by Ed Kovacs
“Chief, I hope you’re not suggesting that the money seized at Del Breaux’s house—money that you were supposed to hand over to federal custody this morning—has gone missing.”
“I’m not suggesting that; I’m stating it. Perhaps you are unaware of this, but since the Storm destroyed our evidence room, we have been leasing a warehouse on the South Peters Street Wharf to use as temporary evidence storage. There are huge holes in the roof of that building; there’s no air-conditioning; it’s overrun with rats. And the Evidence Unit shares that building with the quartermaster, as well as with commercial vendors. Civilians. We don’t even have secure control of who goes in and what comes out. As of this moment, we can’t locate the bag with the two point five million. If the federal government had granted us funding to purchase a secure building to house our evidence room we wouldn’t have this problem. Of course, if the federal government had fixed the levees right in the first place—”
“Well maybe we need to open an investigation into where that money went, Chief.” Minniear practically spat as he spoke.
“Be my guest. My police department has no budget for security cameras, scanners, or even locks for all of the doors at the evidence warehouse. The place is a sieve. Cash, drugs, and property have gone missing. And the city owes over one hundred thousand dollars in back rent for the building. I suggest you focus your investigation on the sweet old Uptown white lady landlord who justifiably wants her rent money. She has already threatened in writing to seize collateral in terms of what we have stored there.”
“Un-frigging-believable. New Orleans,” said Gibbs, shaking his head and pulling out his cell phone. “The shakedown begins as soon as you cross the parish line and never ends. Doubled funding, huh?”
“You’re not going to recommend he gets it?” asked Minniear.
“What do you care? It’s not your money,” Gibbs retorted.
I sat there in semi-awe. I’d never seen the exercise of such raw political power. Chief Pointer, who had held a vendetta against me and had essentially destroyed my law-enforcement career, showed none of the old utter hate for me. He simply very neutrally used me as a tool in his reverse shakedown of the feds.
The chief had essentially just told the FBI to their face that he was stealing the two and a half million and that they could go take a long walk on a short pier. Plus they were doubling his funding. One had to admire his cojones. He knows he’ll be out on the street soon, so he’s cashing in while he can.
It only took seven minutes for Gibbs to get the word that the funding would be doubled. They didn’t mention the Breaux money again, but they got in a parting shot at me.
“Impersonating an FBI agent, I hear,” said Gibbs.
“Why would I insult myself like that?” I countered.
“He’s not even a real detective,” said Minniear.
“Wrong, as usual,” said Honey.
I turned in time to catch a gold badge, a detective’s shield, tossed at me by the chief. “Saint James has been officially re-commissioned.”
I wasn’t sure what the chief was up to, but I knew it was a gag, part of the show, so I played along.
“Shove it,” said Minniear, giving me the evil eye.
“You know, that black eye looks good on you. My partner did a nice job yesterday,” I said smiling.
The two agents stared daggers at me for a second, the human wall of bodyguards parted and they left. I took a sip of now-lukewarm coffee and leaned forward to hand the gold badge back to the chief.
“You owe me sixty dollars for the shield,” he said.
My jaw dropped. Then I realized he was just screwing with me. But wait—why was Honey smiling? She wouldn’t go in on a joke like that. She knew how much getting a gold shield had meant to me when I was on the force. That I’d been denied it was the main reason I resigned.
“Well, are you in or not? You and I have a lot of water under the bridge, but I’m willing to wipe the slate clean. Are you?”
What a question. This was not what I thought I’d be dealing with this morning. Wipe the slate clean? It was a big-ass slate he referred to, covering most of five years. The hate I held onto for the chief had almost become a physical object, it was so real. I knew it wasn’t healthy, but what was I supposed to do, forgive him?
