The woman disappeared from view into the apartment. Rusty again tried to raise himself, but a brisk rattle of the chain made him think better of it.
“I’m a friend of the woman who lives next to you,” he said, his tongue feeling a bit thick.
“Sure. That’s why you come busting out the door in the middle of the night, with the place all closed up. Makes plenty of sense.”
“You may have noticed I was chasing someone. What happened to him?”
“Dove into a shit-ugly Pontiac parked at the curb and tore off. I could only take down one of y’all. You were closest.”
“Great. I don’t suppose you got a plate number.”
“How the hell am I gonna read a plate from this distance?”
“Look,” Rusty said, “I told you I’m a friend of Marceline Lavalle. If you’ll let me stand the fuck up I can show you a picture to prove it.”
The neighbor pondered that suggestion for a tick, then nodded. “Just take care to do it slow.”
Rusty rose to his feet, employing the most non-confrontational body language he could muster.
“You can put down that chain. Doubt you’d need it anyway.”
“Let’s just see the photo.”
The woman reappeared in the doorway. She clutched a phone in place of the toddler.
“They got me on hold again, Pete,” she said with a yawn.
“Goddamn emergency response ain’t worth shit around here,” the big man uttered, shaking his head.
“It’s on my cell phone,” Rusty said quickly. “The photo of me and Marceline.”
He wanted to derail any police involvement fast. If the cops showed up, someone would be getting a free ride to the station to sort this out, and he was the only guy around who qualified.
“Listen to me, Pete,” he said, trying to claim the neighbor’s attention. “I gotta get it from my pocket.”
Pete eyed him closely as Rusty pulled his mobile phone from a front pocket of his pants. He turned it on, swiped the security code and opened up an album of images.
“About time,” he heard Pete’s woman mutter to the 911 dispatcher. “We got a burglar trapped on our porch.”
Rusty scrolled rapidly through a collection of photos taken over the last several years. He double-tapped a thumbnail to enlarge it, then held out the phone to Pete.
“Tell her to hang up, man. That’s me and Marcie in Vegas.”
Pete craned his head to examine the image on the screen, then glanced up for a comparison.
“It’s a few years old,” Rusty said, sensing his skepticism.
“We’re in the Marigny,” the woman continued impatiently to the dispatcher. “You oughta recognize this number by now. Been out here enough times.”
“Come on,” Rusty pleaded. “She really is a good friend of mine. Her middle name is Hart. She works at the Bon Coeur maternity ward. Her favorite color is purple, for Christ’s sake.”
“Well,” Pete mumbled, fondling the chain with his thick fingers. “I guess so.”
He spoke over his shoulder to his companion.
“You can cancel that roller, doll.”
“You sure, Pete?” she asked, squinting through the doorway at Rusty with an expression of distaste.
“Yeah. Seems this fella knows Marcie. He chased off some other guy lurking in her pad.”
Shaking her head as if the whole matter wearied her beyond description, the woman told the 911 dispatcher not to bother. False alarm. Then she disappeared back inside the apartment, letting the screen door slam.
The two men stood facing each other awkwardly on the porch. The initial numbness behind Rusty’s ear was seeping into a sharp pain that wrapped itself all the way around his skull.
“So what exactly happened in there?” Pete asked, letting one end of the chain dangle loosely by his ankles.
Feeling more secure with the weapon lowered, Rusty described how he’d let himself into the apartment when he noticed the door was open. He gave a quick account of spotting the other man and trying to apprehend him before Pete’s chain put a stop to that.
“Didn’t get a decent look at him, huh?”
“Too dark,” Rusty answered. “I know he’s got a beard, longish brown hair. Maybe 5’10” or so. That match up with what you saw?”
“Close enough.”
After a pause, Pete said, “Sorry about that tap on the dome. Don’t hurt too bad, does it?”
“Nah,” Rusty lied. He didn’t want to be invited inside for some homespun first aid.
