As he speaks the French minister’s image is replaced by photos of three men, one at a time, names beneath each. French names with the word ‘wounded’ below each name.
“Initial reports that an American was shot is untrue. Two Americans were in the room when the terrorists stuck, a bank executive from New Orleans and a vacationing New Orleans police officer French authorities credit with killing both terrorists.”
A photo of John comes on screen with his name beneath and Stefi jumps up, hands over her mouth.
“New Orleans Police Chief Inspector John Raven Beau, pictured here, interceded and managed to slay both terrorists. Mr. Beau was taken to the hospital for precautionary reasons and is reported in good condition. Details are forthcoming from French authorities.”
Pictures of two men come on next, both look Italian to Stefi. Good looking guys.
“Jean-Francois Maynard and Yann Mordrel carried laminated cards on them claiming to be Tariq separatists and their mission to re-establish Moorish rule in Europe.” The press secretary looks up momentarily. “French Intelligence sources explain Tariq separatists are a small group centered around Bordeaux, France. Named after the Moor general Tariq ibn-Ziyad, they wish to avenge the Moors defeat at the Battle of Pointers in 732 a.d.
“They are Muslim but not devout and this terrorist attack is not jihadist, not religious, but political.”
“Damn,” Stefi’s father says. “732 a.d. and they think we’re crazy over here.”
“We’re just as bad,” Stefi’s mom says. “Think about it.”
THE DOCTOR HAS Albert Einstein’s crazy white hair, Jack Nicholson’s leer and sounds like a Frenchman trying to impersonate Christopher Walken, Walken pauses included.
Jessie interprets for Beau,
They can find nothing physiological wrong with Beau and Jessie interprets the doctor who adds, “How did you manage to not get shot?”
Beau to Jessie – “I turned as he fired. He must have jerked the trigger.”
Beau to the doctor – “So, those nine tubes of blood reveal nothing?”
Jessie interprets.
The doctor speaks and Jessie tells Beau, “Your blood and MRI reveal a man in excellent physical health. So whatever is causing your muscles to stiffen, whatever caused you to black out, is probably psychological.”
The doctor hands Jessie a business card. A Parisian psychiatrist. She tells Beau the doctor says he can set up an appointment for Beau for tomorrow morning.
“Like that’s gonna fuckin’ happen.” Beau climbs out of the hospital bed and reaches for his clothes.
Jessie starts to tell the doctor what Beau said and the doctor goes, “I speak English very well.”
And who’s the lunatic in the room?
The doctor gives them the Gallic shrug and walks out. Beau manages to pull up his 511s before two men step into the room, both in suits. The older of the two comes forward.
“Ah, Chief Inspector Beau. You are up.” The man holds up his credentials, smiles at Jessie, turns back to Beau. “I am Chief Inspector Adrien Caye from the Sureté and this is Colonel Pierre Grossien of SDECE, French Secret Service, Counter-Espionage Division.”
To Jessie, “Mademoiselle. We are here to take you to dinner.”
The men are middle aged, both burly with thick brown hair and long French noses.
The colonel says, “We have moved your things to a suite in the George V Hotel. Compliments of the republic.”
Beau pulls on his shirt, socks and starts on his Sketchers and looks at his shoes. Silent running shoes, silent enough for him to run down the terrorists without being heard.
“Why are we moving?”
“A finer room at a finer hotel,” goes Caye.
“Better security,” Grossien says.
Beau finishes dressing and picks up his knife sheath as Jessie tells them she needs to change before dinner.
“Oui, mademoiselle. We dine at the George V.”
The Frenchmen lead the way into a hall where four gendarmes stand with automatic rifles. Nine more gendarmes line the way down to two black Citroens with blacked out windows.
“We’re expecting trouble?” Beau asks as they step to the second car.
“We do not want anything happening to you.”
“You have an extra Glock handy?”
Jessie says, “Make that two.”
She climbs in, flashing the men with that unbuttoned skirt. Caye actually smiles at Beau.
