John Raven Beau Page 6

  “What the fuck happened to me last night?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  She shrugs and climbs off the daybed. Her skirt is up to her waist again. She doesn’t bother pushing it down. The puppy scampers out of her way, then follows her.

  “Where’s the bathroom?”

  I point over my shoulder, then head back up to the loft to climb into my gray suit. Sandie comes out as I’m pouring two cups of extra strong coffee and chicory. Her skirt is finally down and she’s run a brush through her hair. She sits on the stool and crosses her legs.

  “Your dog have a name?”

  And it comes to me in a flash – The Call of the Wild – so I tell her his name is Buck.

  “He’s cute,” she says. “Likes to lick my ankles when I’m peeing.”

  “He’s a charmer.”

  She stares at me for a moment then asks why the shirt and tie.

  “I’ve got Grand Jury at two o’clock.”

  “Did we fuck last night?” Her eyes are still bleary.

  “What the fuck were you drinking?”

  She nods and says, “Jagermeister, I think. That’s my usual, lately.”

  “You remember the bars in the Ninth Ward?”

  “Bars?”

  It’s no use. Even after more coffee, her memory’s fried. I cook up some bacon and eggs and she picks at it. I let Buck go out on deck, filling his food dish with fresh food and the leftover bacon, which he devours. I make sure I have Sandie’s new phone number before taking her home. She directs me back downtown to a converted warehouse on Jackson Avenue. As we pull up in front, she tells me her apartment is on the second floor, tucked along the back of the building. I tell her what she did last night, about where she’d gone and what she’d told me and then warn her about doing it again – without me covering her.

  “Especially dressed like this.”

  She laughs.

  “I’m serious. It’s a fuckin’ miracle you weren’t gang raped.” As she climbs out, I add, “I need you to go back, but not without me covering you.”

  She says, “Yeah. Yeah.” And gets out and doesn’t look back.

  “I mean it!”

  She wiggles her butt at me as she goes through the door.

  •

  Assistant District Attorney Alan Olson turns to me and asks, “How many times did you fire your weapon, Detective Beau?” A prissy looking man in a baby blue seersucker suit, a pink tie to go along with his white shirt, Olson looks about fifty years old.

  “Three times.”

  Olson looks at the Grand Jury and explains that the body of Casey Jones had three entry wounds, one in the sternum, one below the right nipple and one above the right eye.

  I watch the jury members, middle-aged citizens who stare at me with owl eyes as Olson describes the destructiveness of my hollow-point bullets. The jurors are almost innocent in their curiosity, like children staring at someone dangerous, someone downright lethal. Olson goes on about the shooting then asks a question I almost miss.

  “Oh, I had no choice,” I explain. “In the exchange of gunfire, I aimed and saw him and fired. We all fired.”

  “Detective Beau was the only one to hit what he fired at.” Olson then goes on about the nick on my face. If this wasn’t justifiable homicide he says, if this wasn’t self-defense, he’s never seen it. A half hour later, as I sit in the waiting room, Olson comes out and waves me forward. He puts a friendly hand on my shoulder as he leads me out into the hall.

  “I’ve never indicted a cop,” Olson brags, then explains that the shooting in Exchange Alley has been classified as justifiable homicide. I’m off the hook. Olson goes on, like a typical lawyer, to explain I can still be sued by the family of Casey Jones. “If anyone comes forward to claim the body,” he adds.

  Of course, and when that happens, a school of lawyers, like sharks, will encircle the family and convince them to file suit. What have they got to lose?

  “I handled the Algiers Shooting,” Olson says with a swagger.

  Algiers? I’m confused. Cops were indicted in that case. So I ask.

  “No one was indicted for shooting anyone. Later some went to federal prison for beating witnesses.” Olson smiles and says he has to go and leaves me at the door at the end of the hall.

  I step out of the Criminal Courts Building and look back at the hulking cement structure. Covering a city block, it’s a monument to the 1930s, a brooding municipal courthouse that looks as if it was carved from a single block of gray stone.

