The Devil's Muse

by Bill Loehfelm

  33

  Maureen sat in the back of the Explorer with Wilburn. Hardin and Drayton sat in the front, Hardin in the driver’s seat. The sergeant had the engine running and the heat on. The windows were fogged and the inside of the car was humid. Everyone’s clothes were damp from working outside all night in the mist and drizzle, except, of course, for Drayton the house cat’s pricey coat and expensive suit. The cloying spice of his cologne cut through the vaguely locker-room-smelling atmosphere in the truck and tickled the back of Maureen’s throat, gagging her. Hardin had shut him down when he’d tried firing up a cigar.

  The Explorer was parked at the intersection of Melpomene on the lake side of St. Charles, which put them on the back side of the parade. There was no reason to try driving the car across the parade route with Muses rolling. They could much more easily walk to the Dublin House from where they were parked.

  “Has Cordts answered you yet?” Hardin asked from the driver’s seat.

  Wilburn checked his phone. “He hasn’t, and I don’t think he will, Sarge. Why would he start now?”

  “But he knows we’re out here,” Maureen said.

  “I guess so,” Wilburn said. “I texted him. I told Eddie we’re out here, too. He’ll meet us at the front door and bring us back to Cordts, whenever we’re ready. He’s offered to clear out his staff.”

  “We don’t want to do that just yet,” Hardin said.

  “I need to make this arrest,” Drayton said. “I don’t give a shit about Eddie and his fucking bar. He’s got plenty more nights to make up the business he’s losing tonight.”

  “That’s not the point,” Hardin said. “We’re on the parade route. We send the staff out onto the route, how long before word gets out there’s a police standoff happening at the Dublin House? That doesn’t do anybody any good. No panic. No escalation. We’re going to handle this ourselves.” He looked at Wilburn in the rearview. “Are we sure the staff is safe?”

  “As far as I can tell,” Wilburn said. “They don’t do much inside business during the parades. They have the outdoor bars and tables and the Porta-Johns. That’s where the business is. They don’t serve food inside during the parades. That’s what Eddie told me.”

  “Well, we can’t keep waiting him out,” Drayton said. “We don’t have the time for that. The DC is already texting me. This whole section of the route is covered by the two tactical squads. You’re telling me we can’t get four or five of those guys together on the fly and put an end to this? There’s nobody in that dining room but Eddie, Cordts, and that kid, right? The people in this car outnumber them.”

  “You really want me to run a SWAT operation in the middle of a parade?” Hardin said. “Is that what you’re telling me? Have you lost your mind?”

  “Not like a formal, official operation,” Drayton said. “Geez, relax. Just a handful of guys. Make it a black-ops kind of thing. They do this shit all the time. They love it. Maybe just that tattooed gym rat from under the overpass. He looks like he can handle himself. Keep the customers and the staff outside—I’m not an animal—and roll in one canister of tear gas. One. How much damage could it really do? Cordts’ll be fine in an hour.”

  “Gas a fellow cop?” Wilburn said. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Roll tear gas into a restaurant?” Maureen asked. “During Mardi Gras? Are you serious? Not to mention, like Wilburn said, we shouldn’t have to point out to you, that’s one of our own in there.”

  “Not as far as I’m concerned,” Drayton said. “Not right now. The way he’s fucking things up, the way he’s fucking me and messing with my arrest by pulling this drama ahead of my press conference? Fuck him. He’s asking for this shit. He knows better. I don’t know what side he’s on but it’s not mine. Not tonight.” He turned in his seat, looking at Maureen and Wilburn. “He knows I’m out here, right? You told him I was out here.”

  “Oh, he knows you’re here,” Wilburn said. “Everybody knows where you are, Drayton.”

  Maureen couldn’t stop staring at Drayton’s pinkie ring. She wanted to snap that fat fucking finger right off his hand.

  “You had to get the kid out from under that house, right?” Drayton said. “With the dogs?”

  “Detective,” Hardin said. “Stop. You’re not helping.”