The debriefing takes until two p.m. the following day. Beside Caye and Grossien, there is a man and a woman from the US State Department and two FBI special agents. After going over the incident, step by step, it’s Caye who advises, “Your knife severed Maynard’s spinal column through his larynx. The two shots you fired at Yann Mordrel – both fatal wounds. Astonishing in a shootout. Your police chief says you’ve shot like that before. Have you had any special forces training, Chief Inspector?”
“My father taught me to shoot. Squirrels, coons, rabbits. The occasional razorback. Oh, yeah. And cottonmouths.”
“Americans,” Grossien says with a smile. “All cowboys.”
As the interviews end, one of the FBI agents hands Beau a cell phone. “Mr. Madison.”
“Something wrong with your cell phone?” Madison asks.
“I turned it off. I’m on vacation.”
“Funny. I’m very, very relieved you and Jessie are OK. You are OK?”
“As soon as these nosy guys are finished with us, we’ll be fine.”
“Good. You can tell the president I said hello.”
“What president?”
“The President of France, you goof ball. They didn’t tell you what’s going on tomorrow?”
“No.”
“I’ll leave it to them. Oh, you’re not flying home on a commercial jet. The US Air Force has NATO flights in and out of Brussels daily. Big transports.”
“Brussels?”
“In Belgium. Right next door to France. Oh, yeah. You and Jessie won’t fly to New Orleans directly. Our president invites you and Jessie to the White House. Haven’t you seen the news? The networks and CNN, the BBC? You’re an international hero.”
“The fuck I am.”
“The fuck you are.” Madison laughs and disconnects.
Beau looks at Caye. “What’s this about tomorrow?”
Caye smiles broadly, says, “The President of the French Republic, monsieur. You are familiar, I am sure, with the Legion of Honour.”
“Is that a football team? Soccer?” Beau almost smiles.
Grossien looks as if Jessie just pinched his ass while Caye says, “You, sir, are to receive our nation’s highest decoration. Established by Napoleon in 1802. From a grateful nation, you will join our legion.”
Beau loses his smirk. This is serious business.
The Legion of Honour. As they walk out he wonders what his Cajun father would think of his little boy now.
IT ISN’T UNTIL they are away from the madness of Paris and riding in a private car on a high-speed train to Brussels, gendarmes with machine guns outside their cabin, does Beau turn on his iPhone to call his mother.
“Hello, Mom. You asked me to call when it’s over. I guess it’s over.”
“Good, son. I see you are no longer a stealth detective.”
“I never was. I’m just antisocial.”
“Thank you for calling, Johnny.” She sounds up, as usual. Not the voice of an older woman at all.
“Um, ask my grandfather if he can make me another obsidian knife.”
“He’s been watching the news. He already started on one. Thought yours might have broken.”
“No, ma’am. The Sureté, French police, have a crime museum and they asked to display it. Half-French, half wild aboriginal American cop kills 21st Century terrorist with volcanic rock knife. You won’t believe these newspapers.”
Jessie has a dozen newspapers and a couple magazines, all French, spread out in the cabin.
“You will have
to come up here for the knife, you know.”
“I will. Soon. And I’m bringing a woman I want you to meet.”
“That’s good, son. Thank you for calling.”
“Love you, mom.”
She tells her son she loves him back and disconnects.
Jessie holds up the front pages of les Temps and Paris-Match, each with a photo of the French President pinning the Legion of Honour on Beau’s chest. Both men wear navy blue suits, Beau wearing one they had to buy quickly as he brought no suit to Paris. He’d put on his Ray-Bans just before meeting the president and Jessie snatched them off his face, threatened to break them.
Jessie holds up the paper with the largest photo. Front page of le Monde. Same picture beneath a large headline reading: LE GRAND BEAU. “The Great Beau.”
Lord, help me.
Beau places another call and Stefi answers her cell after one ring.
“Hello, Couillon.”
“John!”
“How’s it going back home?”
