Let the Devil Out (23 page)

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.”

Maureen holstered her weapon. “I got the plate for that van.”

“Great, great,” Detillier said. He remained nervous.

She realized that the van could be making the block, preparing for another pass now that the shooters knew what they were up against. Detillier had started walking away.

“We take my car,” he said. “I'll call in the plate from there. We're wasting time standing around here, especially if they've made it to the highway.”

“Right. Okay.” She pulled her phone from her pocket. She could feel herself returning to earth, could hear the sounds of the neighborhood again. “Okay. Okay.” She scrolled through her contacts. She raised her other hand in a “stop” signal. “Before we do anything, I have to make a call. I have to call Preacher.”

Detillier stopped walking. He took a couple of steps back to her. “Maureen, Preacher's one of the cops who got shot.”

 

19

“Take me to him,” Maureen shouted from the passenger seat of Detillier's sedan. “Take me to him right fucking now.”

“I don't know where he is,” Detillier said, his eyes fixed on the road as they hurtled up North Rampart Street, dodging traffic, running red lights, speeding away from Dizzy's and the Tremé, headed for the wide boulevard of Canal Street. “He was shot in Mid-City, at a place on Jeff Davis. I don't know what hospital he's going to.”

“Get on the radio and find out,” Maureen said. “Find out where he is. Find out if he's alive.” She pounded her fist on the dash. “Right! Fucking! Now!”

“Let me fucking drive,” Detillier shouted back. “There's nothing we can do about Preacher right now.”

They caught the green light at the intersection of Rampart and Canal. Detillier muttered under his breath for the foot traffic to keep clear. Maureen braced herself against the dashboard as they sped through the intersection, the sedan bouncing hard over the streetcar tracks, tires screeching as Detillier hung a hard left onto Canal. Maureen saw stars as her shoulder slammed into the door, knocking her head on the window and the breath out of her lungs. They missed crashing into a parked car by half a foot, passing so close that Maureen could see the foam daiquiri cup in the console. She coughed as she fought to regain her breath.

Leaning forward in the driver's seat, Detillier stomped on the gas, swinging around slower traffic where he could, running lights, headed toward the river.

“This is an active-shooter situation,” Detillier said. “It's not over.”

“I'll find Preacher my fucking self,” Maureen said, reaching for the sedan's police radio. Detillier slapped her hand away.

Maureen almost punched him. “What the fuck was that?”

“Are you not listening?” Detillier said. “If not to me then to the radio. We're on the job here, we're in a situation.”

Maureen had not been listening to the radio chatter. The fate of Preacher was everything. She couldn't focus on the voices coming over the radio long enough to make sense of the frantic calls and commands rasping out of the speaker. She tried to tune in. SWAT was rolling. The harbor police were involved. Demands for roadblocks at the bridge and on the highway at the parish line, and at the Causeway and the Twin Span. She heard codes and orders that she knew weren't NOPD. Everyone in the area was on deck. Everyone. It made sense to call in other law enforcement, but she couldn't decipher what any of them were doing. She didn't know who was going where. From the sound of things, nobody was really in charge.

Near the foot of Canal, at the big palm-tree-flanked casino, Detillier made a hard right onto the much narrower two-lane Tchoupitoulas Street, bobbing and weaving as fast as he could through the business district toward Uptown. Maureen felt her brain beginning to catch up, to function and put things together in real time. She hadn't asked where Detillier was taking her. He hadn't said. Now she had an idea, not of the physical destination but of what would be waiting for them when they arrived.

“Where are we going?” she asked. She rubbed her sore shoulder, touched the tender bump rising on her forehead. “We're going after them, aren't we?”

“We are,” Detillier said, nodding.

“Where?”

“The Walmart. Pay attention to the radio, get me an update.”

“You're shitting me.” Maureen gripped the dash again with both hands, her eyes wide because Detillier had them pointed into oncoming traffic. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, the street turns one-way up here, one-way right at us.”

Detillier jogged the sedan to the right, shifting off Tchoupitoulas onto Annunciation, sliding back into traffic headed in the right direction. They sped past the World War II museum, ducked under the highway. When they came out the other side of the highway overpass, Maureen could see helicopters in the sky up ahead, none of them over the Walmart.

“Trust me,” Detillier said, “They're at the Walmart.”

“That is ridiculous,” Maureen said, shaking her head. “That's fucking ridiculous.”

Detillier turned the car again and again, darting from side street to side street. Maureen clutched at the dashboard and the door handle, trying to prevent getting more damaged than she already had and trying to hatch an idea of how cop killers had ended up at Walmart.

“Preacher was shot in Mid-City,” Detillier said. “The other shooting was right around here, on Poydras in the business district.”

The overpass that they had just crossed under marked the unofficial border between Uptown and Downtown, Maureen thought. If you wanted to go toward the lake or across the river, or toward Baton Rouge or the southernmost parishes from the business district, you caught the highway here. Several arteries, almost
every
artery, out of town, Maureen realized, linked in this one place. But, she thought, the city streets
underneath
the highway tangled into a spaghetti pile of dead ends, one-ways, cobblestone alleys, on-ramps, exit ramps, and construction detours. She knew people born and raised in New Orleans who got turned around enough down there to end up across the river. If you passed straight through and missed the highway, though, Tchoupitoulas shot you out of the spaghetti pile right at Religious Street, which led to the riverside Walmart. She guessed the shooters had panicked and had given up on trying to find the on-ramp that would let them get away.

“They were running for the Ten and got lost, so they went to ground at the most familiar territory they could find. Incredible.” She paused, stunned by her own horrifying thoughts. “Holy shit. Well, either they're panicked and stupid and got lost or they're smart and strategizing, and when they were done killing cops they made a planned beeline for the biggest box of guns and hostages they could find.”

They raced parallel to the river, the railroad tracks and the shipping wharves hidden behind a high concrete wall. They were back on Tchoupitoulas. Detillier kept making risky passes into the oncoming traffic. Near the river, large trucks made up a fair amount of that traffic. Their bleating steamship horns spiked Maureen's already frantic heart rate. Please don't let us kill someone, she thought. Please don't let us die. I never dreamed I'd want to find a fucking Walmart this bad.

The store materialized ahead of them on their right, the low, boxy building set deep inside its vast, mostly empty parking lot. The lot was massive, Maureen thought. Weird how few cars were there. Whoever had built the place had anticipated a lot of business they weren't getting. No, she thought, it's not the lack of cars that's weird. It's the lack of
police
cars. Of anything with a siren on it.

“Why are we the only ones here?” Maureen asked. She realized she hadn't seen him reach for the radio. If Detillier was so convinced the shooters had fled to the Walmart, why hadn't he called anyone else? FBI? NOPD?