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Misisipi

Page 24

by Michael Reilly


  “Ten—Ten-thirtyish,” Larry grunted.

  “You hear that?” Stencek asked Rondell. “Send someone downtown to meet me. Lafayette Square, by the courthouse. Have him bring his own wheels. You stay with the old dude yourself. You siamese his ass til I say otherwise.”

  Listened. “I know. Imagine your life if I ever took a real dislike to you. Go!”

  Stencek hung up.

  Larry slapped his hand against the steering wheel in celebration. “Man, I never thought we’d ever find this fucker. You rode this one to the wire, man.”

  “Who?” Scott asked. “What’s going on? Who did you find?”

  “Scott,” Stencek cautioned him with a finger, “Détente, remember?”

  Scott sank back in his seat like a frustrated schoolboy.

  Stencek’s cell rang abruptly. “Ok, hush up, the lot of you!” he barked. “Scott, you specially. Not a sound.” He pressed the cell to his ear and, turning away from the others, cupped his other hand near the mouthpiece. He pressed Answer. “Yes, Sir. You got the file?”

  “It is Henry,” the caller confirmed.

  Stencek sighed with relief. “I’ve sent my local contact to detain him.”

  “How did you find him?”

  “A hunch. I pulled up the Pontalba history. Figured if he wasn’t using any of the old aliases you gave me, I might try some variations from the family tree. One was Don Andres. He’s using the assumed name Don Andrews. Some crims do that, keep it close and familiar.”

  “Poor Henry. He’s never shaken those delusions of grandeur. The years haven’t been kind to him,” the caller observed.

  “With any luck,” Stencek ventured, “yesterday’s got nothing on what today’s got in store for him.”

  “Indeed,” the caller agreed.

  “There’s one more thing, Sir. I believe Scott is headed to New Orleans. I think he’s figured that much out.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Just past Chattanooga. Definitely missed his turn for Dallas. We’re still tracking him.”

  The caller’s voice became concerned. “The hurricane’s been confirmed. It’s as good as on a collision course with the city.”

  “At least for his safety, Sir,” Stencek continued. “I suggest we pick him up. We’ll worry about questions later.”

  “No,” the caller snapped. “We know where Henry is now. You have no further need of Scott. He walked into this. He can make his own way now. He’s distracted your focus for long enough.”

  “Understood,” Stencek said dryly. “And Julianna?”

  “The trouble that girl has put me to. Michael, when you get to be my age, when all you wish for is peace and quiescence, you’ll learn that no good deed goes unpunished. Julianna is the living embodiment of that maxim for me.” The caller sighed. “Henry is the objective. The sole objective. Don’t forget that. You can dispense with the need to locate her as well. I’m not paying you to be a blasted social worker. You know how to proceed. Call me when you’ve got our man and you’re ready. Not before.” He hung up.

  “Yes, Sir,” Stencek continued to speak. “I understand. I give you my word I’ll have them back in Boston in no time.” He shut the cell.

  “Scott,” Stencek ordered. “Show me the cuffs.”

  Scott stretched his arms forward.

  “Good news and bad news,” Stencek announced as he removed the restraints.

  “Yeah?”

  “Good news is you’re staying.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “Same as the good news.” Stencek tossed the cuffs in the glovebox. “Haven’t decided who for yet.”

  Chapter 40

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  10:12 pm CDT, Katrina -7 Hours

  Larry did a creeping circuit of Lafayette Square before parking along the empty stretch in front of the grand court building. A few parked vehicles dotted the square’s perimeter but no sign of Rondell’s contact in any of them and no one sheltering under the arches of the courthouse entrance. Rain cascaded from the night skies above the eerily deserted center of New Orleans. Large punchy beads of it beat against the Navigator’s roof, louder than its idling engine.

  Stencek peered through the mosaic of drops smashing to the windshield. The wipers swept over once. Leaned into the glass, he stared more intently across the square to the opposite corner. The wipers shush-shummed, turning again.

  “Want me to kill the tinting?” Larry asked.

  “No. Kill the lights,” Stencek hissed.

  Larry cut the Navigator’s headlights off. “Something up?” he asked.

  “I want to see what that Lexus we passed is gonna do.”

