Let the Devil Out

by Bill Loehfelm

  “Can you tell me anything useful to catching your son’s killer,” Maureen asked, “or do you want to talk some more about the Constitution? Do you, Clayton’s father, know anything about your son’s life?”

  “Would you believe anything I told you,” Gage said, “that didn’t conform to the lies you choose to believe?”

  “Mr. Gage,” Maureen said, “we’re trying to figure out if your son’s numerous criminal activities, trafficking in illegal weapons chief among them, led to Clayton’s tough exit from this mortal world. I vote yes, but we’re open to contrary opinions. We stay open to all possibilities. Do you have anything to offer either way? Any specific enemies you can point at? Names, maybe?”

  “You do enjoy hearing yourself talk,” Gage said.

  “Almost as much as you do,” Maureen said. “Our interests are aligned, you and the NOPD, as much as that may turn your stomach. We both want to catch the person who killed your son. If you think he had enemies, do tell, I’m all ears.”

  “I doubt that we have any interests in common,” Gage said. “I doubt that very much.” He snatched his pen and legal pad off the table, stuffed them into his bag. He rose from his seat. “You know, you’re the first cop I talked to who hasn’t said ‘sorry for your loss’ or something like that.”

  “On the record,” Maureen said, rocking back in her chair, “as a representative of the New Orleans Police Department, let me express my condolences. I am sorry for your loss. Off the record, and knowing how you feel about liars, I’ll do you the courtesy of the truth. Your son conspired to murder police officers. I am one of those officers. I have bullet holes in my house to prove it. Mr. Gage, the only thing I regret about your son’s death is that I didn’t get him first.”

  Gage stared at her. Maureen expected an explosion of rage, it was the response she’d been after, but she could’ve sworn he stood there fighting back a smile. He said nothing before turning away and striding out the door. Maureen watched him go. Much better self-control then she’d anticipated. So much for provoking him. An amateurish strategy.

  When the door closed behind him, she bowed her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. She had certainly fucked that up. She hadn’t even raised the subject of Caleb Heath. The name Madison Leary had gone nowhere. Nothing helpful to Atkinson. She’d be going back to everyone empty-handed. She wondered if she could concoct an excuse for another interview. When she thought about it, Gage hadn’t gotten anything out of her, either. Why had he even asked to meet her? To recruit her for the cause? A waste of everyone’s time.

  Maybe she’d ask Detillier for another crack at the man. Maybe when she went looking for witnesses in the Garden District that night she would actually find one. She wanted to go looking for Dice only as a last resort.

  The waitress appeared at the table, coffeepot in her hand. Maureen covered her mug. She looked up at the girl. “No thanks. Just the check, please.”

  The girl pulled a check presenter from her apron and laid it on the table. “I didn’t charge you for his sweet tea.” She looked at the door. “I didn’t like that man.”

  Maureen opened her purse on her lap, digging for her wallet, her bulletproof vest digging into the small of her back. “Me, either, girlfriend. Me, either.”

  18

  Outside the café, Maureen put a cigarette between her lips and buttoned her coat against the cold afternoon. She lit up and sat at one of the empty outside tables to call Atkinson. The detective’s phone went right to voice mail. Maureen couldn’t decide what to say, so she left no message. No harm, she figured, in calling Detillier right away. She’d tell him everything Gage had said to her. Maybe that mumbo jumbo the man had spouted would mean something to the FBI. Maybe they’d hear a code in his language, something over her head that the FBI would find useful. Maybe something would surface that helped Atkinson. She wasn’t optimistic. She found Detillier’s number in her phone, punched it, and put the phone to her ear.

  That was when she saw him across Esplanade Avenue, waving at her. His unbuttoned suit jacket and his tie fluttered in the wind. It was awful chilly, she thought, to be out in the street without an overcoat. Detillier stood in the street, on the edge of the traffic, on the balls of his feet, waiting for a chance to cross. The call connected as she watched him, but he made no move to answer. He seemed to be in a big, big hurry. Borderline frantic, she thought, judging by his body language. His head snapped back and forth, back and forth, like a metronome. He was clocking more than the traffic. What now?

