Ozzie looks at Thibault. “I need you on the horn with the detective in charge of the case. He might be able to give you some information that can help.” He pauses and looks down at his notes. “Although, from what I’m hearing, they’re pretty much clueless at this point. Unfortunately, it seems like time is running out. They’re hearing chatter that something big is about to go down, so the chief wants us to put a rush on this.”
Jenny speaks up. “Why are we being asked to help?” She pauses and looks at the team. “Is it okay for me to ask that question? It’s just that it helps me to know all the details, even the ones that might seem insignificant. They sometimes lend meaning to messages, especially ones that might have some code-words dropped in.”
Ozzie looks uncomfortable. “All I can say right now, because I haven’t been given all the information, is that the chief suspects that somebody inside the department is helping these guys out. Making it easy for them to make clean getaways and hide their presence.”
May’s eyes widen. “A mole?” She looks up at Ozzie. “How come you didn’t tell me that part before?”
“I just got the information. Of course it goes without saying that we’re not going to talk about this outside the team. We don’t know how far or how deep this connection to the gangs goes, so keep it cool. Don’t assume anything. I don’t want you to ignore things you’re seeing because you think you know the whole story.”
Everyone around the table nods, their expressions serious and their senses on alert. I’m proud to be one of the team, especially on days like today. The fact that the New Orleans Police Department puts its trust in us is impressive, especially considering the fact that most of us were frequent visitors to their overnight jail when we were young.
Back then, we were always looking for trouble. It was Ozzie’s stint in the military that made everything right for us. When he got out, he was like a runaway freight train the way he ran us down without stopping. He told us how it was going to be and how we were going to work together, act like upstanding citizens and get our shit straight. We weren’t getting anywhere fast. The world was kicking our asses on a regular basis, and Ozzie was offering a steady paycheck. Since we were all pretty much lost souls wandering around looking for trouble, it seemed like a good idea.
He’d saved all his money while he served, so he had a big chunk to get his security business started. It wasn’t long before the job started paying for itself, and our reputation got around. Our new reputation, that is—the one that we are a group of people who can get the job done no matter what, a team who comes in like darkness itself, hidden, undetectable, invisible . . . gathering information and feeding it to the cops so they can use it for whatever they need. We can do simple things like getting evidence that can be used to convince a judge to sign off on a search warrant, all the way on up to the most complicated stuff, like gathering evidence that’ll be used in a murder trial.
Just last month we helped put away a guy for twenty-five years. He won’t ever smell freedom again, since he’s already in his seventies—a lifetime of crime, stopped finally with the aid of the Bourbon Street Boys. We got a letter of appreciation from the chief and a five-thousand-dollar bonus, paid out of the cache of drug money that came in from the bust. Having been inside the system and out of it, I can easily say I much prefer working with the good guys.
Ozzie hands May a folder. “Here are a few maps with some areas highlighted that Thibault and I think might be good to take a look at, get some shots of. Familiarize yourselves with the neighborhoods. You can head over there now, as soon as you’re done with your coffee.” Ozzie switches his focus to the group. “The rest of you, stick around, and we can discuss our next moves and do the follow-up on cases we’re closing out.”
I stand, bringing my coffee mug over to the sink. May’s shoulder to shoulder with me in no time.
“I love working with you, Toni. Maybe when we’re out there driving around, we can talk about wedding plans together. I’d really like to get your input.”
And I thought Lucky being gone was the worst thing going on in my life. “Maybe. But we might be too busy.” Maybe the stars and planets will align and a drug dealer will make a run at the van.
I can only hope.
CHAPTER EIGHT
We’re not two minutes into our drive before May starts in on me. “So, what happened with Lucky on Friday?”
I try to act like I’m too focused on the road to answer her question, but does that stop her? No. Of course it doesn’t.
“You guys were both there and then you weren’t. We just played one game of pool. Why didn’t you come back there with us?”
“I was busy.”
“Busy? Busy doing what?”
“Drowning my sorrows.” I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth.
“Sorrows? Are you sad?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m happy. My life is grand.”
I can sense May frowning at me in my peripheral vision.
“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.” She pauses a few seconds. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I look over at her. “You do realize who you’re talking to, right?”
She smiles. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have hope. When are you going to open up to me, Toni? I’m impossible to resist forever, you know.”
The strongest man I know has found that to be true, so she might be right, but I’m in no mood for it right now, and I can’t imagine ever being there. “Not in this lifetime.”
“Do you think Lucky’s okay?” She’s trying another tack, but I can’t ignore the worry her words cause me.
“Why wouldn’t he be?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. He has issues. And I don’t think Sunny is doing so well.”
My grip on the wheel tightens. I can’t believe I’m suddenly worried about a stupid fish. “What’s wrong with it?”
