12 Bullets Read online

  “Lotta numbers. Alexandre Louvier got a nice email from his oldest relative in France, Mademoiselle Veronique Louvier Lussane, 93-years old. She compliments him on the way he’s handling the finances of the extended Louvier family. I told you the Louvier wealth dates back to the middle ages. While the world went through war after war, recessions, depressions, revolutions, the Louviers and other families – French, Dutch, English, Swiss – held on to their money through banks. Banks run the world and I’m learning more about it all the time.”

  With no breeze, they are quickly overheated and Jessie rises, moves to the controls and turns down the heat, resettles next to him.

  “Juanita showed me an article online about Hollywood actresses accused of being sexist for wearing revealing outfits on the red carpet. A couple writers accuse them of flaunting their sexuality, making people uncomfortable, putting men on the defensive, daring people to look.

  “That’s so bogus. Women wearing sexy outfits are sexist?” Jessie goes on, sitting up on the edge of the Jacuzzi, water glimmering on her skin in the light from the kitchen. Beau moves across the tub and checks her out – automatically.

  “Flaunting our sexuality?” Her voice rises – “But you’re calling out to be harassed, getting men to cat call. Like we make men cat call. Let them cat call.”

  They both sip their wine and Beau looks around for Melbourne.

  “When I was eighteen.” She’s not finished with this. “I performed the ultimate flash. Posing nude for a photographer in front of a dozen construction workers.”

  She rolls her shoulders, boobs swaying and sits back in the water.

  “Professional photographer lived next door to Lizette. He’d been taking nude pictures of Lizette for years and I posed for him at Tulane University.”

  Beau makes a pained face. “Tulane students saw you naked? Fuckin’ Greenies.”

  That’s right – think Jessie. My man’s an LSU Tiger.

  “Wore a black kimono, longer than the ones I have now, nothing under it. Took it off and posed on a Sunday but no students saw me. We didn’t go into the center of the campus, sticking to perimeter buildings. Lotta nice covered walkways between buildings. Interesting staircases.

  “Found a construction crew working on an old building. Kinda men who wolf-whistle at women. Couple of them waved me over when we came around the building. I had on the kimono, almost to my knees, all dolled up. The man said I was the best thing they’d seen since staring work on the building.

  “When I took off the kimono. Did they howl? Wolf-whistle? Harass me? Nope. They went quiet and just watched and enjoyed. A couple asked the photographer if they could stand next to me. Sure. Right next to me, a couple even giving me a look up close but no one touched me or said anything to me except thanks.”

  They settle next to one another in the bubbling water another again.

  “That flagstone by the oak tree,” goes Jessie. “That where you buried the black cat?”

  Beau nods.

  “I call her Donna although the cat called herself Rat Killer.”

  “Rat Killer?”

  “Everything has a name.”

  Beau closes his eyes again to let the churning water ease his weariness. When Jessie bumps him, he realizes he’s drowsy.

  “Come on, Babe. Let’s go to bed.”

  He smiles, turns to her.

  “Bring those Brigitte Bardot lips over.”

  She does and they kiss.

  “Come on.” She takes his hand and they climb out and Beau looks around the yard. She picks up the wine and glasses. His heartbeat rises and Beau strains to see in the dark corners of the yard and listens. So still, so quiet he could hear anything if there was something to hear. Nothing.

  He follows Jessie in, locks the French doors and turns on the alarm before going upstairs.

  3:20 A.M. AND BEAU sits on the rear deck listening to leaves rustling and watching branches sway in a blustery breeze. He had awakened to a coolness, didn’t realize a front was coming through, and put on the black silk pajamas Jessie gave him before coming down with his iPhone and magnum. He made sure Stella didn’t slip out – not that she ever has – and closed the door, reset the alarm by habit.

  The wind dies down and Blue Swan whispers softly now and Beau closes his eyes to envision a primeval forest, raw, with hulking trees and thick brush with narrow animal trails and bubbling blue-water creeks, rushing streams, air heavy with oxygen. He sees a maiden running along the trail, bare feet splashing across a stream, her long dark hair flowing behind her, hair down to her knees. A deer streaks across the trail in front of the maiden and she slows.

