Let the Devil Out (14 page)

*   *   *

She'd called Patrick and asked him over to her house two nights ago, after her conversation with Preacher about the FBI agent, too wired to sleep after three whiskeys. She'd paced the house for an hour, feeling like she'd burst. She needed a respite, a release from her own head.

Patrick had brought her more pills, though she hadn't asked for them when she'd called him. Stepping through the front door, he'd held out the plastic bag to her as if it were a bouquet of flowers. She'd accepted his gift with an embarrassed grin, whisking it away, swallowing one pill dry as she walked to the bathroom. She knew his bringing these pills to her without her asking for them first constituted a bad sign, and maybe a bad turn in their relationship, but she decided at the time that she'd worry about that later. She had other things on her mind for the immediate future.

In the bathroom, she'd put the pills with the others in an old orange prescription bottle. She took one more with a handful of water. She heard the door open and the bottles clink as Patrick got a beer from her fridge. She hardly drank beer. She realized she kept it in the house for him. She'd looked away from the mirror as she closed the medicine cabinet.

*   *   *

In the locker room, Maureen hung her head. She kneaded her belly with her hands, trying to massage away the billowing disgust in her gut. Trading sex for pills. That wasn't what she was doing, right? Couldn't be. She didn't do that kind of thing. On the other hand, she'd never given him any money for them, and that shit wasn't free. Nothing was free. Nothing. He had never asked for payment. The pills were part of their friends-with-benefits thing, right? They both understood that. Which was why the deal was unspoken. That's what Patrick would say if she asked him. She knew she never would ask. They didn't talk much when they got together.

She'd considered that one day in the future he'd call in a favor from her, take his payment for the pills that way. Whether she'd indulge him would depend on the favor. She'd also considered that he might use the pills against her under the right circumstances, like if he got in trouble with another cop. The wrong cop. She knew firsthand what moral firmaments the bite of handcuffs and a flashlight in the eyes could shake loose in a man. Patrick didn't seem likely to get in trouble with the law, or to rat on a friend; but one never really knew. His drug use was casual, recreational. Actually, Maureen realized, she'd never seen him take anything. She didn't know him that well at all. He was a hell of a cook and a good lay. He liked Harp lager and American Spirit cigarettes. Sometimes when he stopped over his clothes bore the barest hint of marijuana or another woman. He knew next to nothing about her, but Maureen knew he was smart enough to understand one essential thing. He knew better than to cross her.

She could be that wrong cop if she needed to be.

*   *   *

That night, Patrick hadn't been seated on her couch for five minutes, hadn't been in the house for ten, hadn't drunk a third of his beer before she'd had his pants open, cupping him in one hand and stroking him with the other, him groaning, his teeth digging into her bare shoulder, his pills dissolving into her bloodstream. Calming her ankle. Melting the muscles in her back and her legs. She was already feeling distant, separate, by the time Patrick came in her hands, as if she were watching the two of them from across the room through a veil of gauze.

She'd let him finish his beer as she cleaned her hands in the bathroom before leading him into the bedroom, where, lights out, she let him go down on her.

Her orgasm was slow to arrive, booze and narcotics and exhaustion and noise in her head running interference, making it tough for her to reconnect with her body, but she got there, finally, and when she came the feeling hit her hard and sudden as a car crash, her belly tensing, her fists twisting the sheets. She nearly burst into laughter at the relief, her thighs quivering. It was almost too much. Almost. She pushed his head away, squirming free of his mouth.

Once she'd mostly caught her breath she pulled his face up to hers by his ears. Grabbing his shoulders, her hands traced the muscles of his chest as he climbed on top of her. As her fingertips glided over Patrick's ribs, Maureen thought of the man she had left groaning in the ginger stalks. She wondered which exactly of those precious bones now under her fingers she had she broken in him. Patrick's rib cage expanded and contracted in her hands as he breathed. She thought of that other man's punctured, bubbling, bleeding lung.

Someone nearly killed him
, Preacher had said.

She thought of what that man would've done to that little bird of a girl.

