Ray said, “Jimmy, what the hell’s wrong with you?”
“Me?” LaGrange looked shocked. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“You didn’t return my calls.”
The detective glanced at his watch. “I figured you’d get the point.”
“What point?”
“I can’t be seen talking to you.”
“I’m in a jam and I need some help.”
“You mean police help?”
Ray nodded.
“Then call a cop.” He turned back toward headquarters and started walking.
Ray shouted after him, “You owe me, Jimmy.” LaGrange kept walking. Ray shouted louder. “You remember Vice?”
LaGrange spun around and came back to Ray at a run. “Keep your voice down.”
“I ask you for help and you just walk away,” Ray said. “It’s like I told you, you owe me.”
“I’m sorry about what happened to you,” LaGrange said. “I feel bad, but it’s not my fault. I don’t owe you anything.”
“Think again.” Ray leaned against the Dumpster. “They wanted every one of us.”
Jimmy LaGrange looked around. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
Ray sprang away from the Dumpster. “I don’t give a damn what you want to talk about.” The detective took a step back. Ray stepped closer. “Internal Affairs, the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office-all of them tried to make a deal with me. They practically offered me a walk. All I had to do was testify against everybody in Vice. They were looking for racketeering charges. They wanted headlines, the kind of headlines that come with cops getting life sentences.”
“Ray, I appreciate what you did-”
“You appreciate it?” Ray spit out the words. “You don’t even know what I did.”
LaGrange stared at him.
“Fitz, Conner, and Two-Gun made deals.” Ray could feel himself getting worked up. “Conner and Fitz got eighteen months. Two-Gun only got twelve months. But Sarge and I didn’t make any deals. I kept my mouth shut and did almost five years.”
“I’m sorry, Ray, but I told you, it’s not my-”
“Sarge got a hundred and twenty months. That’s ten goddamn years. I get out and what do I hear? That you’re still a detective. Like nothing ever happened.”
“I’m a detective in name only. They got me buried in the Crime Analysis Section, going over records, looking for crime patterns.”
“You know where they had me buried? Have you ever been to Terre Haute? You know how cold it gets in Indiana?”
LaGrange shook his head.
“Now I come back and say I need some help, and you treat me like some scumbag off the street.”
LaGrange sagged. “I’m sorry. You surprised me is all. I got a new wife and a little girl, a three-year-old.” He fished his wallet out of his back pocket and opened it.
Ray saw the picture holders and held up his hand. “I don’t want to see photos of your family. I told you I’m in a jam and need help.”
LaGrange stuffed his wallet back into his pocket. “Sure, Ray.” He took a deep breath. “What do you need?”
“The Pete Messina murder.”
“Oh, shit.” LaGrange’s shoulders sunk. “I heard you were working for them.”
“I needed a job.”
“Is it true they got taken off for a lot of dough?”
Ray nodded.
“The Eighth District report says it was an unsuccessful robbery, resulting in a homicide,” LaGrange said.
“That’s Tony Zello’s cover story.”
“How did he keep a lid on what was going on upstairs?”
“He didn’t let anybody go upstairs, not even the Homicide dicks. He claimed the robbery crew stayed downstairs the whole time. He said they were trying to rob the strip bar, but when one of them shot Pete, they got scared and took off.”
“None of the detectives even tried to go upstairs?”
Ray shook his head. “Tony said the second and third floors were nothing but storage and that the fourth floor was a private residence.”
LaGrange arched his eyebrows. “And that stopped them?”
“Tony put in a call to their captain.”
“How much did they get?”
“Three hundred large.”
LaGrange let out a low whistle. “How are you involved?”
“I’m supposed to find them.”
“The perps?”
Ray nodded.
“How are you supposed to do that?”
“Vinnie has this crazy idea that since I was a detective, I should be able to find four armed robbers.”
“Makes sense, I guess.”
“To a moron.”
They stared at each other.
“What do you need from me?” LaGrange said.