  She stood and looked up and down Esplanade Avenue. Gage was gone. Was that the problem? she wondered. Letting him walk away had been part of the plan. If the plan had changed while she was in the café, no one had thought to tell her. Fucking typical, she thought. Fucking bureaucrats. Detillier’s voice mail started speaking to her. She disconnected the call. Detillier had made it to the grassy neutral ground. He waited for another break in the traffic. He looked behind him. Went back to watching the street. He was calling her name, like she should rush over there to him.

  Maureen’s phone buzzed in her hand. Atkinson. Fantastic, Maureen thought. How was that for timing? She answered. “Coughlin.”

  “Jesus Christ, Maureen,” Atkinson said, out of breath. “Oh, thank God. Where are you?”

  Maureen’s heart had dropped into a hole. “I’m outside Dizzy’s, in the Tremé. Right where I told you I’d be. Why do you sound like that? What’s happened?”

  Detillier was running across the street. He had his gun drawn.

  Maureen lowered the phone. She could hear Atkinson ask, no, demand that Maureen talk to her. Maureen had never heard her sound anything like this. Shouting, yelling. Panic was something Atkinson didn’t do. Hearing it terrified Maureen. A commotion arose inside the café. Maureen turned and looked in the window. Employees and customers alike had gathered, standing under the television. Even the cooks and dishwashers had come out of the kitchen. Maureen couldn’t tell exactly what they were watching, but several people had their hands on their heads, or covered their mouths in clear horror. On the screen was an aerial shot of somewhere in the city. Sirens in the streets. Lots of sirens. She half-expected to see an overhead shot of her standing on the corner.

  She looked up into the sky for the helicopters. Nothing but clouds. Gray and static. And in the distance, she could hear sirens.

  Detillier jumped up onto the sidewalk. “Gage! Where is Gage?”

  “He left not five minutes ago. He might still be in the neighborhood. I don’t know where he parked. I didn’t know I was supposed to follow him.” She could hear Atkinson calling her name, asking what was happening. “That wasn’t the plan. What the fuck is going on? Why is your gun out?”

  “Who is that on the phone?”

  Maureen felt the air go out of her chest. “It’s Detective Atkinson.” She felt like a fist was squeezing her heart. A wave of dizziness washed over her, threatened to melt her knees. Like it had a year ago on Amboy Road. She wasn’t Atkinson. Panic was something she did often. No. Not now. Not now. “She’s calling to see if I’m okay?” Her vision blurred. She could hear the quaver in her voice. “Why is she doing that? Why is she doing that?”

  “You can talk to her on the way,” Detillier said. He took her by the arm.

  Maureen snatched her arm back. The adrenaline surge that came at his touch steadied her, brought her back to earth. “On the way where?”

  “We have to move you, we have to do it now.”

  “What is going on? You said I’d be safe.” Maureen looked at her phone. Atkinson had disconnected.

  “A bunch of cops have been shot,” Detillier said. His eyes moved to the television inside the café. He couldn’t help himself.

  “A bunch?” Maureen asked, almost laughing at the word. “A bunch?”

  “They were ambushed, in different places around the city,” Detillier said. “Four of them, so far.”

  “So far?”

  “I’ll explain later. We have to get you out
of here.”

  Maureen heard more sirens in the distance now. The screaming seemed to come from every direction. “Are they dead?”

  “We have to go.”

  “Are. They. Dead?”

  “Maybe,” Detillier said, his face dropping. He looked for a moment like he himself might collapse. “Maybe some. I don’t know. I don’t want to say.” He looked over her shoulder. “It’s a mess. It’s a fucking mess. We can’t talk here.”

  Maureen saw his eyes lock on to something behind her. Whatever he saw rallied his focus. “What kind of car was it the Watchmen used to shoot up your house?”

  “A white van,” Maureen said. “A commercial van. One with a door on the side that slides open.” She turned around and saw what Detillier had spotted. “Just like that one coming up the street. Motherfucker.”