I flashed on a hokey e-mail I’d gotten recently, supposedly composed by some ninety-year-old lady in Iowa who had written down her rules to live by. I usually don’t read that kind of dippy crap sent by well-meaning friends, but I’d needed a distraction from thinking about Bobby Perdue, so I’d read the old lady’s list. Two things simply jumped out at me. The first was “Use the good china today.” I liked that and immediately popped open a cold bottle of French champagne I’d been saving for a holiday and dug out a crystal champagne coupe from a box, stemware I’d bought but never used because it was supposed to be for a special occasion. Well, the old lady had taught me that the special occasion was being alive that day. The other thing she wrote that hit me was “Forgive everyone, everything.” What a concept.
As I stood there with Honey and the chief staring at me, I remembered a Japanese judo instructor I’d had when I was a teenager. He had told me that to “forgive and forget” was bullshit. He’d said it was important to “forgive but to remember.” What the hell—I knew that holding on to the old anger wasn’t helping me any.
“Sure, clean slate,” I said.
“I don’t want you back full-time; you’re not in the rotation. I just want you for the Five Alarm cases, working with Detective Baybee. The high-profile, high-publicity cases: a dead prominent citizen, a dismembered child, a murder scene with more than three stiffs—that kind of thing. And of course, you have to deliver. A new chief comes in and might very well pull the plug on this arrangement, so it could be very short-lived. The rest of the Homicide Section will resent you, try to sabotage you, so get used to it. Does that work for you?”
“Yes. I’m in.”
“Good. I don’t like it that you were trying to help us out and somebody put a bomb in your house. If you were a real cop, they might not have done that. And I don’t like it that those assholes went to Detective Baybee’s mom’s house and spooked her. So to hell with them.
“But don’t make the mistake of thinking that I’m backing you two up. I’m not. I’m giving you a little more rope. You can either hang yourselves or hang a killer. You are both officially off the case. I will swear up and down to everyone from the governor to a newspaper boy on the street that I ordered you off the case. But unofficially, I want you to deliver me a headline-grabbing homicide arrest in the next forty-eight hours. I’m expecting it, is that clear? Your continued tenure in the department depends on it. That badge has a two-day expiration date on it unless you close the case.”
“Yes, sir,” Honey and I said at the same time.
“Sign here on the dotted line. We’ll take care of the rest of your processing-in paperwork and equipment issues after you apprehend the killers.”
I signed. I was officially NOPD again. I turned and took a step toward the door.
“Are you forgetting something?”
I looked to Honey, then the chief.
“My money?”
“Oh, yeah.” I counted out sixty bucks but thought better about asking for a receipt.
“You’re behind this.” I stood in front of Honey in the dreary ground-floor hallway of Broad Street headquarters, dull brown linoleum under our feet. The building had been badly damaged by the Storm and repairs were still underway, one year later.
“I need a partner flashing a badge, not a piece of paper.” She couldn’t stop grinning. “Besides, Pointer’s desperate, so don’t let it go to your head.”
I looked at the shield in my hand and felt complete neutrality. I had so coveted obtaining a detective’s badge when I was an officer. Now I had one, via an instant re-commissioning, and I felt nothing. The situation was an anomaly and surely wouldn’t last. I held little confidence we could s
olve the case in forty-eight hours. And to be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be NOPD. Even part-time. But since the badge might help me solve this case, I’d use it for all it was worth.
Honey handed me a leather badge holder from her purse. I attached the gold shield, hooked it to my belt, and covered it with my shirt tails. She smiled like she’d just given me an engagement ring and I’d said yes.
“I’m afraid the shield might cramp my style. I’ve gotten used to operating in a much more gray area than when I was on the force, if you know what I’m saying.” I stopped myself. “Damn, I need to stop hanging with Decon, I’m starting to sound like him.”
“We’ve got two days, so don’t change your M.O. Okay, hard charger? In fact, we need to go balls to the wall.”
“Exactly. So screw being in hiding. I’m not convinced there’s any hit team after me.”
“The bomb was pretty convincing.”
“It wasn’t armed. I’m thinking it was a ploy, immediately followed up by unsolicited contact from our old CIA buddy, Twee Siu, using Eric Mondrian as the conduit.”
“You think the CIA is in on the arms smuggling, too?”
“Knowing Twee, how could we rule it out?”
