Nude in Red Read online

  Cover Art © 2015 Vincent De Noux

  NUDE IN RED

  O’Neil De Noux

  © 2015 O’Neil De Noux

  For my godson David

  NUDE IN RED is a work of fiction. The incidents and characters described herein are a product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright holder.

  Author Web Site: http://www.oneildenoux.net

  Twitter: ONeilDeNoux

  Published by

  Big Kiss Productions

  New Orleans

  First Printing 2015

  NUDE IN RED

  This is New Orleans – AK

  After Katrina

  Saturday

  • Magazine Street, 9:12 a.m.

  Her long brown hair flows behind as she cuts across Magazine Street, the woman not bothering to wait until she reaches the cross-walk at the corner. She wears dark sunglasses and Beau catches a glimpse of bright red lipstick before her short black dress rises in the breeze, flashing white panties. A passing car’s horn blows and she flicks her hand at it, the way French girls brush away remarks. She moves smoothly, like a cat in high heels over the broken banquette – what sidewalks are called in New Orleans. Her long legs could use some sun but look slim and sleek below that short dress.

  Beau watches her go into the Whitney Bank at the corner. That’s when he spies the bank robber exiting.

  Sitting at an outside table of CC’s Coffee House, corner Magazine and Jefferson Avenue, Detective John Raven Beau wears a black T-shirt over faded jeans and extra dark sunglasses. His Sketchers running shoes are black, as well as his murse lying on the tiny table next to his café-au-lait.

  The bank robber also wears sunglasses, a yellow T-shirt, green and white striped shorts, brown sandals with white socks. He looks like any other jerk-off wearing socks with sandals until the dye pack explodes in the paper bag he carries in his left hand. Trailing red-orange smoke, the man steps it up, moving along the banquette across the street.

  Beau reaches into his murse – that’s man-purse, actually a canvas 511 police tactical bag with a shoulder strap – and pulls out his badge holder with chain, draping it over his head, showing his NOPD star-and-crescent badge, then pulls his out his Glock as he stands, positions the strap of his murse around his chest, letting the bag rest against his back.

  The robber hurries, looking like a crane as his head bobs and his knotty knees rise and fall. He tries to outrun the smoke, extending the bag, but it keeps following him. The man’s wiry red hair bounces wildly. He stumbles on the uneven sidewalk and his sunglasses fall off. Beau keeps pace with him, moving along the opposite banquette, Glock held against his right leg. He has to go around a woman in a gold jumpsuit, who must see the Glock and lets out a little squeal.

  The robber cuts between two parked cars, drops the smoking bag on the hood of a beat-up Nissan – lime green with a brown fender – and fumbles with a set of keys. The fool locked his getaway car and as Beau crosses the street behind him, the detective can’t help thinking the oldest police cliché – Thank God criminals are stupid.

  The horn of an oncoming BMW blares as the car’s brakes squeal. It almost hits Beau who points his Glock at the driver who jams the brakes now. The robber turns, sees Beau and reaches for the revolver in his waistband. At ten feet, Beau levels the Glock at the man’s blinking eyes and growls. “Don’t move a fuckin’ muscle.”

  Beau continues forward.

  The man goes, “Aaaaa,” and actually tries to pull out the gun.

  Beau kicks him between the legs and the man crumbles, Beau shoving the muzzle of the Glock against the man’s neck and pulling the revolver from the man’s waistband, tossing it under the Nissan.

  Is that the BMW’s horn still blaring?

  Beau swings his murse around, pulls handcuffs from the main compartment and rolls the man over, cuffs him behind his back. Beau searches the man, make sure there’s no bomb or other weapon on the fucker, looks around to make sure the son-of-a-bitch doesn’t have an accomplice, sees the long legs and black dress and a Glock in her left hand. The Glock is pointed at the ground and there’s some sort of ID folder in her right hand.

  His gaze moves past full breasts up to that pretty face, red lips pursed now. Her chin drops and she peeks over the top of her sunglasses, gleeking him with a pair of light green eyes.