  “Huh?” Scott mumbled in back.

  “There.” Stencek pointed.

  As though on cue, a silver Lexus SUV pulled slowly out from behind a mini-van on that corner of the square. Its own lights did not go on.

  “How did you know?” said Scott.

  “Driverside back window,” Stencek explained. “Was wet up top, dry bottom half, when we went past. Someone inside is curious about us. That makes me curious about them.”

  Larry’s head turned to follow the Lexus’s slow advance. “Rondell’s guy?”

  “Until I know for sure, everyone’s a hostile.” Stencek pulled himself into a light trench coat. “Scott?”

  “What?”

  “Get your head down right now.”

  Reaching up, Stencek disabled the interior light. He popped the door handle and pushed his curbside door a quarter open. His eyes never left the Lexus as it slowly crawled along the opposite side of the square, following a counter-clockwise line which would bring it up behind them in two turns. He climbed down from his seat and put one foot on the sidewalk. He drew the Glock pistol from his belt holster and put his other foot on the ground, holding the door open just enough to slip through.

  With his head pressed to the rear center console, Scott saw the huge silver Desert Eagle pistol Larry had in his own hand now. It was as big as a man’s foot, yet in Larry’s immense grip, it looked normal-sized. Larry slid his thumb over the firing-lever and cocked it back.

  “Don’t light up less I do,” Stencek warned Larry, as he replaced the passenger door without shutting it fully. Scott heard the wind whistling into the open crack which remained.

  Larry released his own door and similarly edged it open an inch. He twisted round in his seat and pressed the gun muzzle to the open gap, his shoulder rested against the side window in readiness.

  The Lexus turned the first corner and came crawling down the side of the square behind them.

  Stencek walked to the rear of the Navigator, gun arm by his side. He peered carefully past it to the corner of the square.

  The Lexus reached the same spot and stopped there. Its own tinted windows were fully up. Stencek adjusted his hold on the Glock and joined his hands in a shooting grip. The rain drummed on the roof above him but he didn’t hear it now. Every sense was zeroed in on the Lexus. His heartbeat mellowed to a slow languid murmur, like the easy rhythm of a Zydeco squeezebox seducing a raven-haired lover. Every muscle in him tensed. Though rain ran down his brow and into his eyes, his glacier-cold sight never moved off the front wheels of the Lexus, waiting to see if they would turn his way.

  The Lexus suddenly pumped its engine, yelps rising and falling like a rabid hound pulling on the end of its leash.

  Stencek stepped away from the Navigator, revealing himself.

  The back window of the Lexus dropped a fraction.

  Stencek raised his arms and trained the Glock there.

  Still stationary, the Lexus gunned its engine to a tortured roar.

  In the Navigator, Larry turned fully around, putting his ass against the steering wheel and his knee on the seat. “Rocketman takes the snap,” he whispered and locked his elbow as he fixed his aim through the gap in his door to the Lexus. He placed his free hand on the door window, ready to swat it open. “He exits the pocket.”

  The Lexus
howled on.

  Scott lifted his head from his low position to see the manic concentration in Larry’s face. Then through the windshield he saw the figure in the hoodie and shorts running toward the Navigator, coming up the sidewalk on everyone’s blindside.

  He saw himself point the newcomer out.

  Saw Larry’s trance break, his expression become quizzical at Scott’s action.

  Saw Larry’s head turning that way, the silver flash as he swung his gun in the same direction.

  Every other thing happened in the micro-instant it took Scott to say “Wh—”

  Night became day inside the Navigator.

  The muzzle flare from Larry’s single shot obliterated Scott’s sight.

  The sound, like cannon boom, destroyed his hearing.

  It was as if a depth charge had detonated inside the cabin.

  Scott never heard himself finish “—oa!”

  The acrid taste of cordite attacked his nose and throat. He scrambled across the console and floundered for the rear door handle. As he stumbled out of the Navigator, the whiteout in his vision lifted. The firework whistling in his ears did not. He could feel the beating rain on his skin now but it ran past his eyes as silent as snowfall. He only felt himself call out, “Mike?”

  The Lexus was gone from the corner. Scott spun around and closed his rear door, stopped in his tracks the instant he saw the body on the sidewalk.