  I remember reading about the Algiers case. Back in 1980s, a patrolman was murdered in Algiers. An intense investigation followed, leading to the killer and his confederates who lived in a shotgun house in a lower-class area of Algiers. Detectives stormed the house around four a.m. Everyone inside was killed, including a woman who climbed out of a tub and armed herself with a pistol. The man who killed the patrolman was among those killed. His street name was Comanche, I think. No, he wasn’t a blood brother.

  What saved the cops, when the fuckin’ FBI and everyone else investigated the shooting, was the fact that a few minutes earlier, the detectives had kicked in the wrong door of a house a short distance away. Rushing inside, they shot no one in the wrong house. None of those occupants had guns. Damn good thing for everyone. Algiers was a good shooting, just like Exchange Alley.

  As I put on my dark sunglasses, the bright sun warming the top of my head, I know I’m lucky. Four shootings in my career and all good shootings. I’m an aberration, an abnormality. Most cops never fire their weapon at anyone in a twenty-year career. I’m an oddity, a curiosity to normal people who go about their lives and never injure anyone. I’ve sent four men to their graves. A police officer with a penchant for extreme violence, I don’t fit in.

  So what else is new?

  I walk around the corner, past the old parish prison with its high cement wall painted a faded white, and over to headquarters. The Homicide squad room, which the Task Force is using, is deserted. My government-issue, gray metal desk is next to the wall of windows facing South Broad Avenue. I check my “In” box and find three memos from Bob Kay. One is about a gang fight at a local high school in which several boys bragged about being involved in the cop killings. The second memo involves a psychic from Mississippi who’s coming in today with important information. The third is about the Manson Family. Seems the captain of the Intelligence Division, watching the re-run of that made-for-TV movie staring Steve Railsback as Manson, surmises that an off-shoot of the Manson Family, known to be hanging around the grunge people in the French Quarter, just may be involved in the killings.

  Jesus Christ!

  I pull out my pen and write on each memo – Bullshit across the memo about the high schoolers. I write Yeah. Right. What about the Hole In The Wall Gang or the Dalton Gang? across the Manson memo. Across the memo about the Mississippi psychic, I write, This sounds promising. We should have this wrapped up in no time. Suggest you assign my old partner, Tim Rothman. He’s somewhat of a psychic himself.

  I toss the memos into Kay’s ‘In’ box on my way to the coffee pot. The coffee’s cold and I don’t feel like making a new pot. Glancing up at the clock above the unofficial logo of the Homicide Division – an art deco drawing of a vulture perched atop a gold NOPD star-and-crescent badge – I see it’s pushing five o’clock. I wonder where everyone is. I know. They’re lining the Interstate, awaiting the fuckin’ psychic. Ha. I scoop up my phone and punch in Sandie’s number. She answers on the second ring.

  “You going out tonight?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Bill Clinton. Who do you think it is?”

  She sighs and tells me she’s going out tomorrow night. She sounds tired. “I’ve got a class tonight,” she says and I hear her yawn.

  “Class?”

  “Yeah. I model for an art class at UNO Nude. Wanna come?”

  Son-of-a-bitch. Whores modeling for college art classes. I love this city.

  “What time?
”

  “Six-thirty to eight.”

  “I’ll take you to dinner after.”

  “Why?”

  Sitting at my desk, I feel a headache coming on. I kick my feet up on the desk and explain as best I can. I don’t want what happened last night to happen again. It’s too fuckin’ dangerous, her going out like that. I don’t tell her I don’t want her getting so loaded when she stumbles on a lead, she can’t fuckin’ remember shit. I have to be subtle.

  “You wanna catch those cop killers, don’t you?” She asks sarcastically. “I have my own way of doing things.”

  “We’re not going to catch anyone if you’re fuckin’ dead.” I tell her I’m backing her up and that’s it.

  “Do I have to eat with you?” She’s being cute now.

  The squad room door opens and Bob Kay lumbers in, stops and motions behind him. His suit coat seems tight with the bullet proof vest beneath his white shirt. A mousy woman with red Bozo-the-clown hair takes a step into the room, looks around and waves her hands in a wide circle. Something tells me our psychic has arrived.

  “So you coming to see me pose?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  Kay shuffles across the office, mousy woman in toe. She wears a long, dark blue chiffon dress and white tennis shoes. A foot shorter and fifty pounds heavier than Kay, she stares intently at me as she approaches. I tell Sandie I have to go and she tells me the class is in the Art Building at the rear of the campus.