  A dingy white van idled at a stop sign three blocks back toward Rampart. The afternoon haze threw the shadows of the trees across the windshield. She couldn’t see the driver. Maureen ran her tongue over her front teeth. Okay, then. She drew her Glock. She checked the safety. She’d already racked a bullet into the chamber. She spoke to Detillier with her eyes locked on the van. “I didn’t see it myself, I was away from the house, but that’s what the report said.”

  The van sat at the sign, a blue-gray plume of exhaust billowing behind it. Traffic had died on Esplanade, the afternoon after-lunch lull setting in. Or was the city on lockdown? Maureen could hear Detillier breathing over her shoulder. Might be an ordinary van, she thought. City was full of them. Every fly-by-night contractor and his brother drove an old, beat-up white van. But the timing, she thought. The timing. The right front headlight was busted. A fender bender? she wondered. Or shot out in the getaway?

  “The reports from the shootings,” she asked, “they say anything about a van? Any of our guys get any shots off?”

  “Not that I heard about,” Detillier said. “The shooters walked into restaurants where the officers were eating and opened fire. One guy was killed at the scene, the other pair fled in the panic. That’s what we know. This is an ongoing situation. We haven’t found anyone yet who saw what they drove.”

  Maureen swallowed hard. Time to focus. “Okay. We need to get away from the restaurant right now.” Or I do, she thought. Since I’m the target. The guys who’d shot up her house, they’d fired hundreds of rounds from some pretty heavy weapons. She had to draw fire away from the café. That was priority one.

  “Get everyone inside Dizzy’s into the back,” she said. “Get them into the kitchen and away from the windows.”

  The van started rolling again in their direction. She walked quickly toward it, her gun hanging at her side, loose in her hand. She could get to the van before it reached the restaurant. The crepe myrtles on the neutral ground, the parked cars and trees and garbage cans along her side of Esplanade gave her cover. She didn’t care if people in the van saw her coming. She wanted them to see her coming. She wanted their full attention. She sped up to a trot.

  A car came up behind her, the engine revving. She nearly screamed at the sound of it. She drew her weapon. This was no cat in the graveyard. She ducked behind a big plastic trash bin, landing hard on her knees. Stupid, she thought, stupid, stupid fucking girl. She waited for the bullets to fly. She’d have no shot at them. Stupid girl, the van was a decoy and you fell for it. She’d left her back completely exposed, and let herself be drawn out into the open. Two fatal mistakes at the same time. Never let them get behind you, one of the first things Preacher had ever taught her. She could hardly believe there weren’t bullets in her back already.

  From her knees, her armpits soaked with sweat, looking from behind the trash bin she peeked around the back bumper of a parked VW bug. She watched a noisy old Buick rattle by, an old woman at the wheel barely tall enough to drive. That was her assassin. She emptied her lungs. “Jesus fucking Christ, Maureen. Get a grip.”

  She wondered what the driver of the van had seen. Did he know where she was? Had he seen where she was hiding? She crept behind the bug, crouched, leaning her hip against its bumper, her gun in front of her in both hands.

  The van continued up Esplanade in her direction. Slowly.

  Now she could see the dark form of the driver behind the wheel. She couldn’t make out his face. Was he wearing a ski mask? Looked like it. Or was his face darkened in shadow? The windshield was cracked and the driver’s-side windows were filthy. She couldn’t tell anything for sure. She watched the side door of the van. If that door moved, if it twitched, she would let loose. She wished she’d brought an extra clip. Who knew how many bullets she would need? Where the fuck was Detillier? How long did it take to move a handful of civilians to safety? Why wasn’t he backing her up? Had he called for help? Why wasn’t he flanking the van? This FBI motherfucker was a trial. She raised herself away from the car into a standing crouch.

  She sighted the dark shape of the driver over the end of her gun.

  That was a ski mask he was wearing.

  It was, right?

  She moved her finger to the trigger. She watched the side door of the van. She pictured the guys crouched behind it, imagined them in camouflage hunting gear, ski masks over their faces, their gleaming weapons at the ready. Like rapists, drooling on themselves, pulling at their big shiny belt buckles. Cowards. Disguised, hiding. They’d start shooting before the door was even all the way open. More rounds per second than she could possibly return. Bullets coming so fast they’d touch off flames where they landed. The gunfire thunder would be deafening, if she lived long enough to hear it. If she wasn’t perforated where she stood like a paper target.