  “You’re police?” Beau says. Her ID is a state police commission.

  “Private Investigator. You need help, officer?”

  Beau nods, “Check out the car while I pick up this douche-bag.”

  The dye pack is spent, the hood of the Nissan covered in red-orange dust, smelling like acid. The man is crying now.

  The BMW pulls up behind Beau and the passenger side window rolls down as Beau takes his cell phone from his murse. The driver’s in his fifties, pig-looking face almost as white as his hair.

  “Are you some kinda maniac?”

  Beau puts his Glock away, reaches behind his back, pulls his obsidian knife from its sheath and holds it up. “I’m about to spill blood all over your car when I scalp this bank robber.”

  The Beamer pulls away, squealing rubber again.

  “Police,” the tinny voice of a radio dispatcher echoes through the cell phone speaker, “Is this call an emergency?”

  “3124 – Headquarters. You got a 64 bank robbery working? Whitney Magazine Branch.”

  “10-4,” the dispatcher answers.

  “I’m holding a 10-15 a half block up Magazine from the bank.”

  “You caught the robber?”

  “Yes, ma’am. You wanna send a unit by. It’s my day off.”

  Beau puts his knife away as the robber cries out and his knees start to buckle.

  “Don’t fall in the street, ass-hole.” Beau guides him around to the banquette. “You can wallow over here.”

  The man collapses in the grass beyond the banquette and curls up in a ball.

  Miss Long-legs-mini-dress-white-panties-and-Glock-in-hand leans against the rear passenger door of the Nissan, says, “This side’s locked. No body else in there.”

  She slips her Glock into her purse, taps her glasses back up to cover those eyes.

  This is the best looking girl I’ve ever seen with a Glock. Any weapon, actually.

  “Do you model? Department Store? One of those women behind the cosmetics counter, painting up ordinary women to look like you? I like that perfume you’re wearing.” The scent is light but effective.

  Why am I talking so fast?

  She shakes her head slowly, her face showing no expression and those pouty red lips draw Beau’s eyes.

  “You always stare at women like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you want to lick me up and down.”

  Whoa. Where’d that come from?

  “No. I don’t look at most women that way. Just the ones look like you.”

  Is that a slight smirk on her face?

  “You always this superficial?”

  “I’m a cop.”

  Brakes squeal and blue light rolls over them and Beau turns to see a Second District unit stop. Roy Maggio, who rode with Beau when he worked the Second District, looks out the passenger side and says, “What you got?”

  “64 suspect. Bank robber.”

  “You fuckin’ serious?”

  Beau points to the paper bag and powder on the hood. “He’s crying like a baby over here at my feet. Revolver he used is under the car. His sunglasses about twenty feet away.”

  Maggio
climbs out, tells the driver to go to the bank, start gathering witnesses. Find out what the fuck happened. Maggio is even taller than Beau who stands six-two. The man’s balding now. He moves between the cars to the banquette, looks Miss Black Dress up and down.

  “Who’s the talent?”

  “Private Eye. She’s a witness.”

  Another breeze raises the black dress and they get a view of the front of her panties now, sheer whites with a hint of dark bush beneath. She doesn’t bother to brush the dress down. Gravity does it after a couple pleasurable seconds.

  “Tell her I like the dress.”

  “You tell her. She’s three feet away.”

  “Y’all sound just like my cousin.” She runs her hands through her long, straight hair, her chest rising. Beau can make out the lines of her bra through the dress.

  She adds, “You know him.”

  “We do?”

  “LaStanza.”

  “Whoa!” Maggio says.

  Beau takes a step back. “You serious? I was just thinking you remind me of his wife.”

  “Lizette taught me how to look like this.”

  The bank robber cries even louder and Maggio tells him to shut the fuck up, reaches down and yanks the man up with one hand. Another unit pulls up and Maggio takes the robber to it, leans him against the hood, frisks him, replaces Beau’s cuffs with his before guiding the robber into the back seat. “Take him to CLU.”