  “What?” Drayton said, glancing at everyone, as if he couldn’t believe they weren’t all thinking the same thing. “I mean, we wouldn’t send them after Cordts, please, give me some credit. Just have them drag the kid out. They’re trained. They’re smart. Dogs can’t see color but they can tell the difference between black and white, right?”

  Maureen felt her jaw drop. She’d always thought that was just a hyperbolic expression, but there she was, her mouth hanging open in paralyzing disbelief. “They let you carry a gun?”

  “It was a joke,” Drayton said. “To lighten the mood. Christ, you people. Whose side are you on?”

  “Holy shit,” Wilburn said. “I can’t believe you’re a real person.”

  Drayton frowned at Wilburn a long time. He started to say something else, but thought better of it and stopped when Wilburn leaned forward in his seat. This is great, Maureen thought, watching Wilburn fume at the back of Drayton’s head. Cordts has already come apart, that’s why we’re here. Who knew what he was thinking? Wilburn can’t lose it, too, she thought, and make things worse. But the longer they sat here doing nothing, the greater the tension in the car was going to get. It needed releasing. Maureen knew she needed to put more space between the vibrating atoms trapped together in the warm, smelly car.

  “It stinks in here,” she said, and she opened the door, getting out.

  As she had hoped he would, Wilburn got out, too.

  “Who the fuck does that guy think he is?” Wilburn asked. “It’s like he thinks he’s Serpico and Sonny Corleone at the same time. He’s unstable.”

  “He’s not even worth discussing,” Maureen said, jamming her hands in her coat pockets. “Wils, what are we going to do about Cordts? This is bad. Goody’s no fucking prize but we can’t let Cordts take him as a hostage. We can’t let him hurt this kid. What the fuck is he doing in there? Is he really not responding to your messages?”

  Wilburn held out his phone. “You want to see for yourself? He’s not answering anything I send him. The only way I know he’s still in there is ’cause Eddie’s telling me he is.”

  “Why the Dublin House?” Maureen asked. “What’s he thinking?”

  “You’re assuming Cordts is thinking,” Wilburn said.

  “He is,” Maureen said. “He totally is. That’s the key. Cordts knows he’s not acting right. He wanted us to find him, and without it taking too long.” She took a deep breath, let out a long sigh. “He wants us to stop him from hurting Goody. ’Cause he wants to, he’s wanted to hurt someone all night, and he wants us to stop him. We can walk right in there. He’s been waiting for us to show up.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I think we can do that,” Wilburn said, nodding. “We can get as far as the front door, at least, and take it from there.”

  “Okay, good,” Maureen said. “Text Eddie, tell him me and you are coming to the door, that we’re coming in for a talk with Cordts. I’ll tell Hardin.”

  She left Wilburn to his phone and walked around the vehicle to the driver’s-side window. She knocked. The window rolled down.

  “You have good news?” Hardin asked.

  “I’m sick of their stalling,” Drayton said.

  She looked past Hardin. “Anytime you wanna get out of the car and handle this situation yourself, you go right ahead, tough guy.”

  Drayton looked away, muttered “cunt” under his breath. Maureen thought of the middle schoolers in the parking lot. They’d at least had the nerve to shout it at the top of their lungs.

  “Talk to me,” Hardin said. “And only to me.”

  “Wilburn and I are going in,” Maureen said.

  “Tell me why,” Hardin said.

  “Cordts chose the Dublin Hous
e,” Maureen said, “because he’s looking for a controlled environment. Someplace quiet, where he can make the rules. He knows the manager, who he knew would reach out to Wilburn, and so we’d be able to find him there. He knew the restaurant would be mostly empty, keeping the civilian danger to a minimum. He’s trying to get away from the chaos and the noise both in his head and on the streets. There’s something he’s trying to figure out how to do.”

  “And you don’t think that something is how to hurt or kill Goody?”

  “He couldn’t have set himself up worse to do that,” Maureen said. “If we’d really lost him, he would’ve killed Goody already. Cordts has the whole city at his disposal. Practically the entire department is spread out along the parade route. He had a car. He could’ve taken Goody anywhere, done anything he wanted with him, and he stayed in the neighborhood. Because he wanted to be found. He wants us to help him.”

  Hardin thought for a moment, staring through the windshield into the parade crowd. “You want me to go in with you?”

