“Sure,” Maureen said with a smile. “Why not?
“Right?” Laine rolled her eyes upward, as if trying to see the blinking wings on the crown of her head. “I might keep them on my desk. If I ever have a desk, or an office, again. Or a job. Ha! Where’s the rest of your team?”
“Wilburn is around here somewhere,” Maureen said. “Follow the smell of grilled chicken, you’ll find him. Morello’s on patrol in the Garden District, I think, making sure no one’s breaking into the parked cars. He likes that gig. Hardin’s supposedly moving around the route, pretending to keep an eye on us. He’s probably over at the Grocery eating a Cuban and drinking coffee.”
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Laine said, “but are you and Sansone, you know, a thing?”
Maureen shook her head. “We are not.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I gave up shitting in my own nest,” Maureen said, “when I took this job.”
“So he’s single?” Laine asked.
“Have at it, girlfriend.”
“I just might. Happy Mardi Gras to me.” After a long pull from her bottle, she leaned in close to Maureen’s cheek, burping a fog of malt liquor into Maureen’s face. “Is Cordts okay? He vanished last night. It was weird.”
Maureen coughed into her fist, blinking until the air around her cleared. “He got a mental health day today. Hardin’s orders. He’ll be back on the route tomorrow for the day parades.”
“And that’s it?” Laine asked, leaning back, trying to take in Maureen’s whole face, as if that full view might tell her more. “A day off? He got a day off for taking a hostage?”
“We need him,” Maureen said, checking the time on her phone. By now, Cordts was already unpacking at the mental health clinic three parishes away, the only deal other than charges that Hardin was willing to offer, but Maureen wasn’t telling that to anyone not on the job. “Look at how things turned out in the end. Nobody got hurt. As far as everyone’s concerned, he stepped out of the weather for a while with a suspect in custody, and after some miscommunication with the detective, handed that suspect over.” She straightened her shoulders. “It’s not often we treat a shooter to a basket of fries at a friend’s bar before he goes to jail. How mean can we be? I’d hardly call that hostage-taking.”
“Wow,” Laine said, shaking her head, “this city is a trip.”
“Everything that needed to get done, got done,” Maureen said. “Nobody else got shot last night. The press conference was a glorious success, the brass was happy, the mayor was happy, the late news and the morning papers put the panic to rest with the magic words isolated incident. What’s not to love?” She waved her arm over the crowd, bigger than the previous night’s by half and twice as boisterous. “The show must go on. That is the prime directive.”
Of course, Maureen thought, the case against Goody for the shooting was a leaky shambles, even with witnesses and the gun. Any halfway decent public defender, and Goody might actually luck into one of those, would shred the conversation in the Dublin House. As for Cordts taking him there in the first place, the department’s version of events wouldn’t hold up under duress or under oath, and an ambitious private attorney might see a chance to make their name and sue the city on Goody’s behalf. The chain of custody for the evidence and the preservation of the crime scene were both highly questionable, just as a result of the general, unavoidable chaos surrounding the shooting.
If you were committing a crime in New Orleans, Mardi Gras was a good time to do it.
Nobody had died in the shooting. Homicide changed everything. The lack of one meant the DA was a lot less likely to add Goody’s case to an already overwhelming pile of gun crimes. After the holiday, hell, by Saturday, as long as there wasn’t another significant incident—as long as there were no more, as Cordts would say, bullets and blood—the shock and anger over the shooting would fade in no time. Goody might be charged with lesser crimes as a way to keep him in jail as long as possible, most likely as a juvenile, but indictment was unlikely. He wasn’t worth the effort.
None of that was Maureen’s concern. Not until the next time she was putting Goody in handcuffs. She hoped to hell there wouldn’t be a next time, but Goody had no one out there on the streets to help him stay out of trouble and out of jail. No way Alisha’s brother would let him within a hundred yards of Alisha or that baby.
Maureen was a new cop but she was an old enough human being not to be naïve about her chances of making a real difference in Goody’s path. She’d take her shot at it, should the opportunity arise, but the odds were poor. She was just another white cop. She wouldn’t be the one to save him. Someone else would have to do that, or better yet, lead Goody to where he could save himself. That wasn’t surrender or cynicism; it was fact.
“And good on you,” Maureen said to Laine, “for being more the participant than observer tonight. We’re a participatory city.”
“Thank you.” Laine took a slug from her bottle. “Why let everyone else have all the fun? Right? I thought of lugging that camera out here—I heard this is a gorgeous parade—but I couldn’t work up the motivation. I forgot what a pain in the ass it is carrying around that equipment myself.” She danced in a circle, wiggling her hips. “I feel so free.”
“Where’s the rest of your crew?” Maureen asked. “Gave them the night off? Or are you making them work while you play?”