“Oh, my God. It so good you called. I mean. I …”
“I know, kid. Just wanted to say Jessie and I are thinking about you and Scamp. You’re taking good care of Stella aren’t you?”
“Twice a day I go over there.”
“Hold on for Jessie.” He passes his cell and the sisters talk. Briefly. Jessie hands the cell back.
“Before you disconnect,” Stefi says. “I started a facebook page for you. Fans of The Great Beau. That’s what they’re calling you in France, you know. Like The Great Gatsby.”
“Yeah? Look what happened to him.”
“Uh. Oh, yeah. Right. Stay away from pools.
“I think I have a Wikipedia page too.”
“I’ll check it. You have over 2,000 facebook friends already.”
“Jesus.”
“He’s not one yet.”
THERE IS A ‘For Sale’ sign in front of the small brick house in Lakeview where Mike Agrippa lived for twenty-four years with his wife. Beau approaches, notices the lawn’s been freshly cut and is that new paint on the trimming?
When he got in, his first day back from Paris, Aileen Bowers handed Beau 32 pink message slips, including three from Tim Rothman asking if the queen knighted him yet. He returned only one message, calling Jeanne Agrippa who asked him to come by when he could.
He takes his off his Ray-Bans, squints under the bright afternoon sunlight, and touches the doorbell. Jeanne Agrippa appears behind the screen door. She’s cut her hair and wears a plaid blouse over tan slacks and sandals. She unlatches the screen, opens it and tells Beau she just made a pot of coffee.
He follows her through the front room back to the kitchen and to the Formica table she had been sitting the last time he was here. He doesn’t look at the den where the SRT men had been that morning. The back door is open too, the screen door latched and a nice breeze flows in with scents of flowers.
She brings two large mugs of coffee, steps back to the refrigerator to take out a can of Pet milk. She nods to the sugar bowl on the table as she sits. Another small bowl has blue Equal packets and yellow Splenda packets. Beau waits for her to fix hers before he pours in a slurp of Pet milk and two spoons of sugar in his, takes a sip.
“Good coffee.”
She nods. The streaks of gray in her hair seem more silver today.
“Soon as I can sell this place, I’m going to live with my great aunt.” She takes a sip. “Opelousas. I was born and raised there.”
Beau takes a sip, tells her, “I’m from Acadiana. Grew up off Vermilion Bay near a little place called Cannes Bruleé. Hurricane Rita wiped out the whole area.”
“I know you’re from Acadiana. I learned a lot about you, John Raven Beau, before you went to Paris.”
This doesn’t sound good.
She puts her mug down, looks out the back door, “Tell me what happened out there.”
“I tried to talk him down. He had his mind made up, said I wasn’t going to talk him out of it. Said the pain was real. Unrelenting. He told me to tell you he loved you then he shot himself.”
“Why’d you go out there? They tell me you aren’t a counselor, negotiator, anything like that.”
“I thought someone should be with him, someone not pointing a gun at him.”
She looks down at her coffee.
“He didn’t say anything else?”
“He told me he let the cop into the house.”
Her eyes focus on his.
“He let the anger in.” Beau closes his eyes, tells her he remembers exactly what Mike said. “He said he brought all the shit we do out there, all of it, into the house and took it out on you.”
She looks down again and her shoulders rise and fall. Eventually a tear falls into her coffee and she wipes her eyes and looks at the back door again.
She turns her wet eyes to him, says, “It was more than that. It had been building for a long time.”
She wipes her eyes again. “I was so angry with you. I blamed you. But I know I was wrong.”
She raises her mug with both hands and takes a sip.
“The detectives came around and straightened me out. Merten and especially Tim Rothman. He lives three blocks away. They told me all about you. Jodie Kintyre came by too. I once thought Mike had put a move on her but she straightened me out about that as well. So I want to say I’m sorry I blamed you.”
Beau hears his voice come out low, soft, “I wish I … wish I.”