“So you and Marcie go back a ways, huh?”
“Since we were teenagers. I lived in NOLA for about five years.”
“She’s a doll. Hell of a lot nicer than the old lady used to be in that unit.”
“Her father says it’s been almost a week since he saw her. That’s why I came over. Thought I’d check to see if she’s alright.”
A dubious aspect returned to Pete’s swarthy face.
“Picked an odd hour to drop by.”
“Just got in town tonight. The old man’s really worried. I was hoping to put his mind at ease as soon as possible.”
Pete seemed to buy that, his features settling back into a friendlier arrangement.
“Ain’t seen Marcie myself, come to think of it. I figured maybe she’d gone to pop out that baby. But she ain’t due for a few months yet, is she?”
“Not until May, I’ve heard. Do you see her often?”
“Just to say hi on the stoop. She made some kickass jambalaya for us once. Did some other favors when my lady was laid up in bed with a busted toe. Sweet girl, she really is.”
“Ever see any rough-looking dudes around here? I’m not prying into her personal business, just trying to figure out where she might be.”
“She keeps to herself, mostly. I never saw that bastard in the Pontiac before.”
“It’s weird. If he was a burglar, why didn’t he carry anything out of the place?”
“Maybe we should call the cops back, report it. I can give ’em a description of the vehicle, if nothing else.”
Rusty thought about it for a moment. A wave of crushing fatigue was settling into his bones as the adrenaline of the past few minutes receded. His phone’s screen read a few minutes before two. The last thing he wanted to do right now was repeat this conversation with a cop.
“Tell you what. I’m heading over to the Sixth Precinct in the morning. Gonna see a detective who took the missing person’s report from Marcie’s dad. I’ll fill him in on what happened here. And I’ll leave you out of it, if you want.”
“Hell, you can mention me. I got a stake in this thing too. Technically the man broke into my home, seeing as we share a common wall. Tell him he can talk to Pete Banning if he needs any more info.”
“Thanks, I’ll do that.”
Rusty made his way onto the street and heard the door of the Banning household slam shut again. Each step yielded a fresh wave of painful dizziness, but he concluded from lengthy experience he hadn’t suffered a full-blown concussion. Back in the crazy Vegas days, he’d racked up enough of those to become intimately familiar with the symptoms.
Too wired to mentally process the events of this bizarre night in any kind of orderly fashion, Rusty kept one thought primary in his mind as he approached the street corner.
Christ, I hope my cab is still there.
It was.
6.
The JAX brewery towered over the riverbend like a monument to some fabled industrial boom time. Its iconic neon sign spelled out the name of the South’s second oldest beer in three red letters the size of eighteen-wheelers turned on their ends.
The parking lot behind the brewery lay almost empty at a few minutes before three in the morning. Claude Sherman had no problem finding a free spot.
Claude parked his two-toned Pontiac station wagon in a row close to the brewery’s back exit. He doused the lights. The wagon, with over 150,000 miles on the odometer, had served him well since he’d acquired it f
rom a used car dealer who owed Mr. Abellard a favor. Claude found it a comfortable ride, with ample room in the back for hauling, but the shitty two-toned paint job bugged him. He was due for a vehicular upgrade, and he intended to remind Mr. Abellard of that when the proper moment arose.
Claude couldn’t worry about that right now. He needed to get this phone call over with, and keep it brief. His left ankle still throbbed from the bad landing he’d taken on the sidewalk after his leap off the front porch, but it didn’t feel worse than a minor sprain.
What a fucked-up night. Claude almost couldn’t believe he’d been ordered to break into the girl’s apartment, but that’s what Mr. Abellard wanted. And Mr. Abellard got what he wanted.
It was a strange thing, being instructed to look for clues in a crime Claude himself had committed. Like a rabid dog sent out to track down his own scent. But what choice did he have?
It started out well enough. Claude had parked his wagon across from the apartment shortly after eleven. He patiently sat there for more than two hours, waiting for her next door neighbors to turn off their lights and go to bed.