  A scratching opens Beau’s eyes and he sees Melbourne looking up at him. Beau picks up the food dish as the breeze rises and goes inside to find Stella standing in the center of the kitchen. He fills Melbourne’s bowl with Cocoa-Puffs and Purina cat chow, drops a few cat treats on the floor in front of Stella. He turns off the kitchen lights and the lights outside, goes out and feeds the coon in the darkness.

  Melbourne chomps his food as the wind becomes blustery again, whipping the leaves. A whoosh and the wind stops. A minute later Melbourne lifts his head from his food bowl and stands on his rear legs, looks across the yard before scrambling under the house.

  Beau catches movement inside the French doors, Stella lowering herself so only her eyes and ears can be seen through the French doors. Beau turns back to the yard to the sudden silence, feels the hair on the back of his neck rise. He picks up his magnum and a dead magnolia leaf crunches at the back of the yard. He spots a red dot across the yard, another red dot on this side of the yard, both moving toward the deck. Beau dives off the deck and three thumps shatter the French doors behind him. He runs to the blackest part of the yard, rolls under the camellia bushes.

  If the fuckers shot Stella!

  More thumps, just like in the movies, sounds of bullets going through a sound suppressor.

  Silencers.

  Bullets pepper the deck and swing his way through the camellia bush – so many rounds. Beau takes aim but the red dots go away, replaced by clicking sounds as guns are reloaded. Two dark figures rush forward at a crouch toward the deck.

  Beau takes in a breath, lets half out, holds it as he takes careful aim at the one coming from the far side of the yard and fires three rounds, sees the figure tumble. Beau rolls past the camellias as the other figure fires at the bush and Beau feels the heat of a bullet rush past his face. He traces the red dot and figure with this night sights and drops the figure with three more rounds.

  He’s got six bullets left. He rolls back under the camellia bushes, waits, his heart thumping. Long seconds tick by. No movement. No sound until he hears a whisper from the French doors.

  “John?”

  Jessie.

  “Get back,” he says. “Call 911.”

  “Already have.”

  “Wait for the cops at the front door.”

  Beau’s gaze moves to where the two figures tumbled, sees their bodies as charcoal gray lumps on the black lawn. He keeps looking from one to the other. Still no movement.

  Jessie, her Glock in hand, races to the front of the house, puts the Glock on the table next to the front door. She re-wraps her shortie red kimono, the one barely covering her ass and looks out the peep hole for the police. She calls 911 again on her cell.

  The wind is gone and Beau keeps focused on the two prone figures. A streetcar clangs up front, a car taps its horn, a distant ship’s horn echoes mournfully from the river. Minutes crawl by. Something moves on the other side of the fence wall. There it is again.

  “CIU 1? You OK?”

  “Yeah. Go to the gate. I’ll let you in.”

  Beau crawls to the wall, gets up slowly and moves to the black steel gate and puts his index finger on the lock pad. The gate pops open and two cops in uniform come in and stop immediately. Beau tells them to cover the yard. He tip-toes toward the deck and the French doors open.

  “Beau, you OK?” man�
�s voice.

  “Yeah. Right here.”

  He hears shuffling on the deck, two cops with shotguns. Beau goes up on the deck as two more men with Colt M4 carbines come out on the deck and go down on their bellies to cover the yard. Beau realizes a third man with a M4 stands in the open doors is Lenny Schanbein, a police academy classmate and commander of the Special Response Team.

  “I’m gonna hit the lights,” goes Beau.

  Shanbein nods, raises his M4.

  Beau scoops up his iPhone on the way in, avoids the glass on the kitchen floor. The rear yard lights flash on, illuminating most of the yard. Shanbein whispers for Beau to stay inside. The men with shotguns move to the men lying in the yard, one cop covers the prone figures while the other checks for vitals.

  Cop checking the two on the ground, makes the cut-throat signal, sliding a hand across his throat. They’re dead. The shotgunners move to the far end of the yard and begin a slow check of the corners.

  “You should be inside,” Shanbein tells Beau.

  “How’d SRT get here so quickly?”

  Shanbein snickers. “The chief didn’t tell you? SRT has been covering you the last few nights. You’re so fuckin’ important, Mr. Beau-the-Great.”

