A Younger Woman

His pet nickname for her made Margo cry harder—she and Blu had been so close growing up—so close in age and appearance that they had often been thought to be twins, though he was three years older.

A dark stain had spread over his left thigh, and Margo sucked in her breath, afraid of what it meant. She watched Blu roll to his stomach, his lightning-quick movements settling her worst fear—his wound couldn’t be all that serious if he was able to move so effortlessly.

He swore at her again, this time in French, ordering her to dive into the water. Margo ignored the order. Number one, she hated water and had only learned to swim because Blu had dogged her for an entire summer the year she’d turned twelve. Two, her concern for him wouldn’t allow her to abandon him. She wouldn’t want to live if something happened to him.

She shoved away from the railing and started forward. She was almost there, almost able to reach out and touch him. Almost…

Two shots rang out in rapid succession. The first one whistled past Margo’s ear, the one that followed made no noise at all.

She felt the bullet rip its way into her flesh, the force so intense, so staggering, it knocked her to her knees. The sharp pain stole her breath, then her balance. She swayed into the railing, felt the rough wood scrape hard against her cheek. Her knees finally buckled.

She heard Blu roar in protest, then he was beside her, gripping her arm and hauling her over the lifeless stranger. Still roaring in anger, he pushed her facedown into the sodden deck boards and threw himself on top of her.

Again crude language scorched the sultry night air, followed by, “I’ll fry in hell for this if you die, so don’t! You wouldn’t want to send me to hell, would you, Chili? Keep breathing, ma jolie! Keep breathing, you hear?”

When he eased his weight off her to see if she was, in fact, still breathing, Margo muttered, “A few innocent pictures, my butt. What have you gotten us into? Who’s shooting at us, Blu?”

“That’s it, Chili. Get mad at me if it helps.”

His gaze shifted to the waterfront, and Margo followed her brother’s gaze. Two men were climbing onto the pier, both carrying guns. Big guns. The kind seen in the movies. “Blu…”

“How bad are you hit?”

Margo grimaced as his hand passed over her blood-stained arm just below her shoulder. Ignoring her moan, he tore open her shirtsleeve to get a better look at the damage. “The bullet tore you up some, but the good news is you won’t die.” He flashed her one of his rare smiles, then glanced back to the two men who were advancing on them. “We’re out of time. Come on, Chili.”

Margo glanced at her arm covered in blood. Her stomach rolled, and she briefly closed her eyes. “I’m going to be sick, Blu.”

“Not yet you’re not. I’ll hold your head like when we were kids, but later. Right now we’ve gotta go.”

“Go? Go where?” Margo asked, sure she didn’t want to know—Blu never did anything that didn’t involve a certain amount of risk or skill.

“We’re going swimming.”

“Oh, no! No! Not me.”

“Those guys, ma petite,” he motioned to the duo closing in on them, then shoved something into the back pocket of her jeans, “they aren’t headed this way to ask you for a date.”

“What did you put in my pocket?”

“The key to a treasure map. If I don’t show up in a couple of days, give it to Brodie.”

“What are you saying?”

He leaned over and kissed her. “Just think of this as an adventure you can tell your children about some day.”

There wasn’t time to explore his ridiculous reply; he was already pulling her to her feet. Margo locked her knees like a stubborn donkey. “Blu, I don’t like swimming, and you know how much I hate the river at night. I get my directions turned around and—”

“When we hit the water, swim for the Nightwing.”

“You want me to swim all the way to River Bay?” Margo’s eyes were huge, contemplating the half-mile-long swim to where Blu docked the fastest, most-talked-about cruiser on the river.

“Brodie’s on board,” he explained. “He’s already heard the shots, so he’ll know things have gone to hell. Have him take you somewhere where you can hide out for a few days.”

“I can’t go home?”

“No.” He glanced down at her injured arm. “You need medical attention. I’ve got it,” he said suddenly, “how about hiding out at the old man’s place? No one would think to look for you there. Oui, it’s perfect. He’ll be able to take care of your arm, too. And I’ve changed my mind about the key. If I don’t show up in a couple of days, give the key to him. He’ll take it from there.”

“You’re crazy. I’d never go to him for help. Never! Not if I was penniless, or—”

A shot rang out.

Suddenly Margo was lifted half off her feet as Blu dragged her to the end of the pier. Then, they were jumping—jumping into the murky depths of the Mississippi River while gunshots exploded around them.

“If you’re there, God, get your scrawny backside out here.” Ry craned his neck and scanned the dark alley in the French Quarter. In an attempt to escape the late-night rain, homeless bodies were huddled together on both sides of Pirate’s Alley, their damp, unclean clothes giving off a ripe stench.