  Stencek’s passenger door was thrown fully open. All Scott could see was the stranger’s bare legs where he lay on his back under it.

  Stencek stood behind the door itself, looking back at Scott through the window; between them, a spider’s web of impacted glass in the center of the window reminded Scott of the bullet hole in Stencek’s shoulder.

  Stencek flung the door shut. Scott braced himself for the sight of the guy’s bloody pulped head. He took a step closer and his eyes widened.

  On the ground, a youth stirred. His head listed from side to side. He was grinning incoherently and his only injury was a badly busted lip and a red film of blood smeared across his groggy smile.

  “What happened?” Scott asked Stencek. The ringing in his ears was subsiding and his own muffled voice was at least audible to himself.

  “Luckiest prick alive,” Stencek announced. He banged the window. “Bulletproof glass. Stopped the shot but the force blew the goddamn door open and wiped this stupid sonofabitch out.” Stencek couldn’t resist smiling at the absurdity.

  “Where’s the Lexus?” Scott shouted.

  “Took off when Larry lit up.”

  “What?” Scott pressed his finger to his ear.

  “Oh, Jesus wept,” Stencek moaned. He swung his arm in a that-a-way motion. “Va—Moo—Sted!” he yelled slowly in Scott’s face. Scott nodded and smiled like a simpleton.

  The spread-eagled youth groaned. Stencek leaned down, grabbed his armpits, and hoisted him up. He keeled forward and Scott seized the boy’s shoulders to stop him going back down.

  “Was this guy with them? I saw him try to get the jump on you,” Scott asked Stencek.

  “Nope. I’m guessing this is Rondell’s man.”

  Larry appeared behind them. He bent over and retrieved something from the ground. “Sonofabitch,” he hissed, rolling the crumpled slug, as big as a marble, around his fingertips.

  “Fifty-caliber rated glass, Larry. Sorry,” Stencek consoled him.

  Larry looked back-and-forth, along the line between the dimple in the glass to where the youth now swayed unsteadily beside the door, his head level with the would-be path of Larry’s shot.

  “Ridiculous! Ridi-fuckin-ikulus,” Larry spat, finger-flicked the slug at the guy’s head, and marched up the courthouse steps to the cover of the entrance as he lit a cigarette.

  “Hey, Buster!” Stencek clicked his fingers in the guy’s face.

  The youth turned to face Stencek. He shook his head. “Huh?”

  “Who you?” Stencek barked.

  “Rondell sent me. You Sipo?”

  “Yeah, that’s me. Sipowicz. Nice. What’s your name?”

  “Ten-P”

  “Ten-What?”

  “Yeah. You know? Tenpenny! What is you, inadequate or summin?”

  Stencek slapped him upside back of his head. “Your real name, Bozo,” he demanded.

  “Oh man.” Ten-P’s shoulders sagged. “Keith. Shi-it. Keith Hobbs.”

  “You Rondell’s little bro?”

  “For real. I’m his Right.”

  “Well, Keith. Go buy a lottery ticket. You’re the luckiest prick alive tonight.”

  “Whaddup, Sips?” Keith curled his bloody lip dismissively. “Y’all said to be here at Ten. Ay’s on the mark. Where you at? I seen that Lex cruising bouts here last quarter-hour so I hung back.”

  “You know them?” Stencek asked.

  “Those gangbangas? Shi-it. Everbody know they’s parta Three’n G. They’s prolly thought you’s some kinda hurry-cane chasers. Lookit your ride, man. Crocodile-fucking-hunta.”

  “Lawless city tonight, huh?”

  “Got that right. Niggas in the trees. This bitch Trina bringing the law the jungle, one night only to settle some scores. Ay’s cool. Ay’s chillin round the corner waiting. I rolls up when I sees you park. Musta slipped on the wet sidewalk but Ay’s adequate now.”

  Stencek rolled his eyes. “Where’s Rondell? He’s still with my man, right?”

  “Shi-it. For sure. We goin now?”

  “Who else is up there?”

  “Just Rondell, Z-Minus, and the old man.”

  Stencek rolled his eyes even higher. “I’m payrolling someone called Z-Minus? Lemme guess, he’s the brains of the outfit.”