“A lead,” Ray said. “Somewhere to start.”
“I told you, I’m not a real detective anymore. I’m a paper pusher.”
“You’ve got access to all the reports, right?”
LaGrange nodded.
“Then get me copies of everything that’s been written on what went down at the House.”
“Jesus Christ,” LaGrange said. “Do you know what you’re asking?”
“I’m asking for your help, partner.”
LaGrange started to say something. Then he looked away. When he looked back, he said, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I need to find Hector,” Ray said.
Tony peered over the top of the newspaper he held in front of his face. “What?”
“I’ve been trying to track him down and can’t find him.” Tony stuck his hand out to his side, palm down, and held it three feet above the ground. “You talking about the little guy at the door?”
“Yeah,” Ray said. Hector wasn’t three feet tall, more like five five. He was Mexican or Central American, some kind of Latin, but he tried to act Italian. “He hasn’t been at work since the robbery,” Ray said. “I just came from his apartment and his girlfriend says she hasn’t seen him.”
Tony was stretched out in an overstuffed chair on the fourth floor of the House, in a sitting room just outside Vinnie’s office. Down the long hall was another sitting room and the door to Vinnie and Mrs. Vinnie’s penthouse apartment. Tony’s newspaper was folded to the sports page. “What do I care if his girlfriend doesn’t know where he is?” Tony said.
Ray hadn’t wanted to come back to the House. Tony had already made it clear that Ray didn’t have to work his regular shift. His new job was to find the four masked gunmen. Nothing else. Earlier, on the phone, Tony had said, “You weren’t worth a shit preventing the robbery. Let’s see if you’re any good at solving it.”
While waiting for Jimmy LaGrange to come up with copies of the police reports, Ray decided to do what he would have done were he still a detective. That meant interviewing witnesses. The first person he wanted to talk to was Hector, to find out why the little taco bender just happened to be AWOL at the exact moment the bad guys showed up. But Hector hadn’t shown up for work.
Hector lived uptown. When Ray got there, he found out the diminutive doorman’s apartment was inside a big two-story house off Magazine Street. The once-elegant home had been converted into a rooming house with five tiny efficiencies on each floor. Ray found Hector’s girlfriend but not Hector.
With no other leads, Ray had gone back to the House, but talking to Tony was making him regret that decision. “You understand what I’m saying?” Ray asked. “I haven’t seen Hector since he told me he was going take a piss and asked me to cover the door for him.”
“So what?” Tony said. “You know how unreliable beaners are. The whole damn city is filled with them. They’re the only ones who will even take a job, though. Trouble is, half the time they don’t show up.”
“I know you’re not that bright, Tony, so it’s probably good that Vinnie put me on this thing instead of you. But if you have any idea where Hector is-”
Tony tossed the newspaper aside and
jumped to his feet. “You need to shut up while you have a chance, Ray. The way you’re acting, and the fact you’re still standing here instead of getting out on the street and really searching for the little wetback, you must think it’s just a coincidence that he’s disappeared?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Ray said.
Tony jerked his thumb toward the stairs. “Then why don’t you get your ass out there and find him?”
“Tony, has your hair gel seeped into your brain? Can you even understand what I’m telling you? Hector is missing. In my old business we used to call that a clue.”
Tony’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t fire back. Ray thought that was unusual. He wondered where Rocco was. Usually you didn’t see Tony without his big goon nearby. He thought about locking an arm around Tony’s neck and giving him a Chinese haircut. The kind you gave as a kid, raking your knuckles against another kid’s scalp until he screamed. Ray would bet money that Tony would scream like a little girl.
“What do you want, Shane?”
Ray pointed at the closed door to Vinnie’s office. “I want to talk to Vinnie, find out what he knows about Hector. It’s not like you guys keep personnel files, but somebody has to know the kid. Somebody hired him.”