  “I don’t,” Maureen said. She raised her chin at Drayton, who was playing a video game on his phone. “If you go, he’ll want to go. More important, if things go wrong in there, we’re going to need someone out here with their shit together to pull us out of the fire.”

  “As soon as you guys get inside,” Hardin said, “I’ll get in position on the sidewalk. Let’s keep everything as smooth and as cool as we can. Safety first, but if we can pull this off without making a scene and causing a panic on the route, that’s the optimal outcome.”

  Wilburn came around the side of the car. “Eddie’s ready when we are. I think the longer we wait, the more likely Cordts’s head gets tangled up again.”

  Hardin looked into each of their faces. “Make your move.”

  34

  Eddie met Maureen and Wilburn at the front door of the restaurant. He was a stocky, dark-haired guy with a thin goatee and huge bags under his eyes. He wore all black: jeans, a polo shirt, a ball cap with the Irish tricolor on the front. Those bags under Eddie’s eyes, Maureen thought: Dakota had them, so did her bar back; Ms. Cleo, who worked at the hotel; and Madge, who worked the window at the Grocery. Maureen knew she had them, too, as did most of the people she worked with. They’re like a tattoo or brand identifying their wearers as part of the same society: the Mystic Krewe of Somebody’s Got to Throw This Fucking Party for the Rest of You.

  Eddie stepped aside as he let Maureen and Wilburn inside the Dublin House. His obvious exhaustion made it hard for her to tell how nervous he was about what was happening in his place.

  “Eddie Gallagher,” Wilburn said, “Officer Maureen Coughlin.”

  They exchanged nods. This wasn’t the kind of meeting, Maureen thought, that called for handshakes and the exchange of pleasantries. Eddie took off his hat, wiped his brow with the back of his hand. It was warm inside the restaurant. The windows were mostly fogged. Despite everything going on, she felt a wave of sleepiness that wobbled her knees. She unzipped her coat, pulled off her knit hat for the first time that night. She had no doubt Eddie had coffee on somewhere in this place.

  Maureen had always meant to check out the Dublin House, but had never got around to it. It seemed too attractive an establishment, with its long mahogany bar, golden, magic-hour lighting, and plush leather booths, to visit alone. Well, she was here now, and she had company with her. This wasn’t how she’d pictured her first trip to the place. She looked across the wide dining room at Cordts, who sat, of course, facing the door. He’d taken the booth in the far right corner of the restaurant. There he could keep his back to the wall and keep everything that happened in the restaurant in front of him. Like an outlaw in the old West, Maureen thought.

  She could see the back of Goody’s head. She was relieved to see him in one piece. Nothing had happened yet, she thought, that couldn’t be undone, and that couldn’t be forgiven for having happened under the umbrella of temporary Mardi Gras madness.

  Cordts said nothing, didn’t wave, didn’t give any indication of what he wanted or expected her and Wilburn to do. He did not seem surprised to see them, fortifying Maureen’s belief that they were doing exactly what Cordts wanted them to do. He sat there, tranquil as death, staring at them. A large Guinness mirror hung on the wall behind him. In the mirror Maureen could see the tabletop that was otherwise blocked by the back of the bench.

  A basket of ketchup-drenched fries was in front of Goody, who sat upright with his hands on the table. He was no longer cuffed. That observation told Maureen that fear was holding the boy in place. She saw why. In the center of the table Cordts had positioned Lyla’s red sneaker and her black fairy wings. In front of him on his side of the table there were messy plates of food, a pint glass half full of lager, and, resting by his right hand, the gun he’d recovered at the shooting.

  “He hasn’t been here very long,” Eddie said. “I called you right away, as soon as I realized he planned on staying.”

  “Christ, it’s hot in here,” Maureen said.

  “Heat’s busted,” Eddie said, shrugging. “Stuck at eighty. Wasn’t so bad until we had to close the place up when he got here. Can’t get anybody out here to work on it before tomorrow morning.”

  “Cordts say anything to you?” Wilburn asked.

  “Just that I should keep the dining room and the bar clear,” Eddie said. “He didn’t say for how long.”