  Maggio calls for the crime lab on his radio as he comes back, hands Beau his cuffs.

  “You gonna write me a supplement?”

  “Yep. You and me take the collar.”

  Maggio and Beau bump fists.

  “You want me to get a statement from the talent here?” Maggio smiles at her.

  “Naw. I’ll take care of it.”

  Maggio laughs. “I’m sure you will.” To the talent now, he says, “Lizette teach you how to flash your boobs at Mardi Gras?” Lizette, wife of Homicide Detective Dino LaStanza-turned-Private Eye, began flashing her luscious boobs on Bourbon Street a few years ago. She wore a mask but it didn’t take long for resourceful cops to realize who it was.

  “Lizette did a little butt-naked job on a balcony last Mardi Gras,” Maggio says.

  “Missed that,” Beau and the talent say almost together.

  Maggio starts backing toward the bank. “Secure the Nissan until the crime lab gets here, OK? I gotta make sure my rookie partner’s not screwing up the bank scene.”

  Beau takes off his vintage Ray Ban ‘Balorama’ sunglasses and the talent takes hers off as well. “Private Eye, right? You work with LaStanza?”

  “He calls me his ‘sidekick’.”

  “Sounds like him. Well, Miss Private Eye, you can punch out your statement on a computer at your office Monday and I’ll come by after you sign it. Haven’t seen LaStanza in a while. Unless you want to come to headquarters for a couple hours.” He extends his hand, “I’m Detective Beau.”

  Her mouth slowly opens and those green eyes sharpen as she shakes his hand.

  “As in John Raven Beau?”

  “Yep.”

  “Six-two, two hundred and change? You have such pale brown eyes, John Raven Beau. Half-Sioux right, half-Cajun, right? I like your accent. I’m Jessie Carini.”

  Not the accent again.

  “I don’t have an accent.”

  “Of course you do, silly. But it’s only slight.” She smiles for the first time and he thought she was pretty before. “You’re not cute, you know. You’re too damn dangerous-handsome to be cute.” She steps closer, reaches over to run her fingers along his three-day growth of beard on his square jaw. “In a rough sort of way. I bet you look nice in a tux.”

  He wasn’t about to say what he’s thinking. Not aloud, but if he doesn’t adjust his cock rising in his jeans, he’ll break something. The zipper hopefully.

  She nods at his murse now. “I like the look of your Glock.”

  “It’s an advanced model. G37B, like your model 26, baby Glock, only mine’s a gift from ATF right after Katrina. It’s special made, sighted by experts with recoil dampening, very little kick.”

  “That finish looks sexy.”

  They stand a little over a foot apart, the breeze fluttering her dress again, her perfume brushing him. She’s about five-four, Beau thinks. Hard to tell with those stiletto heels.

  “The black and gray camouflage is light-absorbing. Drop it in the dark and you can’t find it with a flashlight. Gotta wait until daylight.”

  She smiles again and he notices a slight dimple in her left cheek.

  “What kind of knife was that?”

  “Obsidian. Volcanic rock. A Sioux knife. Razor sharp.”

  She pulls strands of hair from her lipstick as another breath of warm air washes over them. Beau resists looking down at her panties.

  “So what’ll you do after the crime lab comes?”

  “What do you have in mind?” He likes this flirty side.

  “Tempting, but I have somewhere to go and I’m already late.”

  “Well, thanks for the assist.” He extends his hand and she shakes it.

  “Anytime, John.”

  She takes a step back, smiles again and puts her sunglasses on and walks along the banquette, crossing Magazine Street again, the dress flapping and he wants to call out, thank her for the views but lets it go. He just watches until she rounds the corner at Octavia Street. Probably had to park on a side street, unless she lives around here.

  He’ll find out Monday.

  Monday

  • Police Headquarters, 8:01 a.m.