Honey nodded. “We should rule it in.” She checked a small spiral notebook. “When is the next auction at Michoud?”
“Tomorrow night, according to the appointment book I copied from Brandt’s executive secretary. They have a big dinner at Restaurant August every Saturday night and then caravan out to Michoud for the auction. I checked with the restaurant, and the usual private dining room is booked by Clayton Brandt. Dinner for eighteen people.”
“Brandt called it a moving sale. Everything must go.”
“What we want is a going-out-of-business sale. We need to stop this crap or they’ll just set up shop someplace like Galveston or Mobile.”
“I’m seeing a judge right now. Try to get a warrant for Tan Chu’s place. Facts are thin, but it might fly.”
I nodded. “Honey, not to change the subject, but—thanks. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” I blurted out without thinking.
She bit her lower lip as she looked at me. As her eyes started to moisten, she spun away and hurried off down the hallway.
Honey showing emotion again? What was the world coming to? She must have sold the chief quite a bill of goods to convince him to reinstate me. She had seriously jeopardized her own career in an effort to give me something that had once meant the world to me but that had been denied. And she wanted to help me heal. She was single-handedly trying to evict Bobby Perdue from my aura and risking her life to do it. For that reason alone—Honey’s safety—I wanted to wrap this case ASAP. I had some errands to run, and it occurred to me I needed to go back to my loft to get my body armor. Like Mondrian said, it doesn’t pay to be cocky.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I dropped by my loft to retrieve my body armor, careful to log on to the Internet and remotely check my security video for an intruder before even stepping out of the rented white Yukon. Upstairs I saw that the bomb squad had made a mess in my kitchen, but considering the way the place looked anyway, it wasn’t that different. I’ve been neat all of my life. Only in the last month had I gone frat house.
The big stainless steel fridge, now missing sections of both sides, was running; I could hear the compressor. The bomb boys hadn’t unplugged it. As I stood there wondering if the Sub-Zero could be repaired and donated somewhere, I caught sight of a moving reflection in the shiny stainless steel door. I instantly dropped to the floor, and three shots rang out, the rounds puncturing the fridge I’d just stood in front of. No time to think, I crouched, shielded by the massive kitchen island, and squeezed off two rounds from the 1911A over the black granite countertop. Un-aimed covering fire was better than none, then I scrambled to the other side of the island, peeked around the corner, and saw a shadowy figure open fire—I saw the muzzle flash—and the bullet creased my temple and skull above the left ear. I didn’t feel anything, but sticky red blood oozed onto my face as I squeezed off two more rounds, the booming .45 sounding like a howitzer within the confines of my walls as the smell of nitrate filled my nostrils. My shots were half-aimed this time, trying to find the figure that disappeared amid stacks of unopened moving boxes.
So much for my theory of no hit team. A bomb yesterday, a gunfight in the house today; I was coming around to the concept that somebody wanted me dead. They had to be serious pros since they beat the alarms and the video cams.
Focus, I told myself. Four caps busted. Six had been in the stick and one up the pipe, so three more rounds for the cannon. Plus two mags holding six each in the paddle holder. Plus seven in the back-up Glock. If I needed more than my remaining twenty-two rounds I was in deep trouble. Extra mags and ammo in my locked safe room. A Ruger 9mm in the main living area in a cigar box on the table behind the couch, if the killer hadn’t already found it.
Check that, killers, as several shotgun blasts from a different direction tore into the kitchen island where I crouched, sending slivers of granite countertop spraying into the side of my face.
I pulled my cell, put it on speaker, and speed-dialed a number that rang in central dispatch. I set the phone down and pulled a spare magazine.
“Dispatch.”