When midnight passed with no sign of that happening, Claude made the calculated risk of breaking in while they were still awake. It turned out to be a good decision. The murmur of their television stifled the sound of him picking the lock. He was inside in less than a minute, leaving the door open just a small gap so he could exit the apartment with total silence after searching the place.
All smooth enough. A hell of a lot smoother than when he’d broken in the first time. Claude found it much simpler to unlawfully enter a person’s home without having to carry an inert body in a duffel bag on the way out.
Claude shook that image from his mind and dialed the number in Vacherie.
“You’re late,” he heard after the first ring. “Start talking.”
“I went through the whole place, the way you told me. Every room with a penlight. Desk, drawers, closet, cabinets, all of it.”
“And you saw nothing like we talked about? No sign of a break-in?”
“No. Everything looked, uh, normal. Just some chick’s pad.”
A short silence ensued, and Claude realized it probably wasn’t a great idea to refer to Marceline Lavalle in such a casual way. Not to Joseph Abellard. Not in light of recent events.
“I guess I gotta believe you, Claude.”
“I don’t see why you wouldn’t. Even if this was about the hospital, my neck’s stuck out a lot farther than yours.”
A lengthier silence met those words. Claude shrank into the driver’s seat. Silence from Joseph Abellard could inspire more dread than the most unhinged tirade, and he was a man capable of unleashing an apocalypse of verbal abuse when prompted.
“I’m glad you mentioned that,” Abellard said calmly. “Spares me the trouble. You are in this shit deeper than me. Deal turns sideways, who’s the first motherfucker going toes-up?”
“You’ve made that clear, Mr. Abellard. Many times.”
“Better hope it sunk in.”
Jangled by the threat, Claude almost opened his mouth to mention the dude who jumped him inside the apartment. That qualified as the most unexpected turn of the night, though he badly wanted to dismiss it as sheer coincidence. Why not? Random guy sees an open door and ducks in for something to steal. Either that or just another drunk on a Frenchman Street bender, too hammered to find his way home to the right address.
Wasn’t that possible? Claude wanted to believe it, so he kept his mouth shut.
“OK fine,” Abellard said gruffly. “It was worth a look. You didn’t find anything, tough shit. We got bigger priorities right now. Professor Bitch needs that new batch, pronto.”
“I don’t see how we can make that happen. Told you already—”
“Never heard her so wound up,” Abellard interrupted, “spouting some crazy noise about what’s goin’ down if we don’t deliver on schedule.”
“What do you want me to do?” Claude asked with a note of annoyance that he’d never let slip if speaking to his boss in person.
“I want you to stalk that motherfucker at the clinic tomorrow. Don’t let him leave until he knows our business is the only priority he needs to worry about.”
“I already talked to Roque, more than once. He gives me the same answer each time.”
“Sounds like talk ain’t getting it done.”
“Cash will. He wants a bigger bite, says his end’s worth twenty percent.”
“I don’t need to hear any of that, Claude. My deal got done months ago, nobody said shit about negotiation. All I want to know is you’re delivering the next batch, harvested and viable, by Tuesday morning. If you gotta lean on the fucking doc to make that happen, lean on him.”
“Why not meet him halfway? Offer ten and he’ll probably take it.”
“Fine, if it comes out of your cut. Split it up any damn way you want, long as he delivers.”
“Look, Roque’s the only source we got. He knows it. Goddamn maternity ward’s out.”
“And who’s fault is that?”
Claude silently cursed himself, unable to believe he’d just made the mistake of broaching that particular topic.
“Forget I mentioned it. Bottom line, Roque thinks he’s holding the cards. That’s the problem.”
“It’s your job to make him see the situation otherwise. Fail to do that, you fail to be of any use to me. And by now, Claude, I think you’ve pieced together a pretty clear picture of how I handle deadweight.”
7.
