House of Blues (45 page)

"
Thanks for waiting for me, Adam. I really
appreciate it."

"
I couldn't resist—it was so much fun the last
time we partnered up."

"Some backup you were then." He had watched
her fight off a suspect who was also an unwelcome suitor.

"I thought you wanted to handle it yourself"
She had, as a matter of fact. "Anyway, it gave me new respect
for tall, dangerous female officers. You have Delavon's address?"

"
Does the pope wear dresses?"

"
Okay. Get some
uniforms to meet us there. And pick me up in twenty. "

* * *

Abasolo lived in a small, neat house in mid-city,
newly painted, but spoiled by a cluttered porch.

"What do you think?" he said. "I just
moved in. Still moving—guess you can tell."

"Nice."

He got in the car. "Gonna be nicer. I'm going to
dig up those awful azaleas and put in some roses, for one thing. Then
I'm gonna get some nice annuals, just for now, while I'm trying to
figure out what I really want."

"I never figured you for a gardener, AA. You're
a man of hidden depths."

"All of them murky."

He was wearing the requisite dark clothes—jeans and
a black T-shirt. He seemed about as tightly wound as a guy on his way
to a Saints game.

"Where are we going?"

"
Beautiful New Orleans East. Did Cappello tell
you the story? Here's the deal—Delavon's the gangster who sent me
out to the Iberville, where Jim got shot."

"You think he set you up?"

"
Not really. He couldn't have known when I'd be
going there, and I don't think his guys would have made Jim—I think
he probably just got in the way. But Delavon made sure I knew about
this heroin dealer working out of the project. He must have got tired
of waiting for us to pop him and decided to take him out himself.
Anyway, I saw someone there that night, and the same dude beat up
O'Rourke while I was talking to Delavon a few days later."

"He works for Delavon."

"And he made a deal with us. Hence, tonight's
adventure."

"
So what do you think the setup is?"

Skip shook her head, vaguely aware that she was
biting her lip as well. "I've got a real bad feeling about this
dude."

"
Like a premonition?"

"I wish to hell I did get those. I've spent a
little time with him now." She shook her head again. "I
don't know. I just don't know."

"Hey, you're fadin'; talk to me."

"It's some black, dark feeling, like the worst
has already happened. I get it when I'm around him. I even get it
when I think about him."

"Ah. Depression."

"Not depression. More like pure evil."

Abasolo gave her a squinty-eyed look and didn't speak
for a while.

Finally he said, "Maybe we should go back to
gardening."

She felt slightly betrayed. "You asked."

They were getting near New Orleans East now. This was
where she thought Delavon had met her the time he had her kidnapped.
But they weren't on the way to the pleasure dome, or whatever it was.
Augustine Melancon had specifically said it was a house, the house in
which Delavon lived. Probably he had a stash house somewhere as well.

Skip had asked questions about the house—who lived
there, how big it was—but Melancon didn't know. He said when he
picked up Delavon, he waited in the car. That was all he knew. The
part of New Orleans East where they were going was a neighborhood in
decline. It boasted blocks and blocks of scuzzy condos and lots of
brick fourplexes with barred windows. Some of the condos were so
poorly constructed they were literally falling apart. In some cases,
trim that had fallen off lay on the ground; in others, gutters hung
down.

The condos were disheartening, but downright
heartbreaking were the tiny, neat little houses that were also
falling apart—and also barred. It was hard to picture Delavon in
one of these. Skip imagined the occupants as honest, hardworking
people—postal employees perhaps, laborers, hospital workers—beset
by neighborhood conditions they could do nothing about.

Drug dealers in the Superstore parking lot, and in
the doorways of the condos.

The flash of gunfire at night.

Terror that the kids would end up in gangs, or on
drugs. Dead.

But the fact that Delavon lived in one put a
different light on it. Maybe they were all the tidy, prim lairs of
vicious criminals who emanated the evil that had so spooked her in
Delavon's presence. In that case, who watered the lawns and took care
of the flowers?
 
She pulled up in
front of a red brick one, so tiny it looked like the prototype for
the one in the three pigs story, snug and impervious to lupine
huffing and puffing.

It had a well—kept lawn and beds in which zinnias
and marigolds flaunted themselves like drag queens. In the back there
were very likely sweet peas and vegetables. Probably the lady of the
house sent one of the kids out every Sunday to get a couple of ripe
tomatoes, maybe some cucumbers as well, to slice up for lunch, to go
with the chicken and the rice and the fresh peas and the fresh corn,
and all the other vegetables she'd prepared.

What lady? What am I thinking?

It was as if she'd fallen into a trance, forgotten
what she'd come for.

Abasolo said, "How do you want to play it?"

"
It's your call."

He shook his head. "You're the one who knows
him."

"Okay. We should use that. I'll knock. You stay
a little behind me. If he comes to the door, we take him. If he
doesn't, we play it by ear."

"By ear's fine. Love by ear to death." She
glanced at him to see if he was being sarcastic, but she saw only a
long-legged, languid, utterly relaxed, precision-tuned cop. The sight
made her feel better. She removed her gun from her purse and put it
in her pocket.

The uniforms were waiting for them. Abasolo sent one
to the back, told the other to stay in front.

It was nearly ten o'clock. The house was well—lit
and she could hear the drone of a television.

She banged on the door.

A little girl opened it, smiling. Her face fell when
she saw Skip. She was about seven, wearing pink jeans, a Little
Mermaid T-shirt, and rubber thongs. "I thought you were Uncle
Eric," she said.

"
I'm here to see your daddy."

"
My daddy don't know you." Good smells
wafted out the door—dinner smells, a couple of hours old.