No one made an attempt to move or speak when Ry called out once more. Disappointed, he turned to leave, deciding that his snitch, Goddard Reese, had bedded down elsewhere for the night. Two steps into his departure a familiar voice brought him up short. “Just ’cause I ain’t got no address don’t mean I sleep denned up like a pack of rats.”

God stepped from an alcove and into the rain. The minute he vacated the sheltered doorway, two ragged bodies leaped to their feet to crowd into the dry space.

Their intent clear, Goddard pulled his precious piece of cardboard from the doorway and tucked it beneath his arm. “Doan like sharin’, neither,” he grumbled, guarding his dry bed like a selfish child would his favorite toy. “You just get back from Algiers?”

Ry motioned to the dry alcove. “That’s a prime spot. Choice accommodations like that usually require an early stakeout. If that’s the case, and you’ve been here half the day waiting for sour weather, how do you know I’ve been across the river?”

Goddard grinned. “If I tell you all my secrets, Superman, you wouldn’t need me anymore. I’ve grown partial to eatin’ regularly.”

Ry assessed Goddard’s emaciated body. The man wasn’t fifty years old, but his hunched shoulders and white hair easily added twenty years to his appearance. His cheeks were paper thin, his storm-cloud-gray eyes too small for his oversize, sunken sockets. It was true he ate at least once a day—thanks to Ry—still, the best snitch in New Orleans didn’t weigh a hundred pounds.

“Talk is, one of yours ain’t gonna get up with the sun tomorrow, Superman. Anybody I know?”

“You tell me. You’re the one with ears in every corner of the city.” Ry ignored the rain and settled his shoulder against the brick building. He was already soaked to the bone, his jeans hugging his lean hips, his shirt outlining his broad shoulders.

He’d spent the past three hours on DuBay Pier investigating the death of a fellow officer along with a crime lab technician, the coroner, plus a pile of uniformed patrolmen who had no reason to be there beyond curiosity. In the end, what he had was a dead cop with a hellish surprise burned into his eyes on a riddled pier; that and blood in three separate locations which suggested multiple victims. Only, there had been only one body: Mickey Burelly, a rookie cop who had come to the NOPD less than a year ago.

“I heard it was the suit they scraped off the pier,” God said. “That yammerin’ fool who liked to hear himself talk.” The older man scratched at his chest, then dug deep into an armpit. “Guess he won’t be worryin’ about what color tie to wear tomorrow. Bet he wishes he’d’ve been movin’ instead jawin’, too.”

How God knew what he knew always amazed Ry. But the point was, Goddard Reese, one of the many homeless in the French Quarter, had connections in places most people didn’t even know existed. And he was right about Mickey Burelly; the kid did have a fetish for expensive suits, and he did like to jaw, as God put it. Maybe that’s why everyone had ignored him when the kid had started crowing in the locker room yesterday about some big case he was about to crack wide open. Talk, as they say, was cheap. Every cop fantasized about the case, the one that would land him a notable raise, along with a front-page spread in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The officers at the Eighth District were no different.

Goddard pulled up the collar on his ragged jacket and curled into the brick wall to avoid the rain. “If you ask me, that ain’t the suit’s style—holding a meeting in nasty weather. Hard on those expensive duds.”

“Was that what he was doing, meeting a snitch?” Ry’s ears perked up. As far as he knew, Mickey didn’t have any solid connections on the street. Because he liked to talk too much no one trusted him.

“Don’t know. Nobody I know worked for him. He was too stingy. He wore his money. Guess that didn’t leave him any extra to work with.”

Ry was always interested in Goddard’s gut reaction. Like cops, the homeless who survived the gritty streets of New Orleans did so by their wit and intuition. God had lived in and around the Quarter longer than Ry had been a cop. At age thirty-three, Ry was about to celebrate his tenth year with the NOPD—the last two had been spent in homicide. Valuing God’s street experience, he asked, “So what’s your take on it?”

“Could be turncoat.” God peeled his stocking cap off his narrow head and scratched at the thin strands on top. “Plenty of them around. More likely, some gutless wantin’ a piece of somebody else’s action. Fools everywhere these days. They find out, too late, they don’t have big enough balls, and then you go to work scrapin’ ’um off a lonely pier in the middle of the night.”

Goddard spoke the truth. There was always someone willing to risk it all on a get-rich-quick scheme. But Mickey Burelly? Was there a chance he’d become an unwanted liability? Was he a dirty cop or had he been telling the truth yesterday when he’d been boasting about cracking open the case?