  “You know where that’s at?”

  Kay stops at my desk and folds his arms. His eyes bulge. I look away so I don’t laugh in his face. Sandie repeats her question and I tell her I know the building and hang up.

  Kay clears his throat. “Um. This is Ruthie Grundermann.”

  “The psychic from Mississippi,” I say as I stand and reach to shake Ruthie’s hand.

  She takes a step back, narrows her beady eyes and croaks, “How’d you know?”

  “Tim Rothman told me. He described you perfectly.”

  Ruthie tugs on Kay’s coat. “Who is this Tim Rothman?”

  I answer for Kay. “He’s another detective. He’s also psychic.”

  Ruthie gives me a disbelieving look as Kay leans forward and picks a tablet off my desk. He jots something on it.

  “Really,” I tell Ruthie. “Tim Rothman predicted Global Warming. Back in the eighties. He also predicts Jerry Lewis will finally win that elusive Nobel Peace Prize, if the French have anything to say about it.”

  She’s confused. I like that in a psychic. Kay hands me the tablet. In large letters he’s written Help! Call the Police! I pick up my portable radio and call Rothman. I ask if he can join us. He says he’s in the garage and on his way up.

  “Rothman’s coming to help,” I tell Kay as I move away from my desk for the door. “You’ll love him,” I call back to Ruthie. “Just don’t mention Hitler, Cajun fritters or women romance writers.”

  I run into Rothman at the Police Only elevator. I point over my shoulder. “Kay’s looking for you.”

  He gives me a distrustful look. I shoot back the most innocent look I have. “Seriously,” I say. “He wants you to find out if the women in there is really Anne Rice’s half-sister.”

  “What woman?”

  I step into the elevator and push ‘one’ – several times.

  •

  Buck races down the levee to the boulders at the water’s edge, bounces twice, then runs back up to me, his big ears flailing in the air. The little tike sure loves to run. His mottled spots stand out dramatically in the fading sunlight. The boulders, placed at the bottom of the levee, serve as a breakwater.

  I go down on my haunches and he licks my hand, then scampers away again, back toward the brown-gray lake water. He stumbles over his feet, which seem too big. I sit on the thick grass atop the levee and shield my eyes from the sun setting in the western sky. In the distance several sailboats glide past, one with a baby blue sail.

  All right, I should have written a daily about what Sandie discovered, right? Have every swinging dick go down to the Ninth Ward, rousting every biker, a headlong cavalry charge, right? No way. I can’t even be sure Sandie was even in the Ninth Ward. She could have been in Bywater, Marigny, or even the Quarter.

  I do know one thing – somebody knows about the badges. And I realize it’s imperative I talk to Sandie again, tonight. My daddy’s voice echoes in my mind. “Any excuse to see a naked woman,” he would say.

  “Right, Pop. Any excuse.”

  Buck comes back up for a lick, yips twice at me and then spots several sea gulls on the rocks below. He takes off after them. They let him get within a dozen feet, then soar off. Buck stops, spreads his legs and looks up at them as if they are magic beings. Then he yips at them and bounces, then goes off to check something at the edge of the rocks.

  My stomach rumbles and I call for the little tike. He looks back at me but doesn’t come. I go down and get him. He has a crawfish cornered between two boulders. Sniffing it, he yips and growls. The crawfish has its claws raised in defiance and I remember my daddy once saying it should be the state mascot, instead of the pelican.

  “Crawfish are more like people,” my daddy said. “Onry. Put de crawfish on de railroad track and when de train come, what do de crawfish do? It raise its claws in defiance. It wants a piece o’ dat train, yeah.”

  I pick Buck up and carry him back to Sad Lisa. He licks my hands all the way.

  •

  Angie Calogne wears a white dress shirt and faded jeans today, tight jeans. She seats me at my usual table and asks if I’ll have my usual – cheeseburger, fries and a Barq’s.

  “Yep.”

  Cecilia calls out, “I made Blackberry pie.”