“Officer needs help, Four-ten Girod, upstairs,” I said loudly. “This is Detective Saint James, badge eight eighty-eight. Shots fired—”
The killer with the shotgun must have had a semi-auto breakdown because a nonstop stream of pellets demolished my kitchen, and I caught a few in my left thigh. I heard myself moan as circles of red immediately appeared in my jeans. I figured the first shooter was closing in from the other side of the island while his partner laid down covering fire, so I fast-crawled that way and sprang to my feet, firing. The first two rounds missed the short, stocky blond guy—Russian, my mind told me in an instant—I could see his eyes were blue and he hadn’t shaved this morning. It occurred to me that perhaps it was superstition on his part, not to shave on the day he carried out a wet assignment.
Funny, I could hear myself think, but I couldn’t seem to hear anything else anymore, except the Sub-Zero compressor, laboring behind me. The blond guy squeezed off a round from what looked like a 9mm but I couldn’t hear the shot. He stumbled on a box on the floor, causing his torso to lurch left, disrupting his aim as he continued to fire and catapulting him into the trajectory of the third and last round from my weapon.
The blond guy went down and I knew he would never be getting up. I did a combat reload on the run, charging toward the shotgun operator, who had ducked behind the wall also to reload. I saw the black barrel sticking out from the edge of the wall and emptied the new magazine, sending all six high-capacity rounds into the red bricks as I ran forward, at the same time reaching for my last mag.
I say “on the run,” but my feet felt like I wore iron boots as I seemed to move slower than a disgruntled DMV employee. I’d practically made it to the wall as I ejected the spent mag and swung the new one toward the pistol butt.
Then the operator stepped into the open and swung the long gun. I hesitated, shocked for good reason by the visage I stared at, and only just had time to raise my right hand to block the barrel arcing toward my head. The front sight ripped open a deep cut on my hand and the hard hit knocked the 1911A from my grasp.
She was on me like a cat, going for my elbow. I jerked right and kicked her below the knee. It was a weak kick but still had to hurt her, since I wear steel-toed boots. I swung, using the magazine as a striking tool, but she sprang back out of harm’s way.
Jeez, she was beautiful. Stark black hair, pale skin now flushed, and eyes almost the same color green as mine. We both stood at just under six feet, nose to nose. A blade flashed. I momentarily grasped her knife-hand forearm, but she spun free. She had significant upper body strength and muscular thighs like she’d spent a lifetime running slaloms. The upper body of a tennis pro, the legs of a downh
ill gold medalist, the face of a fashion model. I’d be in heaven were it not for the fact she intended to send me to hell.
I backpedaled and pulled my Benchmade automatic folder, opening the blade without looking, as she came at me. She knew how to knife-fight. We feinted and parried in an incredibly fast series of moves, as if we’d choreographed them and practiced for months. I operated on pure instinct now; I’d entered a zone of perception that was something akin to pure consciousness, but in a reactive, purely defensive mode.
We both took serious, significant cuts on our forearms as the death dance moved back toward the kitchen area. A new noise impinged on my consciousness. A tinny, high frequency, plaintive sound. Imploring voices from my cell phone, disjointed and not understood. Immaterial now, as every grain of my focus had to remain on the big, buff, green-eyed brunette with a fine ass and huge breasts who was trying to give me the Big Shank.
She spun and caught me with a lucky foot strike, her heavy boot breaking some fingers and knocking the knife from my already cut and banged-up right hand. She lunged before I could recover, and we locked handgrips, the six-inch-blade tanto knife she held inching toward my neck. I couldn’t grip her knife hand well because of my busted fingers, giving her a distinct advantage. My weak-side hand battled for control with her weak-side hand as she used her powerful thighs to wedge my hips firmly against the kitchen island.
She kneed me, trying for my groin but missing as I gauged my options. That didn’t take long because I couldn’t think of any. Her knife hand, which I could only grip with three functioning fingers, felt like it was attached to a pneumatic arm, she was so strong. I slowly ceded ground in the death grasp.
My weak-side hand and hers were also locked in battle, so there was no way I could reach behind me for the Glock in my waistband. I should have pulled it earlier instead of indulging in the edged-weapons battle, but 20/20 hindsight is only instructive as an after-action learning tool. She used her weight to force me farther back over the counter, making a head butt on my part out of the question. And I couldn’t risk kicking her without losing balance.