“I’m not going to bother Vinnie with that crap.” Tony poked a finger into Ray’s chest. “You want to know where Hector is, go find him.”
Nodding at the closed door, Ray said, “What happened, Tony? Vinnie got tired of having your nose stuck up his ass? He sent you out to play all by yourself?”
Tony’s face flushed and his lips tightened into a thin line. He took a step forward.
Ray dropped his right foot back and brought his hands up. “Be careful, Tony. Your butt-boy isn’t here to protect you. It’s just you and me this time.”
Tony stopped. His eyes stared straight into Ray’s. His face had turned red, and a vein bulged in his forehead. But he didn’t swing. Instead, he spoke in a low hiss. “It’s just a matter of time, Shane.”
Ray grinned. “You’re right about that.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was the kind of place Ray hated. A coffee shop that didn’t sell real coffee. The yuppie and punk hangout on Canal Boulevard was part of a corporate chain that considered black coffee a special order. Cappuccinos, mochas, and lattes with sprinkles were the beverages of choice.
Ray saw Jimmy LaGrange sitting at a table against the back wall, next to the restrooms. The detective looked nervous as hell. Ray strolled through the shop, passing a couple of late-morning breakfasters and a geek with orange hair and a laptop. The geek looked like he was eating a granola biscuit.
When Ray reached LaGrange’s table, he dropped into a chair across from his former partner. “You got the reports?”
LaGrange glanced past Ray’s shoulder toward the door. “I shouldn’t be seen talking to you.”
“You picked this place, not me.”
The detective looked around some more. “I’ve got to be careful. Someone might be following me.”
Maybe it was a lack of coffee, maybe it was Jimmy LaGrange acting like a dick, maybe it was the geek with the laptop-what kind of man dyes his hair orange and eats granola biscuits?-but after only a few seconds inside this joint, Ray was already angry. “Cut the cloak-and-dagger bullshit, Jimmy. You weren’t worried about being followed back in the day when you were stuffing Vinnie’s envelopes into your pocket.”
LaGrange’s eyes popped open. He leaned across the table and spoke in a harsh whisper. “Hold your goddamn voice down. I don’t do that anymore. I told you I got a new wife and a new…” His eyes darted around the yuppie coffee shop once more, then focused on Ray. “That stuff’s over.” LaGrange made a short cutting motion with his hand. “Finished.”
Ray wanted to ask his old partner how, if he really was clean, he could afford a new family while he was still paying for his old one-an ex-wife and two kids. But he didn’t ask. He needed LaGrange’s help. “What did you find out?”
A waitress came by, a big smile plastered on her face. She interrupted them and introduced herself as Brandy and said she would be their server. She was cute, Ray thought, in a wholesome, well-scrubbed, perky sort of way. He figured she had to be a college student. Real people weren’t that happy. He ordered the closest thing they had to black coffee. LaGrange ordered an espresso and a bran muffin.
“A bran muffin?” Ray asked after the waitress left.
“My cholesterol,” LaGrange said. He looked embarrassed.
A few minutes later the perky waitress brought their order.
When they were alone again, LaGrange leaned back, looking a little more relaxed now that he had his espresso and bran muffin. “You’re lucky, you know that?” he said.
Ray didn’t feel lucky. “Why?”
“This case is on the fast track.”
Ray raised his eyebrows. “How come?”
“Landry’s on it.”
“Why?”
“You know how he is,” LaGrange said. “He’s got it in for the Messina family. My guess is he wants to spin this off into another investigation of dirty cops.”
“He told me he isn’t with PIB anymore.”
LaGrange looked surprised. “You talked to him?”
“Sort of,” Ray said. “He slugged me.”
The detective sat up. “He did what?”
“I mentioned his dad.”
LaGrange nodded. “Then I’m not surprised. Even as much of a tight-ass as Landry is, he goes ape-shit if anybody brings up his old man.”
“Screw Landry.”
LaGrange drummed his fingers on the table. “How’s his dad doing?”