Someone nearly killed him
.

Good
, Maureen thought.

She opened up her legs and lay back, settling her lower back into the crook of Patrick's arm, biting the tip of his tongue as he entered her.

Half-stoned and exhausted, knowing she wouldn't have another orgasm, she relaxed and melted, enjoying his steady rhythm, soothed by the motion inside her. When his breathing quickened again, she gripped the back of his skull, her fingers digging through his hair. She released him when he was done.

She was half-asleep by the time she heard him flush the condom. She was three-quarters asleep when she heard him close the front door behind him. By the time he had unlocked his bike from her fence, she was dead to the world. She slept deeper than she had in weeks, oblivious to the world. She'd woken with a start not long after sunrise, hungover, relieved and terrified at how well she had slept.

*   *   *

In the roll-call room, waiting for her fellow officers, Maureen studied the backs of her hands. Completely clean. Veins, tendons, and wrinkles. No blood under her nails. No cuts, no bruises from the night work she'd done. Her reward for choosing the right weapon. She'd been smart, but she'd been lucky, too. Don't blow this chance to start over, she thought. Don't lose what you came here for. Don't end up shamed like Ruiz, or worse, wash up dead like Quinn. She didn't want to figure in any more stories of how people around her had lost their lives. She had done that already in New York. It was a story she was trying to forget. She drank her cool coffee. Quinn and Ruiz had made their own choices, she reminded herself.

When two male officers came strutting into the room, Maureen saw Ruiz and Quinn. Then she blinked, realizing that was impossible, and saw the men for who they really were. Wilburn and Cordts. Moved to the night shift, she figured, to replace the two lost officers. They nodded at her as they sat a couple of desks away, Cordts touching his knuckle to his hairline as if tipping a cap. Maureen nodded back, raised her hand a few inches off the table in some semblance of a wave. She wondered how much they knew about her. If they remembered talking to her that night at Ms. Mae's.

She took a deep breath, redirected her vision to the front of the room, and tried to settle her nerves. The rest of the night crew shuffled in and filled the desks around her. Patrol officers. Plainclothes officers on the night watch. She recognized their faces, knew most of their last names. Other than Preacher, she hadn't really gotten to know anyone she worked with besides Quinn and Ruiz. She decided one thing she would do with this second chance was change that situation. As the room filled up for roll call, nobody sat with her.

Looking around the room, breathing in the testosterone-heavy smell of freshly showered, freshly shaved men, she realized she needed to be as uninteresting as humanly possible for as long as she could pull that off. She needed to be the most boring cop in New Orleans.

What were the chances of that, really?

Preacher ambled into the briefing room, huffing and puffing as he approached the podium. “Eyes front, chickadees. Put the fucking phones away. I could give a fuck about your fantasy football teams and your dick pics. Listen up.”

No matter the outside weather, the roll-call room was always warm and close. Preacher paused and used a bandana to dab at the sweat beading under his eyes. He frowned as he read over the night's paperwork and announcements. The room stayed at a casual attention. No one talked.

“First things first,” Preacher said. “The big conundrum on everyone's mind. The city has not gotten back to us on their petition to the DOJ for exceptions to the new detail regulations for New Year's Eve. The state police will be here as usual, but there should be, I say
should
be, OT available for the Quarter, the Marigny, maybe Mid-City, traffic on Poydras and Canal, all the usual spots.”

“That's Christmas-shopping credit-card money, Sarge,” someone said. “I need to know if it's coming or not.”

“I gotta let my wife know if I'll be working, Sarge,” another cop said. “It's our year to host the party.”

Maureen watched Cordts turn in his chair. “You sure you don't want to work?”

At second glance, Maureen noticed he was kind of cute. He had a mischief in his eyes she liked. She could see it from across the room, like flickering lights.

“We'll get it,” Wilburn said, serious and self-important, slapping his partner on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “Nobody important wants it getting out they kept us off the street if someone gets shot on Bourbon. You think Mitch wants that press? Look around this room. It's half-empty. And it's the same story at every district. Forget enough OT to go around, there aren't enough
cops
, no matter how many troopers they send.”