  Her thighs ached from holding the crouch. Her ankle throbbed. The only good shot she’d have would be the first shot.

  So pull it, Maureen, she thought. Pull it and be done with it. Pull the trigger on these motherfuckers. These cop-hating, cop-killing motherfuckers. Fuck being the one to shoot back. Be the one to shoot first. Make sure you’re the last one breathing.

  She followed the form of the driver with her gun, gritting her teeth, breathing hard through her nose, her palms slick with sweat.

  And what if it isn’t the Watchmen? she thought. What if you’re wrong? What if it’s some knucklehead in a dirty old van full of tools? Some poor dope in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  She watched that side door. She watched the driver’s-side window, waiting for the glass to slide down, for the barrel of a gun to appear over the top of the door.

  If that door moves, if that glass moves, I’m shooting.

  And what if he’s rolling down his window to spit out his gum? Or flick away his cigarette butt? And you blow his head open for him because of it?

  Look my way, driver, she thought. Look my way.

  “Look at me. Look at me, look at me,” she whispered.

  Show me who you are, she thought. Because I don’t wanna die here but I don’t wanna kill an innocent person, either. Because if I kill the wrong person, everything is over. For him and for me. Everything. My career. My life. The great New Orleans experiment. Everything. Shot to hell. I’ll die in prison for this mistake, she thought. That’s if I don’t jump in the Mississippi River first for killing an innocent bystander.

  Am I gonna go out like that, she thought, because I let those bully militia limp-dick fucks scare me so badly I ran out into the street shooting at people like a madwoman?

  That’s what these fuckers want, she told herself. That’s their power. This is how terrorists win. With you standing in the street, terrified, a gun in your hand, looking for someone, anyone, to shoot. Doing their killing for them, brainwashed and murderous, no better than a suicide bomber. If you make that fucking awful mistake, she thought, it’s them that got you. It’ll be them that fucked you, them that killed you and everything you wanted and were and would be.

  Don’t shoot, she thought. Don’t pull that trigger. Stand your ground.

  She lowered her gun and walked out into the street.

 
She heard Detillier calling her name from what seemed a mile away. The van window rolled down, glinting in the sun as it moved. The driver was revealed. He was a smiling guy with a bushy beard in a blue watch cap and a camouflage hunting jacket. No ski mask over his hairy face. He blew Maureen a kiss. She almost shot him for it.

  The van picked up speed and headed down Esplanade toward the I-10. Maureen memorized the plate number. She’d give it to Detillier. He’d call it in. Shooting the guy was one thing. Pulling him over and putting him through the ringer—hell, he’d never realize what a favor she’d done him. She heard Detillier calling her name from closer. He was heading toward her. She figured she should turn and look for him, but she didn’t. Each thought she had seemed to take a long time to form and compute, like skywriting.

  Maureen felt stunned by the quiet around her, to be standing in it, realizing how convinced she’d been that the air would roar with gunfire. A car, one of those tiny toylike Smart cars, rolled right up to her, the driver leaning on her horn, her phone at her ear. Maureen’s reverie broke. She glanced down at her gun, then raised her eyes to meet the driver’s. She saw the driver see the gun. The woman shrieked and threw her hands in the air, which Maureen enjoyed. She stood there in the street, staring down the driver until Detillier caught up to her.

  He seemed afraid to come any closer and called her name from the sidewalk. Finally, she stepped back to the curb. The Smart car sped away.

  “So it wasn’t them,” Detillier said. He ran his hand over his shining bald head. “Man, we scared the shit out of those people in Dizzy’s.”

  “I don’t know who the fuck that was in the van,” Maureen said. “I have no idea. Could’ve been them. Could’ve been fucking with us. Could’ve backed down when we spotted them. They don’t strike me as the type who get too brave when the prey starts shooting back.”

  “Speaking of,” Detillier said. “You can put that gun away now.” He glanced up and down the avenue. “We have to get you off the streets.”