  Beau and Shanbein never got along, rivals at the Academy, ever since Beau won the shooting award as the best marksman in the class.

  The two SRT men lying on the deck stand.

  “All clear.”

  Shanbein calls another SRT unit on the radio, gets an all-clear there and he tells Beau the rest of his team is outside checking the neighborhood. He gives Beau a snide look.

  “Except for my men inside checking out your girlfriend in that shortie robe.”

  Beau turns to see Jessie coming into the kitchen, flipping on the lights, Glock in her right hand, hair ruffled, no make-up, Kimono short and sexy. Jessie’s eyes find his and her shoulders slump and he winks. She opens her arms and he envelopes her, hugs her hard, knows the back of her kimono rises, sees two SRT men looking at her backside as they come in behind her.

  “Is Stella OK?”

  “Are you OK?”

  He nods, looks around the kitchen.

  “Did they hit Stella? She was right in here.”

  “I don’t see any blood.”

  Shanbein steps back in. “OK, we got two dead outside. The scene secure and we’ll wait for Homicide.”

  Beau and Jessie put their weapons on the kitchen counter, Jessie backing away.

  “I’ll put on some clothes.”

  The two men behind her moan.

  She chuckles at them, brushes past and turns as she reaches the dining room Beau sees the men watching her and her butt is covered. Barely.

  Shanbein taps Beau’s shoulder with a fist. “OK, I fuckin’ surrender. You are the Great Whatever. Ya’ got both of them.”

  Beau moves back to the shattered French doors, now standing open, looks out at the two shotgunners standing over the two bodies. So still, no breeze, no wind and he realizes how the blustery breeze had shut down just before the two men started across the yard, as if Blue Swan had drawn the wind into her lungs to catch Beau’s attention. Beware a sudden stillness.

  How’d it go in the movies? It’s quiet. Too quiet. A brush of wind blows through the trees now and Beau knows Blue Swan is back.

  Homicide Detectives, frizzy-haired Tim Rothman and Andy Garcia lookalike Mike Gonzales, arrive just before the human grizzly bear – Captain Mark Land in his usual brown suit. Land shakes his head at Beau who wonders why is he here.

  Land growls, says, “Fuckin’ Coroner’s Office is taking his time.”

  Jessie comes in wearing one of Beau’s sky-blue PANO T-shirts and faded jeans, white tennis shoes.

  Beau raises his iPhone and calls Juanita, wakes her, tells her what happened.

  “Oh, my God. I’ll grab Jordan on the way.”

  “Get over to Jessie’s parents’ house. Call Stan Smith right away and have his men relieve you before you come over.”

  Jessie waits until he’s off the phone.

  “Stella’s on our bed, head down, ears lowered. She gave me an ‘Arowl’ when I tried to pet her. She’s uninjured.” Jessie moves to the coffee pot. “I closed her in the room.”

  Beau waves to his magnum on the counter and tells Land, “I was sitting on the back deck …”

  “Don’t say anything to us. We’re not handling this. The FBI’s coming.”

  “What?”

  “Why the fuck you think I’m here? The chief called me.”

  One of the two SRT men who’d been checking out Jessie in her kimono leads a young woman in green scrubs and carrying a clipboard through the kitchen. She gives the men a confused look, shrugs and says she’s the coroner’s investigator.

  Mike Gonzales, God’s-gift-to-women as he calls himself, gives the woman his best smile and leads her outside to the bodies with Captain Land and Beau trailing. They make sure to follow her footsteps, Beau spotting a few brass shell casings on the grass. He eases around as they check the first body.

  Big guy, maybe Beau’s height, 6’2” but thicker and wearing black cap, black turtleneck covered by black body armor. Fuckin’ H&K MP5 machine gun at his feet. Expensive weapon. Military grade with a long sound suppressor attached.

  One bullet hole through his neck, the other through his temple. The second body is a little smaller, dressed the say way. A bullet hole through his chin, another through the top of his head. The man came crouched, right for Beau, who fired at the approaching red dot.

  “Man, that’s some great shooting.”

  Let them think he’s that good. Beau doesn’t say it. Lucky shots.

