend.
When he heard Turlock’s voice a second time, it was at the opposite end of the house—the one with the slats. He was talking to someone else this time, but who? J.T. pressed his ear against the slats and listened—and that’s when he heard Nick’s voice.
He started to shout again—to let Nick know that he was there, just a few yards away, trapped inside the attic, hot and tired and hungry—but again he decided not to. He decided to listen; that’s when he knew that Nick was in trouble.
That’s when he knew that he had to help.
The attic was as black as a cavern. J.T. quickly felt his way across the floor joists, testing with his foot for the opening that led down into the house. When he found it, he eased onto the ladder and stepped down into the water until it was almost up to his neck. He looked back at the faint moonlight glowing through the slats at the attic’s end. That was the wall—that was how far he had to swim.
That ain’t nothin’, he told himself. I’m a real good swimmer—I can hold my breath for a long, long time.
He felt something brush by his leg. He thought about the house—about the way it might be shaped, about windows and doors and where they might be.
I been in lots of houses like this. This one’s no different.
He felt a sudden rush of fear. He imagined himself trapped, frantic, with no way to go forward and no way back.
Nick did it, he told himself. If Nick can do it, so can I.
He summoned all his courage, took his deepest breath, and dived in.
He headed directly toward the end of the house. That’s where Nick was—that’s where he needed to go. He swam hard at first, hoping to cover the distance in the shortest possible time—but then he remembered how hard he had to breathe whenever he ran as fast as he could, so he eased up a little and paced himself instead. He swam along the ceiling like a cockroach; the ocean of darkness around him seemed overwhelming, and it was reassuring to feel something real and solid against his back.
Bump! A wall—he felt his first wave of panic.
He felt along the wall with both hands. His memory of other houses told him to go left, and the decision was a good one—in a few seconds he found the top of a doorway and swam through.
But in the process of twisting through the doorway and righting himself again, he became disoriented. He wasn’t sure which direction to head now—but he was sure of one thing: He was running out of air, and fast.
He started to swim harder again, but in just a few inches his head bumped something else—something hard. He frantically ran his hands over it: a hinge—a door of some kind. He pulled the door open and tried to reach through, but his hand hit something else—a stack of dishes—cups and saucers. He jerked his hand out and felt the dishes slide out and fall, drifting silently back and forth in the water like leaves settling to the ground. It was a cabinet—he was in a kitchen—but facing which way? Where was he supposed to go now?
He felt his lungs heave, desperate for air.
He turned to the left and swam desperately, but once again in just a few feet his head bumped into something hard—something made of metal this time.
His head was aching, throbbing from lack of oxygen. He felt as if his chest was about to explode. He wanted to cry; maybe he was already crying, but there was no way to feel the tears in water as warm as spit. He floated motionless, trying to think w
hat to do—what Nick would do—but no ideas came to his mind. There was no way forward and no way back, and he could only summon one thought.
Where is my father?
49
“You probably know LaTourneau,” Nick said. “He’s a methampheta-mine addict, and the DEA keeps tabs on people like that. We stopped off at his house yesterday and took a look around. Guess what we found? Somebody’s been supplying him with speed, then using him like a hopped-up errand boy to do their dirty work. Now, who would do a thing like that? If you ask me, that’s the sort of person who needs investigating; that’s the kind of guy you want to keep tabs on.”
“LaTourneau started using on his own,” Turlock said. “We had nothing to do with that. We got a call from NOPD Internal Affairs—they said they had a drug-abuse situation with one of their officers. They sent him to rehab and gave him a long leave of absence—asked us to find the supplier.”
“So you took over his rehab.”
“LaTourneau was over the edge when we found him. He was going down anyway—we did the poor guy a favor.”
“You call that a favor?”
“We tracked down LaTourneau’s supplier. Turns out he was buying from the same guys who supplied his own daughter—the two who set up the meth lab out in the bayou. We made the mistake of telling LaTourneau; the next day he took a boat out there and shot both of them dead.”
“You ‘made the mistake’ of telling him. Now was it really a mistake, Frank? Or were you hoping that he would take care of a little problem for you? I hear that clandestine meth labs are becoming quite a problem for the DEA; so you just let it slip to LaTourneau that you knew where to find one—one that he’d be especially motivated to do something about.”
“It was his daughter, Polchak—he lost his head, that’s all. We just looked the other way.”
“But not for long—because LaTourneau wasn’t quite as tidy as you’d hoped he’d be; he just threw the bodies in the water, and you knew that somebody might eventually discover them. So when Katrina came along you saw a way to take care of that little problem; you dredged up the two bodies from the bayou and dumped them in the Lower Nine, didn’t you?”
“That’s about it.”
“But when the hurricane hit—when the courthouse flooded—you got a little more ambitious, didn’t you? It wasn’t just about covering your tracks anymore, and that’s when you realized that LaTourneau could be a very useful guy. Why should you get your hands dirty? You could just give LaTourneau your grocery list and let him do the shopping for you.”
“The people he killed were all in the drug trade, Polchak—they were just like the ones who murdered his daughter. Men lose their kids to drugs all the time; most of them never get to do anything about it. We gave LaTourneau that chance—that was the favor.”
“Sorry if I don’t appreciate the favor,” Nick said. “Don’t forget, I lost a partner in all this. But now that I think about it, that happened in the daytime—so that wasn’t LaTourneau’s work, was it?”
“I tried to warn you. You wouldn’t let it go.”
“Yes, I have that tendency—my psychiatrist keeps warning me about it. Have you met my psychiatrist? Dr. Woodbridge—I mentioned her before. Psychiatrists have a funny way of getting inside your head; before you know it, they know everything that you know.”
“What a nightmare that must be.”