"
Shavonne. Shavonne, who's that?" called a
female voice, and then an older woman stepped into view.

She was overweight and her hair had a white streak in
it, but her skin was unlined, her face round and strong, her heavy
breasts waiting pillows for anyone needing a hug. She held herself
with dignity, and could have been the model for a statue of an
African deity; Yemaya perhaps.

Skip felt a tug in her chest. This woman looked as if
she taught Sunday school. More women's voices fluttered softly on the
air, probably from the kitchen.

"
We're here to see Delavon."

"
Delavon?" The woman's head swiveled. "He
on the phone. Y'all come in, won't you?" She opened the door.

Something was wrong here. This was not a home where
pure evil could flourish.

Skip could see a room full of kids, eyes glued to the
tube. She glanced at Abasolo. He looked a lot more nervous now, his
neck practically a swivel, checking out everything and then some.

"
I'm Martha Redmann—here from Illinois,
visitin' my daughter. Used to live here, though—still miss it, can
you imagine? We havin' a big family reunion this week. Y'all want
some gumbo?"

Skip stepped inside, Abasolo following. Martha
Redrnann turned toward the kitchen, but Abasolo didn't. He walked
around Skip into the room where the kids were.

Skip turned to follow their hostess. Behind Redmann,
against a wall of the living room, was an old-fashioned secretary,
shelves above a fold-down desk. The shelves were glass-enclosed, and
in the glass Skip saw a man reflected.

He was wearing a T-shirt and baggy, bright print
pants. He was pointing a gun at her.

She couldn't tell if it was Delavon or not, and it
didn't occur to her to wonder. She dropped into a deep crouch, a
squat almost at floor level, and whirled, pulling the gun from her
pocket.

The secretary exploded behind her, and Martha Redmann
screamed.

Glass rained on Skip's head. She fired.

The man fell, dropping the gun, blood spewing onto
his white T-shirt. Skip tried to stand but couldn't. She ended up
sitting on the floor, watching Abasolo fly into the hall, feeling
Redmann come from behind her. For a moment she thought the two were
going to collide, but each managed to stop in time.

"Police," said Abasolo, gun drawn. More
women were pouring from the kitchen, keening. To her left the
children, the tube hounds, were frozen; not screaming, not moving.

"
My baby, my baby," said one of the women,
Delavon's mother perhaps, or maybe the mother of one of the children.
And then Shavonne, the little girl in the pink jeans, stood up and
screamed, "Mama!"

Skip got only a glimpse of her face before Shavonne
began to run toward the women, but she could see that the child, in
her Little Mermaid T-shirt, her impossibly tiny jeans, knew that her
world lay about her in shards. She tripped on her clumsy thongs
almost as soon as she was in motion, and fell with a noise like a
brick dropped from above.

She seemed not to notice that she had fallen.

"Mama! Mama!" she cried again, and she
began to crawl, very fast, as if a wolf pack were chasing her. Skip
didn't understand why her mother didn't run to her; later remembered
Abasolo's gun pointed at the women, pinning them in place.

She finally managed to stand.

"
You okay?" asked Abasolo.

"I think so." She looked around,
reorienting herself. In the kitchen behind the women stood one of the
uniformed officers, gun drawn. The other was just inside the doorway,
radio at his mouth.

Abasolo said, "Everybody be still. Just be still
for a minute and everything's going to be all right." He spoke
to Skip: "You want me to make the check?"

Someone had to see if there was anyone else in the
house.

Skip's legs had about as much starch as a pair of
rubber bands, but she wasn't about to say so.

"I'll do it."

Shavonne had reached her mother, who was holding her
and crooning to her: "You fine, baby, you fine. Everything gon'
be okay now."

Skip turned to the room full of children. "Everybody
stay still a minute. I'll be right back."
 
"I'll be right back." Like I'm their mama,
gone to fetch a glass of water. One of the uniforms went with her,
the other went to the fallen man.

The shooter was the only man in the house. Everywhere
else she found open suitcases, children's dirty clothes, in piles and
simply strewn, suitcases—all the appurtenances of the family
reunion Martha Redmann had mentioned.

She went to the man on the floor. She knew as soon as
she knelt that he was dead. That she had killed him.

He was Delavon. Delavon the Evil. Lying on the floor
in a pool of blood surrounded by women and children, at a family
reunion. Presumably one of the women was his wife. Skip had shot him
dead in front of her; in front of his own children, and their
cousins, and their aunts and their grandmother.

The room started to blur.

"Langdon!" Abasolo called sharply. "Sit
down and lower your head."

She obeyed and in a few moments began to feel
sharper. She must have been swaying.

Oh, great. First, you kill somebody and then you
almost faint. First day with a new sergeant. Terrific impression
you're making.

Later, when she talked about it, she couldn't believe
those thoughts had gone through her mind.

When she could stand again, and once again began to
act like a cop, she worked mechanically, now thinking only one
thought: It happened so fast. How could it do that?

She knew that her life was forever changed.

As the shock began to wear off, and the children to
cry, she and Abasolo let them go to the women, but Abasolo kept his
gun trained on them until the district cars began to arrive.

First on the scene was a grinning man with a bag full
of ice cream. Uncle Eric, for whom Shavonne had mistaken Skip.

Abasolo took Skip outside. "You all right?"

She shrugged. "Sure."

Happens every day. I shoot somebody's daddy and
then watch her crawl across the floor.

"You know what color you are?"

It felt like an attack, like he was telling her she
hadn't measured up, she wasn't good enough, she'd almost fainted and
couldn't be trusted. "Leave me alone, goddammit!"