Doing the Devil's Work (4 page)

No weapons in plain sight. Nothing within easy reach of the passengers.

No one in the car said a word. No one moved. Maureen tried again. “Evening, y’all.”

The driver’s eyes flicked over to Maureen, then back to his hands on the steering wheel. “I wasn’t speeding,” the driver said.

“I never said you were.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“Never said you were that, either,” Maureen said.

She smelled alcohol on the driver’s breath. Not cheap beer, which she’d expected, but something sickly sweet, like he’d been eating rum-infused lollipops, or drinking those candified cocktails sold by the quart on Bourbon Street. Makes sense, she thought, throwing a glance along Claiborne toward downtown. They were coming from the direction of the Quarter when she’d pulled them over. It was half past three in the morning. The drive-through joints along Claiborne were long closed. And she didn’t smell fast food coming from the car or the driver. No bars around. Nowhere to eat. What were they doing out here?

And the neighborhood they were in, black, working class to poor, Maureen thought, it wasn’t the place to cruise around showing off your rebel flags and your red necks. Was the man taking the woman somewhere? Was that why they were headed into the darker and quieter neighborhoods? Where numerous empty and neglected houses remained, like the one that had just coughed up a body. Start at the beginning, she told herself. Don’t spook them. And mind the anomaly.

“Anything to drink tonight, sir?”

“I already told you that.”

“Answer the question I’ve asked, please. Have you had anything to drink tonight?”

“No,” the driver said.

The lie was no surprise. “Y’all a little lost?”

“We’re not in a free country anymore?” the driver asked, leaning forward. “Can’t go where we want? We gotta check in? This Afghanistan or America? We gotta go through the checkpoint?”

Maureen shined her light in the driver’s eyes. “Relax, and shut up with that shit.”

The woman’s body, Maureen noticed when the driver spoke, had tightened like a mouse caught in the open, hoping the owl in the tree hadn’t seen. Classic anticipation-of-violence reaction. Maureen’s adrenaline surged again. Had she interrupted a kidnapping? Prevented a rape? Maybe even prevented another house with fly-covered windows? The driver pumped a bad energy into the air. Maureen could feel it on her skin like static electricity.

The driver leaned to his right, reaching for the glove box.

“Whoa, whoa. Don’t fucking move,” Maureen yelled, taking half a step back from the car, reaching for her weapon. “What the fuck are you doing?”

The driver raised his hands. He squinted in the beam of the flashlight. “The paperwork. Registration, insurance. You’re gonna need it, right? Ain’t that how this bullshit goes?”

“When I need it,” Maureen said, “I’ll fucking ask for it. Sit back, put your hands in your lap, and don’t fucking move. Right now, that’s how this goes. The way I
say
it goes.”

He had the tiniest curl of a smile at one corner of his mouth. His diamond glinted in the light. He’d enjoyed scaring her.

“Driver, your license, from your wallet, please. Slow.”

The man pulled a squashed nylon-and-Velcro wallet from his back pocket. Maureen took note. Not exactly a match for his jewelry. He found his license, handed it over. Maureen studied it under her flashlight. Clayton Gage. The photo was him. In it he wore a collared shirt, no earring. Looked miserable, and a lot younger. He had more hair. According to the birthdate, he was in his mid-thirties. Hard living had taken its toll. The license was expired. She’d gotten a different name when she’d run the pickup’s registration. That name was Jackson Gage.

“This your truck, Mr. Gage?”

“It is not,” Gage said. “Not technically. Not according to you, I guess. It’s registered to my father. But it’s really mine. I paid for it.”

Maureen heard a strange murmur from inside the truck. The woman had started singing to herself, more formless sounds than discernible words. Gage pressed back against his seat, as if instead of singing the woman emitted heat or a foul odor. The woman squeezed her hands even tighter between her knees, her face hidden behind the veil of dirty hair. Maureen wasn’t sure the woman even knew she was making sounds.

“Ma’am? Are you okay?” Maureen asked.

“My girl,” Gage said, turning back to Maureen, faking a smile. “Had a bit too much to drink watching the game. I picked her up in the Quarter. I’m taking her home.” Another small, false smile. Like her attitude would change because he’d come to the aid of a helpless female. Mr. Gage, Maureen thought, you are a fucking terrible liar.