  I tell Angie I’ll have a slice for dessert and watch her hips as she moves away, lithely. She checks on the only other customers, two construction workers in the first booth. Joe slaps my burger on the grill and the smell immediately wafts my way. Cecilia hands Angie my Barq’s, and she heads back. She puts the root beer down, but doesn’t leave. Again.

  I look up at the Marisa Tomei face and those aquamarine eyes staring back at me.

  “I looked up Oglala.” The Lauren Bacall voice again. “It’s the sect that produced Crazy Horse, isn’t it?”

  Never heard us called a sect before.

  “My grandfather claims to be descended from Crazy Horse’s brother, who also fought at the Little Bighorn.”

  Angie blinks and stares at me as if I said something in Greek. She blinks again and puts her knee up on the bench on the other side of my table.

  “Then you’re related to Crazy Horse.” She says it flatly.

  “That what my grandfather claims.”

  “No wonder.” She looks out the picture window.

  “No wonder what?” My stomach tightens.

  “No wonder you’re so good at what you do.”

  It’s my turn to look out the window. A minute or two later, Joe slides my plate on the counter and rings the bell. Angie gets my food and I take a sip of the icy Barq’s.

  “Enjoy,” she says as she puts my plate down and moves back up to help the construction workers, who want some of that blackberry pie too. As I take my first bite of spicy burger, I feel that tightness in my belly again. Hunger, I tell myself, although I know better. It’s the Marisa Tomei face and those aquamarine eyes. It’s this young woman – a woman I’ll never know except in passing, here at Flamingo’s.

  At thirty I thought I was beyond this kind of yearning, this kind of desire for a pretty girl I’ll never have. But the heartaches a boy feels growing up in a Cajun daubed house, most people would call a shack, and seeing the pretty girls passing on the way to the Cajun dance hall’s Fais Do Do, still lingers in my heart. Nights spent listing to the driving sounds of a Cajun band and hearing the high-pitched laugher of pretty girls while I sat between cypress trees to stare at the still water of Vermilion Bay – days spent at school stealing looks at the pretty girls who were always beyond
my reach, still haunt me. I guess it always will for a boy who never fit in.

  I chuckle at feeling sorry for myself and wonder when I’ll grow out of it. I don’t look up when Angie brings my slice of pie. She puts it down and says, “You didn’t cut yourself shaving.”

  She reaches over and touches my cheek next to the cut that’s almost healed now. I almost flinch and look up at her. She pulls her hand back and points a finger at my nose.

  “Don’t patronize me. The paper said you were nicked by concrete from the killer’s bullet. Is that true?”

  “It was a piece of brick.”

  “I’m serious.” Her voice lowers, more Bacall-like. “Don’t patronize me. I’m not a little girl.”

  She walks off and I sit here wondering – why is my heart racing?

  Pretend you have an assignment

  Standing on a small podium, illuminated by spotlights from the high ceiling above, Sandie has her hands cupped behind her head and her eyes closed as she poses naked for the two dozen students. A middle-aged woman in a baggy pink jumpsuit hurries over to me as I enter the room.

  “May I help you?” She has a school teacher’s voice.

  I pull my credentials from my coat pocket and open them.

  “Police.” I nod toward Sandie. “Do you have a license for this?”

  “Huh?”

  “Just kidding. I’m Sandie’s cousin. I’ve seen her like this before.”

  I walk past the woman and sit on one of the stools at the back of the class, as if I own the place. The woman watches me for a few moments before going back to her drawing. The clock on the far wall reads a quarter to eight. I lean back against the wall and fold my arms across my chest. I’ve shed the suit for a black tee-shirt, jeans and light-weight gray sport coat. Reaching back, I readjust my Glock, pressing against my backbone.

  Sandie moves, bringing her arms down for a moment, rotating her hips slightly before resuming her position. Her light eyes seem golden as she stares at me, a slight smile coming to her mouth.

  I spend the next minutes trying not to stare at Sandie. I look at walls covered with amateurish paintings and charcoal drawings. I look at the backs of the student’s heads and parts of their drawings of Sandie. I look at the tile floor, then at the high ceiling before giving up and stare at Sandie as she repositions herself, sitting on the stuffed chair. She drapes one leg over the chair’s arm, giving the students in front of her a view of pink.