  It takes Beau a couple seconds to recognize the ringtone on his new iPhone. A snippet from a song by a French singer – Alizée. Song called J’en Ai Marre. He has no idea what she’s singing, but it’s a catchy tune and he’s seen the video on You Tube, hot looking brunette with gorgeous eyes and a naughty smile, tight body dancing soft and sexy, not like the frenzied American singers with their jerky bumping and grinding, flexing muscles, looking like linebackers.

  “Hello.”

  “Detective Beau, this is Cathy George, Superintendent Féroce’s assistant.”

  “Yes ma’am.” Beau remembers her. Nice middle-aged woman, prim and professional.

  “Are you near headquarters?”

  “I’m about to step into the ‘Police Only’ elevator.”

  “Then come right up. The chief would like to see you right away.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He disconnects, slips the phone back into the side pouch of his tactical pants – khakis made of RipStop fabric treated with Teflon to resist spills and stains, one of the new generation police pants with seven pockets. It came with a canvas belt to which he’s attached his carbon fiber holster on his right hip. The holster features a Serpa active retention system that automatically locks his 9mm Glock G37 weapon as its holstered. This is his duty weapon, a full-sized Glock with the same mottle finish as his expertly pre-sighted 9mm baby Glock, the same recoil dampening, only this one has seventeen turbo-shock semi-jacketed hollow-point rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. His badge is clipped to his belt just in front of his holster. Another carbon fiber case on his left side holds handcuffs and two magazines.

  Beau wears a white dress shirt. His footwear is sand colored canvas tactical running boots. After Katrina or AK, when most officers lost all of their clothes to the flood and companies like 511, Galls and LA Gear donated free clothes to NOPD officers, detectives began to dress this way and haven’t changed back. It’s the new casual dick look, instead of suit and ties. Good he shaved that morning because he usually goes two or three days between shaves.

  Cathy George, in her fifties, with short gray-white hair, waves Beau to a chair in the waiting area where he sits and thinks about the new superintendent of police. He’s never seen Superintendent Janet Féroce except for images on TV when she was selected by the newly-elected reform mayor a month ago. The first woman superintendent of NOPD, she looks tall and thin w
ith an angular face surrounded by thick, dark brown hair.

  She had been a security expert with the state department for twenty years, was chief of security for the US Embassy in Paris, worked on a few embassy bombings, Kenya and Yemen and was a key figure in uncovering the conspiracy to slip a suicide bomber into our embassy in Paris back in 2001.

  “Detective Beau.” Cathy George nods to him. “You may go in now.”

  Just past the heavy wooden doors, a smallish, young man greets Beau with a handshake.

  “I am Curtis Edwards, the superintendent’s personal assistant. Just want to introduce myself.”

  Beau had heard of this guy. Cousin of former Governor Edwin Edwards, fast Eddie, who went to federal prison on bullshit charges – the feds spent millions bugging the old man’s house and digging up a buncha crooks whose failed business dealings with Edwards proved they were all thieves. The crooks dug up by the feds cut a deal and Edwards took the fall. Curtis here is a law student at Loyola, a personal assistant who doesn’t seem to act like he’s full of himself like previous personal assistants to chiefs of police. One thought he was actually a cop. Tried to make a traffic stop and got his ass kicked by some unidentified citizen just before Katrina.

  The chief comes around her wide desk and smiles slightly as she extends a hand. Handshake not too firm but not weak.

  “Janet Féroce,” she says.

  “John Raven Beau.”

  She holds on to his hand as her deep set brown eyes stare into his. In heels she’s only a few inches shorter than Beau and is a thin woman. In a blue skirt-suit, she looks more like a corporate executive than a superintendent of police. Her dark brown hair is wavy and to her shoulders. She’s pretty but her body language says that’s not important to her. She stands stiffly, left fist against her hip and nods as she looks at Beau.

  “Have a seat.” She waves to the cushioned chairs in front of her desk and goes behind it. Edwards sits in a chair off to the side, a stenographer’s pad on his knee, pen in hand.

  “Excuse me, Chief. Am I in trouble?”