Ray took a sip of coffee. It tasted like warm shit. “He got sick about a year before I got out. They transferred him to the medical prison at Springfield. I haven’t heard from him since.”
“Cancer?”
Ray nodded. “In his colon.”
LaGrange looked down at his cup, quiet for a few seconds. “When the indictments came out and you guys got arrested, I was sick to my stomach, too. I mean really sick, vomiting every thirty minutes. But what was I supposed to do, turn myself in? Go tell the feds, hey you forgot about me?”
“We’ve all got to live with our choices, Jimmy.”
Neither one said anything for a while. LaGrange took a bite of his muffin to fill the silence. When he finished chewing, he said, “Everything about this case is getting pushed through really fast: follow-up reports, lab results, IBIS-”
“What’s IBIS,” Ray asked, pronouncing it Eye-Bis, like LaGrange had.
LaGrange exhaled sharply. “You have been away a long time.”
“I was in prison.” Ray said. “Which is exactly where you would have been if you hadn’t punched that drunk in the back of the head on Bourbon Street.”
For Detective Jimmy LaGrange, it must have been like winning the lottery, only better. Through pure dumb luck, he broke his hand at just the right time and was out on a sixty-day injury leave when the FBI started up their wiretap. The only guy in the six-man Vice Squad who didn’t go to prison.
LaGrange said, “Ray, if there was anything I could’ve done… anything. I even talked to a lawyer, told him I wanted to help, but he said there was nothing I could do.” LaGrange took a sip of his espresso. “I waited, expecting any second they were going to come for me. Hardest thing I ever had to go through in my life was seeing you, Sergeant Landry, and the other guys walking out of the federal building in chains, on your way to prison.”
Ray remembered that day, too. He remembered it like it was yesterday. He pulled a Lucky Strike from his pocket and lit it with his Zippo.
LaGrange glanced around the coffee shop as a panicked look crossed his face. Then he pointed to Ray’s cigarette. “You can’t do that.”
Ray took a deep drag, held it for a second, then blew the smoke across the table into LaGrange’s face. “Can’t do what?”
“Smoke,” LaGrange said as he coughed. “You can’t s
moke in here.”
Ray looked around. “It’s a coffee shop, right?”
Their waitress stomped over to the table. Not so perky anymore. “Sir, you can’t smoke in here.”
Ray looked up at her. “Why not?”
She propped her hands on her hips. “This is a smoke-free environment.” Saying it like Ray was an idiot for not knowing that already.
He waved her away. “Go get me an ashtray.”
She stuck her chin out. “We don’t have ashtrays, sir. We don’t allow smoking.”
“Come on, Ray, put it out,” LaGrange said. “Quit giving her a hard time.”
The not-so-perky waitress folded her arms across her chest. “If you don’t put that out, I’m going to have to call the manager.”
“You better find me an ashtray, or when I get done I’ll just stub it out on your floor.”
The waitress spun on her heel and marched off.
Ray took another drag on his cigarette. “So what’s IBIS, some kind of new fingerprint machine?”
LaGrange looked nervous as his eyes followed the waitress across the coffee shop. Finally, he looked back at Ray. “No, not fingerprints, bullet prints. I-B-I-S stands for…” He glanced at the ceiling like he was looking for the name to be written up there, but evidently he didn’t find it because after a couple of seconds he said, “I can’t remember exactly, but it’s the something-ballistic-identification system.”
“What does it do?”
“It’s a computer database we got from ATF.”
“And?”
“It’s at the new crime lab on Tulane. On every homicide involving a firearm, in fact, on every shooting, the lab takes the bullets and the casings and puts them into this machine.”
Ray pictured some lab guy in a white coat dumping hundreds of shell casings into a big machine.
LaGrange must have read his mind. “I don’t mean the bullets and cases themselves. The lab photographs them and converts the pictures into some sort of digital code that the computer can understand.”
House of the Rising Sun Page 6