“Gave them the rest of their lives off,” Laine said. “That’s what I did.” She lowered her head, red curls falling over her face. “Well, no, no, no, to be honest, they took the rest of their lives off.”
Too much real New Orleans for them, Maureen thought. “They quit on you? After the drama last night?”
“You could call it that,” Laine said. “Larry and Cortez decided they’d rather work with Malik and Albert, so they bailed on me. For free, if you can believe that, though I think the four of them are plotting a Kickstarter or something. They’ll make millions somehow, just watch. The fuckers, they’ll go straight from shooting on an iPad to working for Showtime. Donna’s at the airport, on the standby list for the next flight to L.A., probably blowing someone for an upgrade to first class.” She shrugged and opened her arms, the malt liquor swishing in the bottle as she waved it around. “No great loss. She’s not much for working in the field. She’s more of a studio talent, or a hotel room, or a stadium bathroom, if you know what I mean.” She sighed. “Those tits made money, though. I’ll say that. They’ll be tough to replace. Purely as assets.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” Maureen said. “I thought y’all might pull off something good.”
And Maureen found that she was sorry that the band had broken up, so to speak. It was easy for her to see that Laine felt bereft without her work. It wasn’t just the bottle of malt liquor she clutched that gave her away, or the slur in her speech, or the bitterness toward her ex-crew. Laine exuded the air of someone who’d suffered a death in the family. To Maureen, Laine seemed to weigh less, to be less substantial than she’d been the night before, as if she’d been hollowed out overnight.
Life isn’t good, Maureen knew from experience, without good work to do.
“I know this flakka project was important to you,” she said, “and that you’d put a bunch of time and effort into it. And money. It sucks that it crapped out.”
“I have a lot of raw content on my laptop,” Laine said, with a shrug. “I can probably piece something together to put up on the YouTube channel. Sansone and Achee said they would give me interviews, maybe connect me to other cops who worked what could be flakka cases, if I could wait until after Mardi Gras. I mean, that chalk monster giving this shit away in the Quarter sounds like something special, doesn’t he?” She took a long pull from her bottle.
“I’ve got some money left, especially now that I’m not paying Donna anymore. Cortez can’t be the only bargain-basement cameraman in New Orleans. Maybe the project can come back from the dead.” She gave Maureen a lopside
d grin. “You know, like a zombie.”
“Will you hang around?” Maureen asked. An idea had sparked in her brain. “How long do you think you’ll stay in town?”
“I don’t know,” Laine said. “Without a crew to help on this project, if I can’t muster up a new one, and I don’t much feel like doing that, I don’t have much reason to be here. But I don’t really have anyplace to go next. Lord knows I’m not going to Baton Rouge or Houston for the fucking fun of it. There’s no point if there’s no story in those places. And the apartment I rented here is paid through Ash Wednesday. No sense throwing that money away.” She giggled. “I may just say fuck it and party for the next four days. I’m already here. There’s nobody waiting for me anywhere, that’s for sure. You got a cigarette?”
Maureen pulled her pack from her pocket. With it, she pulled out Philippa Marlowe’s pink business card. She lit a smoke, gave it to Laine, and lit another for herself. She thought of the photo of Benji Allen that Laine had provided.
“You were helpful to us last night,” Maureen said. “You did us a real solid. But I won’t spread the word you helped the police. Bad for your reputation.”
She passed the pink card to Laine.
“Who is this?” Laine asked. “This card is a horror. Is she a hairdresser?”
“Local woman,” Maureen said. “Fancies herself a citizen-journalist. She’s a character, but she pays attention to what’s happening in the city, and she gives a shit. You two should meet. You’d like each other.”
“I know the type,” Laine said. “You think she’ll give me an interview?”
“About anything,” Maureen said. “Believe me.” She took a long drag on her cigarette, considering her next words. “She doesn’t have Donna’s considerable Hollywood assets, but she loves New Orleans, I think she knows a thing or two about it, and she has personality to burn. I’m no talent scout, but she might work well in front of the camera.”
“But does she know anything about the flakka stories?”
“What if you left that story behind?” Maureen asked. “I know that zombie drug is what brought you here, but there’s no reason you can’t adjust your, you know, journalistic mission. Especially now that you’re starting over. Believe me, lots of people come to New Orleans for one reason and stay for another.”
Laine frowned. “Who said anything about staying?”
“What about Goody’s story?” Maureen asked. “Why don’t you tell that? You want compelling stories? That kid is fifteen, already with a baby and maybe serious charges coming to him. He did what he did trying to save his daughter’s uncle from the drug that killed him. When I first met him he had two best friends. One, named Mike-Mike, ended up dead in the trunk of a car that Goody helped burn. The other one, his name is Marques, he got out of the life and started his own brass band. How does that happen? How does it go so differently for three kids from the same ’hood? I’m trying to figure that out myself.