Jeanne Agrippa sits up straighter. “You know and I know we aren’t perfect. There’s something wrong inside each of us. I think Mike just couldn’t accept that about himself. He just couldn’t.”
She stands, goes to the counter and comes back with a white business card, sits and puts it in front of Beau.
“I’m seeing a therapist specializing in stress. Any stress, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She’s very good. A cop’s wife.”
Beau sees the name on the card – Lesley Accardo, Ph.D. Licensed Psychologist. Stress Management.
A psychologist. No drugs at least.
“Her husband Eddie Accardo? Lieutenant. Third District?”
“Retired.”
He takes out his smart phone and takes a photo of the card.
“Call her.”
“Why do you think I need to call her.”
Jeanne looks into Beau’s eyes again. “You have any trouble sleeping? Any bad dreams? Fatigue?”
How about freezing up?
Beau pulls out his business card and a pen and writes his cell number on the back, passes it to her. They drink the rest of their coffee in silence, the breeze flowing inside in warm breaths.
Eventually she stands and Beau stands.
“We have two offers on the house. I should be out of here soon.” She walks him to the door and he steps out, turns and thanks her for the coffee.
She said – “We. We have an offer.” For some reason this almost chokes up Beau.
She thanks him for trying with Mike. She latches the screen door after he steps out and raises a hand and waves and he puts on his sunglasses. Black wings catch his eye as a large black bird flutters and lands on the white picket fence. It squawks loudly. Crow. The bird watches him move to his Navy blue SUV.
As he climbs in, Alizée starts up, a different song, this one is called Moi Lolita. Jessie’s calling.
“I’m heading home early,” she tells him, “Enough for my first day back.”
“Good idea. I’m coming too. Want me to pick up something?”
“I’ve got something. A surprise.” She laughs and says, “Bye, Love.” And disconnects.
Beau heads home.
Home.
Is it really? It’s beginning to feel that way.
The End
Note from the publisher
BIG KISS PRODUCTIONS
If you found a typo or two in the book, please don’t hold it against us. We are a small group of volunteers dedicated to presenting quality fiction from writers with gen
uine talent. We tried to make this book as perfect as possible, but we are human and make mistakes.
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Also by the Author
Novels
Battle Kiss
Bourbon Street
Death Angels
The French Detective
Lucifer’s Tiger
Mafia Aphrodite
Mistik
Slick Time
USS Relentless
LaStanza Series Novels
1. Grim Reaper
2. The Big Kiss
3. Blue Orleans
4. Crescent City Kills
5. The Big Show
6. New Orleans Homicide
7. The Blue Nude
8. The Long Cold
9. Saint Lolita
Beau Series Novels
1. John Raven Beau
2. City of Secrets
3. Nude in Red
4. The Great Beau
Caye Series Novels
1. New Orleans Rapacious
2. Enamored
3. Hold Me, Babe
Short Story Collections
LaStanza: New Orleans Police Stories
New Orleans Confidential
New Orleans Prime Evil
New Orleans Nocturnal
New Orleans Mysteries
New Orleans Irresistible
Hollow Point & The Mystery of Rochelle Marais
Backwash of the Milky Way
Screenplay
Waiting for Alaina
Non-Fiction
A Short Guide to Writing and Selling Fiction
Specific Intent
Cover Design © 2017 O’Neil De Noux
For more information about the author go to http://www.oneildenoux.com
O’Neil De Noux would like to hear from you. If you liked this book or have ANY comment, email him at [email protected]
If you enjoyed THE GREAT BEAU and would like to read more adventures of NOPD’s John Raven Beau you may want to check out these books:
JOHN RAVEN BEAU – BEST POLICE BOOK 2011 (policewriter.com)
Before Katrina – New Orleans is the murder capital of America and her troubled streets give rise to a cop who hunts killers with methodical, calculating precision, innate in a man half-Cajun and half-Sioux. While others lose their heads in the maddening hunt for a cop-killer, John Raven Beau focuses his instincts in the relentless pursuit of a murderer.
The Great Beau Page 20
