Chapter Twelve

I quickly turned up the heat when I got home, then put a kettle on for tea. I’m not a big tea drinker, but it was a night for something warm. I didn’t even take off my jacket. There was only a new moon in the sky, and its wan light did little to dispel the darkness that seemed to make the night even colder.

I added some rum to the tea—I was in for the night—all the better to warm me. Sipping it slowly, I considered what I needed to do. First off was Nathalie. As much as I didn’t want to be involved with her, I couldn’t just walk away. She was right; she didn’t have anyone to turn to. The people in her background would think she was hallucinating if she accused one of the church “elders,” albeit a young, foolish one, of being involved with drugs. Jaded as I was, I had no problem believing it.

No immediate solution came to mind. Next I thought about the dead woman. Somebody was missing her right now. Maybe her girlfriend, her lover was sitting alone just as I was, staring at a blank wall and hoping she’d come in the door any minute—or that she’d at least know what had happened to her, could stop watching the door and hoping.

In the next few days, Cordelia would walk through the door. I didn’t know what I wanted. Harder still, I didn’t know what she wanted. It was useless to want something I couldn’t have. If she didn’t want to salvage our relationship, it seemed pointless for me to think about wanting it. I left it there.

Move back to Nathalie. The woman was dead and nothing would change that, but Nathalie had a big problem that was likely to blow up on her.

I picked up the phone and stared at it. Call Joanne, call Danny. Those were obvious steps in the Nathalie problem. Joanne was a cop, Danny an assistant DA; they could give me a clue as to what Nathan was facing and how best to get him out of it. But I was reluctant to break my isolation—to be asked questions I didn’t have the answer to. To see the disappointment if they knew I was thrashing around in the swamp and not doing much to get out.

As if not giving me a choice, the phone rang in my hand. I glanced at the caller ID. Joanne. Giving myself no more time to think, I punched the connect button.

“Hey,” she said. “Sorry to be so long in getting back to you—call went right to voice mail and then didn’t send a notification I had a new message, so I just got it. What’s up?”

“Can you arrest someone out in Kenner?” I asked.

“No. Well, yes, but I’d have to turn him over to the cops out there. It’d be complicated. Is that what you called about?”

“No, I called about a dead body, but now I have a live Midwestern kid possibly involved in a drug deal out in Kenner.”

After a moment of silence Joanne said in a tone just cheery enough to be sarcastic, “My, it’s been a while since we caught up, hasn’t it?”

I explained about the dead body; I explained about Nathalie.

“Damn,” Joanne said quietly when I finished. “We were hoping that all the criminals would stay in Houston and Atlanta. Guess they’re making their way back.”

“What do I do about Nathalie—and Nathan? I doubt that milking cows would prepare them for jail down here.”

“Can you have your friend call us the next time they’re about to deliver ‘special laundry detergent’?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll get Hutch. We haven’t been doing much other than enforcing curfew and helping search destroyed houses. We’re due a change of scenery.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“A conversation in which we suggest that he desist from using nice Midwesterners when there are enough common criminals—and more arriving every day—who will do just as well.”

“Nathalie is supposed to call me tomorrow. I’ll set it up with her then.” To avoid Joanne asking any questions I couldn’t answer, I asked, “What about the body? I talked to a neighbor and she might be someone named Alma Groome.”

Joanne sighed, then said, “I don’t have to tell you the morgue here was destroyed. They’re carting the bodies up to a makeshift one near St. Gabrielle. I probably also don’t have to tell you that with hundreds of bodies yet to be identified, one more won’t get attention anytime soon. It could be weeks—or longer—before we even know how she died and who she is.”

“She was dressed in drag and I think I saw her in a snippet of a video of a drag performance.”

“Where did you see the video? Maybe we can get a copy?”

I hesitated. If I said I didn’t remember, she’d know I was lying—and assume that I was drinking. If I told the truth, she’d assume that I was in the bar drinking. With no way to win, I went with the truth. “I think it was at the Pub.”

Joanne was silent.

This is why I fucking didn’t want to talk to my friends. They were holding it together somehow; I wasn’t and I didn’t need their disapproval and judgment.

“You were out in the bars?”

“I was checking out drag-king acts.”

“Drinking?”

I was silent. Then defiant. “Yeah, why the fuck not?”

I heard Joanne take a deep breath, then she said, “Look, you get another month or two of falling apart. Okay? Then we’re going to sit down and have a long talk.”

That was it? I’d been preparing for fire and brimstone, secular style. Then I had to ask, “How the hell are you holding it together?”

“I was here. I didn’t have to worry about anyone,” she answered quietly. “I knew our house was flooded. I could move on while the rest of you had no i.e. of whether to hope or despair.”

“Joanne, you went through hell staying here in the city.”

“But I knew Alex had left and she would be okay—while she could do nothing but worry about me.” Then she added, “And I don’t know that I’m okay, I still wake up and it takes a moment to realize what bed I’m in and where. We’re safe, even the cats are back with us.” With their house flooded, Alex had ended up in Houston until about two weeks ago. Joanne, with the NOPD, had floated around to wherever a place to stay was, from a converted cruise ship docked on the Mississippi to a hotel out near the airport to a friend’s house on the Westbank. Danny and Elly lived in a double shotgun house; their tenant wasn’t returning, so Joanne and Alex had taken the apartment on the other side of the house.

She continued. “And…sometimes you wonder how you’ll do when things are hard, when you’re really tested. Will you fall apart? Hesitate? Freeze? I found out. Doubt I’ll win any hero awards, but I stopped the bad guys when it was needed, didn’t hesitate to wade into water that I had to swim through to help someone. I don’t have to wonder anymore.”

“I don’t have a right to fall apart,” I said.

“According to whom?”

“Me, I guess.”

“Not a good authority on the subject. Call me tomorrow, set up the thing out in Kenner. And, Micky, drink enough to get through to high ground, not enough to drown yourself.”

Then Joanne was gone. I felt both comforted and ashamed after talking to her. Comfort from hearing her voice, knowing that she was my friend even if I wasn’t perfect. And ashamed because I wasn’t the hero she had been.

It was time to go back to the bars and see if I could see a fleeting face in a video again.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14