“Goody’s got a record as long as his arm and a child with a neighborhood girl. What’s her story? What’s that baby’s story gonna be? Nobody’s asking about these kids. But you could. You came here to capture the real New Orleans? These kids are it. Every one of them. And not just them. Philippa. Sansone. Morello. Hardin. Malik and Albert. Ms. Cleo. Them, too. Even that jackass Drayton. There’s this detective named Atkinson, she’s the anti-Drayton. I want to be her when I grow up. I’ll introduce you to the couple that owns the Grocery, on Sixth. I’ll introduce you to a guy named Preacher. He was my training officer and my first duty sergeant. Taught me everything I know. No one else like him in the world. You won’t believe he’s real.”
“That’s an awful lot of work,” Laine said. “Meeting all those people, learning about them. It’s harder than jumping from place to place. A lot harder. That’s a real commitment, telling those stories. That’s serious work.”
“It’s a life’s work,” Maureen said. “But there are endless stories here for the taking, stories you can’t get anywhere else, and you won’t believe the crazy ways they connect with each other. You might run out of money, you might run out of brain cells, but you’ll never run out of stories here. I promise you.”
Laine took a long pull from her forty-ounce. “I’m intrigued. I admit it.”
“But if you want to see this real New Orleans everyone keeps talking about,” Maureen said, “if you want to be a part of it, if you want to live it and not watch it go by like an out-of-town parade, there’s one thing you have to do.”
“And what’s that?” Laine asked, smiling at Maureen over the top of her forty-ounce. “Flash my boobs? Suck the head? Wear a Saints hat?”
Maureen laughed. She saw that the parade had started rolling again. She could hear the rumble of the tractor pulling the next glowing float toward them down St. Charles Avenue. She could see the thousands of hands rising into the air at once, the float swaying on its wheels, its riders on both sides hurling spinning strands of beads into the night air above the adoring crowd. She turned to Laine, who stared at the spectacle, arms loose at her sides, her mouth hanging slightly open.
“You have to give New Orleans your time,” Maureen said. “You have to stay. Do that, and who knows what’ll happen?”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing requires solitude, but suffers in isolation. None of this good stuff happens without the generous love, patience, and support of family and friends. I am grateful and indebted to all of you—no one more so than my most amazing and talented wife, my great love, AC Lambeth.
Much gratitude to my heroic agent, Barney Karpfinger, and everyone at the Karpfinger Agency whose hard work and prodigious talents keep me upright and sane.
Thanks also to my fabulous editor and publisher, Sarah Crichton, who always demands the best book I have in me, and who sees it in the pages even when I don’t. Thanks also to Lottchen, Caroline, John, Abby, Rachel, Spenser, Elizabeth, and everyone at FSG and Picador for believing in me and working so hard to bring Maureen Coughlin and her New Orleans adventures to the world. Once again, thank you to Alex Merto for the spectacular cover. One reason I wrote a Mardi Gras book was to see what you would do with it.
Much of this book was written to live recordings of Oasis. Why that is or why it worked, I have no idea.
Other music important to this book includes but is not limited to: local artists Kelcy Mae, the Revivalists, the Rebirth Brass Band, Truth Universal, Soul Rebels Brass Band, Dr. John; as well as Juliana Hatfield, Sixx A.M., P!NK, Joan Jett, Mötley Crüe, Metric, the Dead Weather, the Tragically Hip.
Much love to booksellers and librarians everywhere. Without you my career literally would not exist. Thank you for always welcoming me with good coffee and open arms and for fighting the good fight.
Thank you, Joey K’s and the Executive Tuesday Krewe. Stay in the game.
Thanks to the Bend Media and Production for making me look good.
Happy are They Whom the Muses Love. Find out more about the Krewe of Muses at kreweofmuses.org.
You can support marching band education and tradition in New Orleans. Check out the Roots of Music at therootsofmusic.org.
AC and I also support the brave and important work Steve Gleason and Team Gleason do on behalf of people with ALS and their families. Learn more at teamgleason.org.
ALSO BY BILL LOEHFELM
LET THE DEVIL OUT
DOING THE DEVIL’S WORK
THE DEVIL IN HER WAY
THE DEVIL SHE KNOWS
BLOODROOT
FRESH KILLS
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bill Loehfelm is the author of the critically acclaimed series about the New Orleans Police Department rookie Maureen Coughlin, as well as the stand-alone novels Fresh Kills and Bloodroot. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in several anthologies. He lives in New Orleans with his wife, AC Lambeth, a writer and yoga instructor, and plays drums in a rock-’n-’roll band. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Acknowledgments
Also by Bill Loehfelm
A Note About the Author
Copyright
Sarah Crichton Books
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
The Devil's Muse Page 25