The situation stank, she thought, of things worse than booze and cheap cigarettes and body odor. Of false and hidden things. Drugs, had to be. Sex and the violence involved in getting it for a man like this. Only drugs and sex brought a pair like this together. She keyed her radio mic. “Dispatch, this is fourteen-twelve.”

“Go ahead, fourteen-twelve.”

“Be advised, I’ll need assistance with that traffic stop. One vehicle, two individuals. White male, and a white female. Multiple violations.”

“Ten-four, fourteen-twelve.”

Gage rocked in his seat, glaring at the woman. “Jesus fucking Christ. Y’all are all the same.”

“Eyes front,” Maureen said. “She’s not who put you here.”

“No,” Gage said, “that’d be you.”

Maureen stepped away from the pickup. She should wait on searching the truck until she had more hands and eyes available to her. Just keep the situation under control. Don’t let things escalate. Maureen tucked Gage’s license in the pocket of her uniform shirt. She should make Gage sit there and stew. Then again, that woman seemed pretty frightened of him. Was it fair to make her sit there with him? She looked up and down Claiborne Avenue. And as for her part, Maureen thought, she didn’t feel like waiting for the menfolk to arrive and commandeer her traffic stop. There’d be talk of how two half-in-the-bag rednecks had made her skittish. She was a woman. She was new on the force and in town. Like on Magnolia Street, like everywhere else, when she called for backup she’d better be dealing with a weapon or a body or an angry mob, she needed a better reason than
I was afraid
.

“Out of the truck, the both of you,” Maureen said, gesturing with her hand. “Leave the keys in the vehicle. Mr. Gage, assume the position against the hood. Nice and easy. Ma’am, you come stand beside the door here.”

No one moved.

“You wanna tell us what for?” Gage asked. “We got rights.”

“Now,” Maureen said, gesturing with her flashlight. “Out of the car. Let’s go. That’s an order.”

Gage stepped out of the truck one long leg at a time, insectoid in his movements. Maureen half expected four more legs to follow the first two. He was almost sickly thin. Gage took his time moving to the front of the car, glancing around the neighborhood as if he were a tourist stretching his legs after a long drive. Instead of assuming the position with his palms flat against the hood, a posture Maureen was sure he knew, Gage crossed his arms and leaned against the grille, expelling a dramatic sigh. Maureen decided to let him have his moment of defiance, for the time being.

The woman had not moved.

“Can you please exit the vehicle?” Maureen said to her.

No direct response, though the singing had resumed.

“I told you,” Gage said, over his shoulder. “She’s completely wasted. She’ll puke on you.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Maureen said. So much for his moment. “Turn to face my direction and put your hands on the hood of the car where I can see them.” She turned her attention back to the woman, waved her flashlight at her. The woman refused to look over. “Out of the car, ma’am. Now.”

No response. Maureen was losing her patience.

She moved to the front of the truck. Gage had not done as he was told. “Hands on the hood of the truck, sir. Now. For your own safety.”

Grinning, puffing out his chest, Gage set his hands flat on the hood behind him, as if to push himself up to sit on it. His face was less than a foot from Maureen’s. She hooked a hard right into his solar plexus, followed it with a quick left. His knees crumpled and he gasped.

While he was off balance, she turned him around and grabbing a fistful of his Saints jersey, shoved his face hard into the rusty hood of the pickup. She kicked his feet apart to widen his stance. Palming the back of his skull, she bounced his forehead off the hood.

“This is your field sobriety test, Mr. Gage, and you are fucking failing.” She bounced his head again on the truck’s hood, for emphasis, but not hard enough, she hoped, to leave a mark. She released her grip on him, stepping back. “Stay.”

Being the only cop on the scene had its risks, she thought, but it also had its advantages.

Maureen looked into the truck. The woman appeared to be watching her through the windshield. She wasn’t singing anymore.

Gage stayed as Maureen had left him, breathing hard. “I can’t believe you fucking did that.” He sounded almost amused. “Y’all cops are all the same.”

“You’d rather be Tased?”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“No, ma’am.”

“
Officer
will do fine.” She patted him down. “Any weapons or contraband, sir? Anything sharp or dangerous that might injure me?”

“No, Officer.”

“Don’t talk. Don’t move.”

Maureen returned to the pickup’s cab. She leaned into it. “Ma’am, I need you out here with us. Now, please. Right now. Let’s move this along.”