The head nurse at the Bon Coeur maternity ward kept Rusty hanging for six minutes before glancing up from her computer to acknowledge his presence. It was just past nine in the morning. Rusty’s head still thrummed from Pete Banning’s blindsided blow despite the four Advils he’d swallowed before going to sleep, and another four upon awakening. The head nurse didn’t know about that, and probably wouldn’t care if he told her.
“I only need a moment of your time,” he said as the minute count ticked up to seven.
“With you just as soon as I can, sir.”
She delivered those words without averting her eyes from the computer screen. Something utterly fascinating must have kept her gaze so focused.
Probably a white-hot game of Solitaire, Rusty mused.
Bon Coeur was an impressive medical establishment. Located a block off St. Charles in the leafy Upper Garden, Rusty figured it must cater to a well-heeled segment of the New Orleans populous.
He didn’t know how Marceline had landed a job here, but her motive for seeking this kind of work didn’t escape him. She’d been a natural caregiver since he’d met her at the age of fifteen.
During his long apprenticeship with Prosper, Marceline had devoted almost as much time to magic as he did. The two teens served as trusted assistants to her father. A coy off-stage romance developed during countless twilight performances on the corner of Royal and Dumaine.
Remember all those nights? Rusty asked himself as he waited to speak with the head nurse. Crouching behind that black velvet tent…rattling the tip jar after every show?
He didn’t truthfully remember it in any great detail. That five-year stretch lived in his memory only as a happy blur, so far removed from his current life that it might have been someone else’s experience.
Trying to keep both eyes on the old man, tracking the movement of his hands…but never looking away from her for very long. Christ, I loved her.
Back then, Marceline devoted many free afternoons to visiting sick children and elderly patients at the Touro Infirmary. She’d read to them, often dragging Rusty along to perform some of the rudimentary illusions he’d mastered.
So when she made an unannounced visit to Rusty’s home in Ocean Pines last October, after having broken contact with him in Vegas more than a year before, it didn’t come as a surprise to learn she’d chosen to pursue nursing as a vocation. The bump in her belly did surprise him, though he had no reason to feel jealous after all the time th
at had passed since their romantic union was still active—not to mention his own many missteps that had led to its dissolution.
“Did I hear you say you have no relation to any newborns under our care?” the head nurse asked with a dubious squint, yanking him from his reverie.
“That’s right. I’m here about one of your nurses. Marceline Lavalle.”
“What about her?”
“I’m hoping to find out where she is. Understand she hasn’t shown up for work in a few days.”
“It’s not this hospital’s policy to disclose the work history of its employees. I’m sure you can imagine what kind of headaches that would bring on.”
“Not really, no.”
“Litigation, for one.” The head nurse looked ready to start counting off reasons on her plump fingers but restrained herself. “Fraudulent insurance claims, for another. On top of which, we respect the privacy of our medical staff and don’t go handing out their schedules to anyone who might walk in the door.”
“Look, I’m a friend, OK? I’m concerned about Marceline because she seems to have gone missing. I talked to her father last night, he’s out of his mind with worry and I can’t blame him. Given her condition, it seems more than a little urgent to find out where she’s keeping herself.”
A wordless moment elapsed. Just as Rusty was convinced he’d get nothing from the head nurse except directions to the nearest exit, her expression softened.
“I’ll be honest with you, Mister…”
“Diamond.”
“Honestly, Mr. Diamond, I’m disappointed. Nurse Lavalle has performed splendidly since we took her on last fall. I know she’s taking a leave of absence in May, and that certainly isn’t a problem. She’s been very conscientious about providing a specific timeframe.”
“Is it a temporary leave? Does she plan on returning to work?”
“She’s given no reason to expect otherwise, at least not to me.” The head nurse frowned, then continued. “It’s, well, quite out of character for her to act in such an irresponsible manner.”
“That’s why we’re so worried. Me and her father.”
Blind Shuffle Page 4