  “What’s the situation with your staff?” Maureen asked.

  “I got a couple guys in the kitchen,” Eddie said, “prepping stuff for the grill outside. They can stay in there. They can get out the back door. My people cooking outside can get what they need through the kitchen. Thankfully, we don’t seat the dining room during the parades. We do all of our bar and food and bev service from the outside stations. So I have no floor staff on. We even have bathrooms out there, so it’s not that hard keeping people out of the building. Though the shitty weather doesn’t help.

  “Everyone is so busy right now they’re not asking questions, but Muses is almost over. I can lock the customers out, but the staff, they’re gonna want to come in and get warm, count their tips and get checked out, and go out or go home. Then they’re going to ask questions about why they have to hang around outside, and why the cops are inside.”

  Maureen turned her back to Eddie and to the room so Cordts couldn’t see her face. She spoke as low as she could. “He has a gun out. It’s on the table.”

  Wilburn nodded, trying to keep his face expressionless. “Eddie, do me a favor and check on your people outside. And stay out there if you can.”

  “What do I tell them about what’s happening in here?” Eddie asked. “They saw y’all arrive. They know I’m in here talking to you. Everybody knows people got shot just off the route earlier. I don’t want my people getting nervous.”

  “It’s Mardi Gras,” Wilburn said. “The weather sucks, we’re borrowing the room for a little while, for a special detail, is what you tell them. Something boring. Nothing’s happening. This has nothing to do with that shooting.”

  “But it does, though, right?” Eddie asked.

  “As far as you’re concerned,” Wilburn said, “it has less than nothing to do with that. Don’t even bring it up to deny it.”

  “And as best you can,” Maureen said, “keep them off their phones. We don’t need rumors getting around. We don’t need people showing up here trying to get a look through the windows or get pictures of whatever. We want to put a quiet, peaceful end to this.”

  Eddie lifted skeptical eyebrows and then his cap, scratching his scalp. He grabbed a black jacket from the rack on the wall and pulled it on. “A peaceful end would be great. I plan on doing a lot of business this weekend. Good luck. I got my phone if you need me. I’ll lock the front door behind me.”

  After Eddie had gone, Maureen said, watching Cordts, “He’s just sitting there, staring at us. Goody hasn’t moved a muscle since we came in.”

  “How do we play this?” Wilburn as
ked.

  “Text Hardin and tell him we’re inside,” Maureen said. “And that we have eyes on Cordts and Goody and they both seem okay. The more we keep Hardin in the loop, the more he’ll let us work this ourselves.”

  “Which is what we want,” Wilburn said, nodding, speaking as much to himself as to Maureen.

  “Here’s what I think,” Maureen said. “I’ll approach alone.”

  “I don’t like it already,” Wilburn said, shaking his head. “I’ve known the guy for years. I can talk to him better.”

  “You know Cordts better than I do,” Maureen said, “but I know both him and Goody, and I think that’ll help.” She was thinking about the mounted officers and the others on foot who had backed her and Sansone under the overpass. She wanted backup at hand, but with room to maneuver if trouble popped off at the table.

  “I want you positioned somewhere in the middle of the room,” Maureen said, “at a table, or over at the bar would even work. From there, you can see us, you can block anyone coming in from outside, and you can intercept Goody if he tries to make a run for it, should it come to that. You can report to Hardin while I talk to Cordts, and if things go badly, you can call for more backup and bail me out, or escape.”

  “I’m not leaving you in here,” Wilburn said.

  “No sense both of us being trapped in that booth.”

  “Do me a favor,” Wilburn said. “Don’t let it come to that.”

  She and Wilburn turned and faced Cordts’s table. He kept right on staring at them. They waited a moment, letting Cordts pick up on the fact that they were going to cross the room to him and Goody, giving him an opportunity to protest. Or to get up and walk to them.

  They took their first steps. Cordts placed his hand over the gun. They stopped.

  Maureen watched Cordts in the mirror. She didn’t reach for her weapon. Wilburn didn’t either. Cordts’s movements were deliberate; he meant them to see what he was doing. He wasn’t drawing on them. He was asserting authority, his control over the situation.