“Can you imagine? Dead partners, bodies with strange anomalies, clandestine meth labs in remote bayous, attics that blow up the minute you step inside—she knows every detail. And believe me, Frank—if anything happens to me, she’ll tell.”
“I’ll take my chances with her.”
“I’ve made that mistake. I don’t recommend it.”
“I went to a lot of trouble to get you out here. Do you really think I’m going to let you go?”
“No, I don’t,” Nick said. “I’m only interested in the boy—he’s the only reason I’m here.”
“Sorry,” Turlock said. “You’re a little late.”
J.T. began to twist frantically in the water. He shoved hard against the metal surface in front of him—maybe it would move, maybe it would let him by. He felt the metal flex a little and it shifted in the water. Whatever it was, it was big, like a box, with flat sides—and it was floating against the ceiling.
Then he remembered what Nick had told him: Refrigerators float because they’re filled with air.
He swam underneath the refrigerator and felt along the surface. He found a handle—the door was facing down. He pulled on the handle but nothing happened. He had no leverage—he had nothing to pull against. He jerked on the handle again and again. His lungs were on fire, and the knowledge that there was air just a few inches away made it even worse.
What would Nick do? He tried to think.
He rotated upside down and planted his feet against the ceiling—then he grasped the handle with both hands and pushed upward with all the strength he had left. The door slowly opened and swung down into the water. The refrigerator rocked from side to side, bobbing like a cork, knocking against the ceiling, releasing huge bubbles of air that rolled out from underneath and gurgled up the sides.
J.T. pulled himself around the edge and shoved his head in between two shelves—but he couldn’t find the air. Half the space was filled with plastic containers and rotting food that had fallen down against the door. He dug his way through it like a mole, clawing his way up until his head finally hit the back of the refrigerator—then his lungs exploded and he took his first frantic breath. The air was hot and foul, filled with the stench of mold and slime that had been accumulating for a week. But it didn’t matter—it was air.
He floated in the darkness, panting like a dog, listening to his rasping breath echoing off the walls just inches from his face.
50
“Where is the boy?” Nick asked.
“He’s dead,” Turlock said. “Too bad about that.”
“You said he was here. You told me he was sleeping.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d come. I didn’t want you running off half-cocked.”
Nick nodded toward the attic. “Is he in there?”
“Yeah, he’s in there.”
“J.T.!” Nick shouted.
There was no reply.
“J.T.! It’s Nick! Can you hear me? It’s all right—I came to take you away!”
Still nothing.
“You shouldn’t lie to the boy,” Turlock said.
Nick glared at Turlock; he could barely contain his rage. “Did you put him in there? Did you seal up that attic and leave him in there to bake all day? Shame on you, Frank—he was just a kid.”
“Like I said—it’s too bad.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?”
Turlock didn’t reply.
“Take a look around, Frank—the whole city’s underwater. Lots of good people are suffering right now, and yes—some people are taking advantage. They’re roaming the streets, looting the stores, even taking potshots at rescue helicopters—and they’re all getting away with it right now, because there’s no law. But you don’t kill the good ones to get to the bad ones—that sort of defeats the point. I thought you’d be bright enough to figure that out. Apparently not.”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Turlock said.
“I understand more than you think. See, I’m basically in the same line of work you are—I catch bad guys. And when I see one of them getting away, it really bothers me—it’s hard to let it go. I can understand how you feel—I can even understand why you did what you did—but you didn’t just want to stop the drug dealers, did you? You wanted to stop the drug dealers and get away with it—and that’s different. The minute you killed Jerry, everything changed. This wasn’t about you saving the world anymore—this was about you saving your own skin.”
Turlock shook his head. “You know, I’ve spent twenty-five years with the DEA, most of it on the streets in run-down neighborhoods like this one
—tracking down dealers, breaking up supply rings, kicking down doors, busting a few heads. It’s a dirty business, Polchak. I’ve lost friends and I’ve lost partners—more than one—but I like to think it’s been worth it, because I’ve managed to take a lot of bad people off the streets. Now a hurricane comes along and threatens to put them all back again? Sorry—Detwiler and me, we couldn’t just sit back and let that happen. So we killed a few people—we ‘took the law into our own hands’—but what are you supposed to do when there’s no law left? You can think whatever you want, Polchak—first watch your own daughter die of a drug overdose, then come and talk to me about ‘due process.’”
“How noble,” Nick said. “Tell me something, Frank: Where is LaTourneau getting his drugs now?”
“How should I know?”
“You have to know; it’s a critical element in all this, isn’t it? LaTourneau isn’t following your orders—he thinks he’s listening to the spirit of his dear departed daughter. To keep that little scam going you have to feed his psychosis—and that requires a steady flow of drugs. I was at his house, remember? I saw the pill bottle in the medicine cabinet and all the empties in the trash. Tell me, does the DEA keep a handy supply of methamphetamine for situations like this? Or have you found another source?”
Turlock didn’t answer.
“You told me something in Denny’s office—that day we first met. You said that after the hurricane, people in the drug trade would see opportunities to get ahead. You said a dealer might see the chance to become a distributor, or a distributor might try to become a major supplier. Is that what happened here, Frank? Did you and Detwiler see this whole disaster as a chance to move up in the world? Or do you really expect me to buy your ‘noble vigilante’ angle?”
“Think what you want,” Turlock said. “I’ve got no apologies to make. There wasn’t a man we killed who didn’t deserve to die ten times over.”
“J.T. didn’t.”
Turlock shrugged. “He got caught in the cross fire—just like you.”
Now Nick heard the sound of another boat’s engine; it was approaching from behind. He turned and looked, but in the darkness saw nothing. He looked back at Turlock again—Turlock showed no sign of surprise or concern.