The woman sniffled, dragging her forearm under her nose. She inched her way along the bench toward the open door. Maureen figured her treatment of Gage had been persuasive. The woman stepped from the truck and slumped against it, jamming her hands into her pockets. She never raised her head to look at Maureen.

“Please keep your hands away from your pockets,” Maureen said.

The woman complied, letting her thin arms dangle at her sides. No tattoos, no track marks, Maureen noticed. Not much of anything but skin and bones.

“Mr. Gage,” Maureen called out. “Anything in this truck I should know about? Anything I’d be interested in?”

“How the fuck should I know what you’re interested in?” Gage replied. “Other than breaking balls.” He spat blood on the pavement. “You got no probable cause, anyways. I ain’t stupid.”

Gage was brave and noncompliant, Maureen noted, as long as he was out of arm’s reach. He’d been the kind of kid, she figured, that taunted from the edge of the schoolyard, that taunted girls only when he was surrounded and protected by other boys.

“Yeah, you are stupid,” Maureen said, moving to the front of the truck, where she spoke into Gage’s ear. “You stink like booze and weed. Your whole truck’s a goddamn moving violation. Scratch that, it’s a rolling fucking felony. And your escape strategy is to fuck with me? Maybe it’s time I call the canine unit? We can go that way, if you want.”

“Typical fucking fascist New Orleans cop,” Gage said, a growl creeping into his voice. “You oughtta have a German shepherd to sic on people. It fits.”

Maureen couldn’t tell what he hated about her more, that she was a cop or that she was a woman. But he hated her. She was cool with that.

“This is what I get for doin’ you a favor,” Gage said, “for taking this sad drunk crazy lady home safe before she gets victimized.”

Maureen circled around Gage’s back, leaning into his face. “So you were lying to me with that girlfriend bullshit. Why would you do that? How do you really know this woman?”

Gage blew out his breath, as if Maureen’s bad attitude caused him physical pain. He settled his forehead on the hood of the truck. Maureen hoped he’d finally accepted that she wasn’t impressed with him, that she wasn’t going away, and that this situation wasn’t ending anytime soon. She hoped he’d realized that she was in charge.

“The truth,” Maureen said, “is that you met this woman tonight, didn’t you? Does she know who you are? Does she know where you were taking her?” She paused. She felt her temper rising. “She doesn’t, does she? What’d you slip her? What’s she on?”

“I ain’t telling you nothing,” Gage said into the hood of the truck. “Not another thing.”

“So you’re saying I should arrest you both,” she said, “because that’s when the Miranda rights and the lawyers get involved.”

“I refuse to recognize your authority over me,” Gage said. “You are the agent of an illegitimate and hostile government and I refuse to recognize your false authority. Fuck you and fuck lawyers.”

“The war’s over, motherfucker,” Maureen said, shaking her head. “Your side lost.” She pulled out her cuffs. “Here’s my authority right here.” She’d see how serious Gage was. She bent one arm behind his back, waiting for him to resist, hoping deep inside that he would, because he had the cruel stink of a bully on him and she wanted to do him real damage. If he fought, she’d have her excuse. But he didn’t fight her; he let her cuff him. She was disappointed. And relieved. She knew she’d pushed things about as far as she could.

“Stay where you are, you little rebel, you.”

Starting on the driver’s side, she searched the inside of the pickup’s cab. Right there in the console sat confirmation of her candy cocktail theory. Two tall green paper cups from Pat O’Brien’s in the Quarter, but instead of bright red hurricane, the cups were half full of purple drank, a potent and debilitating mix of codeine crushed up in cough syrup. Two counts of open container in a vehicle, at least, right there, along with possession. Continuing her search, she found old food wrappers, soda cans, and empty cigarette packs. Cigarette butts. An ancient pack of Zig-Zag rolling papers and a three-pack of condoms. A couple of unpaid parking tickets. Under the trash, she spotted the leather handles of a woman’s handbag peeking out from under the bench.

She leaned deeper into the truck and yanked the bag out from under the seat. It was a stained and faded denim tote with big fake leather handles, about the size of a diaper bag. Oh, Lord, Maureen thought, don’t tell me there’s a kid mixed up in this. But when she looked inside the bag, instead of diapers or baby toys Maureen found eight or ten smaller and much more expensive handbags, clutches, and thin-strapped purses.