  Gonzales gets the coroner investigator’s name after she declares both men dead and they go back into the kitchen.

  Beau’s iPhone starts chanting and Rothman laughs at the war drums and Beau’s screen identifies the caller as ‘Washman’ as in Washington man. It’s Thomas James Madison, Director of ECON COM, the classified law enforcement initiative that funds NOPD’s CIU and special investigate units in other cities with high crime rates. Putting money where it’s needed.

  “Hello, there,” Beau answers.

  “Good to hear your voice.”

  “You almost didn’t.”

  “That’s why I’m calling. The NSA decoded messages four hours ago from the only known Tariq Brotherhood operative. From a villa outside Bordeaux, France. Took a while to decode it as an ongoing operation in New Orleans. The message read: ‘Dust order for knife killer’. We think that’s you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Dust is their kill code. As in dust off something. Someone. Same code they used in Paris to assassinate those bankers before you interrupted them.”

  “You’re telling me the two guys I just killed are Tariq separatists?”

  “Hired by the Tariqs. LCN hit men. Racconto Family most likely. Tariqs have no operatives in the U.S. so it looks like they hired Mafiosi. Our mutual friend at the NSA put it all together.”

  Mutual friend. That’s Donna Elena Palma, the young girl from the dark days after Katrina, the girl Beau saved from the Brown Ravens, the girl who saved Beau after that last climactic gunfight, the girl with the language and analytical skills who went with Thomas James Madison to Washington and the NSA.

  “She’s been watching over you like a guardian angel.”

  Shanbein calls out, “OK. SRT. Time to go. The FBI’s here.”

  Mark Land moves next to Beau.

  Madison says, “I’ll be arriving at 0810 on United from Washington. Can you send our ATF ace to pick me up?”

  “If he can find the airport on his own.”

  They disconnect. A familiar face steps into the kitchen as Jessie starts pouring coffees.

  FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the New Orleans Field Office Joe Esposito steps into the kitchen in a gray suit, followed by three FBI SRT men in heavy body armor, Special Forces machine guns, heads covered in black helmets with eye slits. They go straig
ht through the room and out into the yard.

  Esposito steps up to Jessie with a hand out for a cup of coffee.

  “Hello, Darling,” he says. “This was a close one.” He looks over his shoulder at Beau. “It appears you can be great all the time.”

  Beau comes over for a cup.

  “You need to stay away from facebook.”

  Mark Land tells Esposito. “Fires six shots in the dark at moving figures. Four hits. All fatal wounds.”

  “While the bad guys are firing machines guns at him,” Tim Rothman adds.

  “Hey, what happened to the good-looking coroner girl?” Gonzales asks.

  Rothman shoves him. “You lost her?”

  Mark Land goes, “She’s pissed the FBI’s taking the bodies.”

  Three men in gray lab coats come in carrying black cases.

  Esposito raises his cup to them.

  “We brought our own pathologist and crime lab techs.”

  Esposito looks at Captain Land. “Why don’t you and Beau go into the living room and he can tell you what happened in your usual initial interview so you can tell me so if there’s an error in his statement we can say Beau didn’t say that exactly. It was a mistake in translation.”

  “What?” goes Land.

  “No formal statement?” Jessie asks.

  “Exactly.”

  She looks at Beau and says, “You can’t lie to the FBI or misspeak if you don’t talk to them and the captain’s giving them what he thought he heard.”

  Mark Land’s eyes narrow and he tells Jessie, “You should be a detective.”

  “I am.”

  THEY ALL SIT in the living room with coffees – Beau and Jessie on the love seat, Juanita and Jordan at either end of the sofa, Esposito and Mark Land in easy chairs, Rothman and Gonzales in the other two armchairs.

  Beau to Jordan – “Before I forget. You’re picking up Mr. Madison at Moisant at 8 a.m. United Airlines.”

  “Moisant?”

  “Original name for Louis Armstrong Airport.”

  “Airport? The big one in Kenner?”

  Two FBI agents in suits step into the room, nod to Esposito who tells them to go ahead. Both tall white boys in their thirties with short blondish hair. Esposito introduces Special Agent Thomas Allison who clears his throat and looks at the notebook in his hands.