  “Z’s cool. Ain’t his fault he a dummy.”

  Stencek raised an eyebrow. “No one else? Just them three?”

  “For real.”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “Parked down on Magazine.”

  “Go bring it up here.”

  “You rollin with me then?”

  Stencek shook his head. “Here’s the deal. Over there is Lawrence, my Right. He’s gonna go up there with you and check things out, make sure you pinched the right guy. I don’t wanna get up there and find you got Abe Simpson or some other poor bastard cause you can’t tell old white guys apart. Meantime, I’m gonna go grab a beignet. If it’s my man then I’m gonna come on up and you can sling your asses. If it ain’t my guy then Lawrence is going to shoot all you nimrods in back of the head while I kick back and get another beignet. Sound good?”

  “We cool. Is your man. Nastiest fucking tongue I ever heard, even for a white dude. You welcome to him.” Keith sauntered to the end of the square and disappeared around the corner.

  Stencek retrieved the mystery Knoxville case from the Navigator and set it on the hood. He removed two adapted cellphones, each with cigar-sized folding antennae, and powered them up. After a few seconds on the keypads, he handed one to Larry and pocketed the other himself.

  “I expect civilian cell service to wipe out at any moment. From here on in, stick to the I-Sats. They’re paired, so when you snap the old fuck, send the image to my unit and we’ll track you to your location.”

  Larry nodded as he slipped the satphone into his pocket.

  “And keep your cool, Larry,” Stencek warned him. “Rondell’s gonna bitch like a girl til I get there so please, just roll with it, for me.”

  A tired-looking maroon Lincoln Continental came wheezing back onto the square, a late seventies luxury model with all the styling of a shoebox. It pulled up to the Navigator and Keith got out.

  “That’s some gangbanger car, my friend,” Stencek mocked. “Who pimped your ride, Tony Baretta?”

  “This the old man’s car,” Keith replied. “Rondell don’t let me near his.”

  Larry folded his huge frame into Keith’s passenger seat.

  “How long’s it take to get up there?” Stencek asked.

  “Only half-hour. Roads never been this clear before
.”

  “Get moving,” Stencek barked.

  “You can just curb that orderin-round shit, Sips,” Keith challenged. “Y’all ain’t got no more pig-power, last I hear. You just a regular mutha like the rest of us,” he snapped at Stencek as he climbed in.

  When the Continental disappeared, Stencek asked Scott, “How’s your hearing?”

  “Coming back.”

  “Good. It’s New Orleans. Let’s go see the sights, while there’s still sights to see.”

  They drove the short distance to the French Quarter and parked up near Jackson Square. Setting out on foot, Stencek pondered what Keith had said, about it being a night to settle scores. For the first time, he felt uneasy about the outcome of the assignment. He always appreciated that he was walking in someone else’s web. But now, as he neared the center, the game was changing. Katrina was about to make bitplayers of them all and he harbored no illusions about being in control from here on.

  Emerging onto Royal Street in search of shelter from the storm, Stencek thought about mortality—specifically his own—and the things he might leave undone.

  Chapter 41

  They discovered a bar still open on Toulouse Street. Large wooden boards covered the windows, but through the door glass, Scott saw a handful of patrons dotted around tables on which naked candles burned. All lights out, a plasma TV on the back wall offered the only other illumination within.

  “I don’t understand,” Scott said, as Stencek held the door out for him. “Why is this place still open?”

  Whipcrack winds threatened to rip the door from Stencek’s hand. “Ask them on the other side,” he growled. “Move your ass.”

  The lone barman, with short rasta locks and a neat goatee, set two shot glasses on the bar as they walked over.

  “Our lucky night,” Stencek greeted him.

  “Yeah,” the barman agreed. “Owner evacuated this morning, told me to shut up by Six. Still tourists out‘n about. Don’t seem right, tossing em yet. What’ll it be?”

  “I doubt you got any chow,” Stencek inquired.

  “Doubt not. Is your lucky night. Drinks?”

  “Sprite for me.” Stencek looked at Scott. “Bring him… three of your dirtiest mojitos.”

  The barman tossed two bar towels their way. “You best dry off meantimes. Have a seat and I’ll get right to you.”

 

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