“You mean
when
someone gets shot,” Cordts said. “This town loves tradition.”

“When I know about the OT,” Preacher said, “you will know. I'm told the decision is imminent. Off the record, I'm not inclined to disagree with young Wilburn's assessment.”

“Soon as someone bends over and picks up the tab,” someone said.

“Enough,” Preacher said. “The day shift's info will be on your laptops when you get your cars. Same as always. And all the cars have working laptops again, as far as I know.” He held up his hand. “No promises. But let me know if something goes wrong. I don't think we have any extra, but we can look.” He moved some papers around. “All right, I want eyes on that grocery store at Magnolia and Washington. Used to be those dopes wore red. Now it's a different bunch of dopes and they're wearing white. I want to know why that is.”

“It's after Labor Day,” Cordts said. “Case closed.”

Preacher took a long pause. “Two years of college and that's the best you got?” He turned to another officer. “Morello, that's your sector tonight, make some extra passes. Maybe get crazy and get out of the car, get a feel for things, sniff around. Get real crazy and make some notes.”

Maureen watched the muscles in Morello's jaw twitch. She suppressed a grin. Morello hated being singled out, which was why Preacher did it. And because everyone in the room knew Morello got out of the car only for meals and, to look at him, to lift weights at the gym.

“The one who's older than the rest,” Preacher said. “He's got the white pit bull on a chain. He likes those sleeveless pullovers.”

Cordts flipped open his notebook. “The pit bull likes pullovers?”

Wilburn threw Cordts's notebook on the floor. “Would you shut the fuck up?”

“I wanna know who he is, people,” Preacher said, “and I'm not talking about his name. I wanna know if that's his white Camaro parked out front every day. That new school a couple blocks back behind the store is up and running now. We got kids coming and going. That part of the neighborhood is on the upswing. Fucking
finally
. I want it to stay that way. I am not giving back one fucking inch of territory. The only colors I want in that neighborhood are the school colors. Believe.”

“I hear ya, Sarge,” Wilburn said. “But I have a few thoughts.”

Preacher's eyebrows hovered high on his forehead. “Proceed, then, Mr. Thoughts.”

“The store has started closing at night,” Wilburn said. “Eight, nine o'clock. I guess we're not the only ones sick of those assholes.” He glanced around the room for affirmation. “That guy with the dog is out there during the day, but it's a different cast of characters at night.” He glanced at his partner, Cordts, who intently read a page in his recovered notebook. Wilburn looked back at Preacher, his expression earnest. “And from what we've seen, it's only a couple guys in lawn chairs at night, older guys, not a whole crew with cars and motorcycles and commotion like during the daytime. I can see the day shift getting after this case, but us, I don't know what there is for us to find out. I don't mind the work. It's more of a manpower question. If we know the store is quiet at night, why dedicate resources?”

Preacher leaned forward, squinting at the speaker. He was pretending, Maureen knew, to read Wilburn's name tag. She had no doubt Preacher knew exactly who he was. She saw Morello smile into his hand, happy to see someone else getting a ration of shit.

“Wilburn?” Preacher said. “Is that your name?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sir
was a good sign, Maureen thought. Wilburn was bright enough to know he'd stepped in it.

“This your first fucking day, son?”

“No, sir. Three years on the job, sir.”

“That makes it worse, Wilburn,” Preacher said. “Not better.” He stepped out from behind the podium, leaned his elbow on it. Maureen felt her stomach drop as Preacher's eyes locked on hers. She was going to get her welcome whether she liked it or not. “Officer Coughlin, you have returned to us from your forty days in the desert. Shalom. You wanna tell us why I want
us
there at
night
when the guy I wanna know about is there during the
day
?”

Wilburn had turned in his seat to look at her, his expression grim. Someone, she realized at that moment, fancied himself an alpha dog among the patrol officers. That spot had been Quinn's. Now it was vacant. Someone, she figured, had to rise and take it. It was the natural order of things. She didn't think Wilburn would make it.