“You mean with him. Watch your pronouns, girl. Sunny is a boy, he’s not an it.”
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes. I’ll never get the fish thing.
“Jenny and I had a long talk about Lucky and his relationship with Sunny. We figured out some pretty interesting things.”
I have a short laugh at that. “With no effort or input from Lucky, I suppose.” I can just see the two of them, psychoanalyzing everyone on the team, assuming a bunch of crap that isn’t there, making everything seem way more interesting than it actually is.
May sounds very satisfied with herself when she responds. “Actually, I’ll have you know that Lucky and Jenny have shared a lot of information with each other. They’ve become pretty good friends.”
I hate that this makes me jealous. They work together all the time. It would be totally natural for them to talk when they spend so many hours on the job with no one else around. Besides, the relationship between Jenny and Dev is totally solid. She’d never cheat on him.
You’d think with all this rational thought going for me, I’d be fine with the little story May is telling me, but I’m not. I’m ready to cry like a big, fat baby. I must be totally PMS-ing. My attempt at calculating my next period’s arrival date is drowned out by May’s musings.
“Lucky told Jenny that he really misses his sister, and Sunny is like his only connection to her now. I hate to think what’s going to happen to Lucky when Sunny dies. I don’t think he’s going to handle it well.”
“Lucky’s strong. He’ll be fine.”
She shakes her head. “Just because someone is strong, it doesn’t mean that they handle loss well. And it doesn’t mean they won’t fall apart when bad things happen.”
I pull up to a stop sign, annoyed at May and the stupid shit she’s talking about. I shake my head but say nothing.
“Don’t you agree? Or do you think that a strong person has to be tough a hundred percent of the time?”
I tap my thumbs on the steering wheel, not sure I even want to answer. All it will do is encourage her, and May doesn’t nee
d any encouragement to run her mouth at sixty miles an hour.
“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Just not in the mood to chitchat.”
May shrugs. “That’s okay. I can chitchat enough for the both of us.”
The light turns green and I take off, right along with May’s mouth.
“Did you know that Lucky takes his fish to the vet? Could you imagine? Him sitting there in the waiting room surrounded by cats and dogs and his bowl with the goldfish in it?”
“I doubt he brings the fish over in a bowl.”
“Huh. You might be right about that. Too splashy. What do you think he uses? A Ziploc?”
“Who cares? It’s just a fish.”
“Uh-oh. You’d better be careful.”
I look over at her because she sounds genuinely concerned. “Be careful about what?”
“Be careful about blowing off things that are really important to somebody you care about.”
Now I’m genuinely angry, but I don’t think it’s May causing this emotion to well up in me. There’s a tingle of truth coming through with her words that I can’t deny. It’s just that I’m not good with the stuff she’s talking about.
Despite my misgivings, I take May’s bait. “I don’t see what the big deal is about a goldfish, even if it was his sister’s. It’s not like it’s warm-blooded. It’s not like you could cuddle up in bed with it or take it for a walk.”
May sighs. “I agree with you; dogs are much more interesting pets from my point of view, but it’s not my point of view or yours that matters, is it?”
She’s definitely waiting for me to answer, and at this point, if I keep avoiding her, she’s going to figure out that this whole conversation bothers me and then there will be no rest for the wicked, a.k.a. me.
I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess.”
“If you really love somebody, you have to look at the things that are important to them through their eyes. You can’t look at it through your own. You can’t put your own judgments or your own history on it. You just have to accept it. If Lucky says goldfish are awesome, goldfish are awesome. Period.”
“What if the thing they love is bad for them?”
“You think a goldfish is bad for Lucky?”
I shake my head, memories of Charlie haunting my brain as usual. “No. The goldfish is fine, but you said that if somebody I love really likes something, I should just accept it and be good with it. What if it’s not a goldfish? What if it’s something bad?”
“That doesn’t count. When a friend is doing something that’s bad for them, that could really hurt them, you have to step in. You have to be a good friend. If you don’t, then you’re not really much of a friend at all, are you?”
I wonder if May realizes just how much each one of her statements is affecting me. It’s like she’s punching me in the gut with every sentence. Am I Lucky’s friend? Am I doing the right thing by him? I wish I knew the answers to those questions. He deserves to have good people in his life, people who look out for him. People who think his fish is awesome even when it isn’t.
“You should call him.” May nods, absolutely convinced that her advice is golden.
I, however, do not share that feeling. “No way. He doesn’t want to hear from me.”
“I don’t believe that.”
There’s a weird tone in her voice, so I pull over to the side of the road and look at her. “Why do you say that?” My heart is beating way too fast.
She smiles, looking very sneaky in the process. “I told you . . . Jenny and I have talked about this a lot, and she’s with Lucky all the time, so . . .” She shrugs, way too satisfied with herself.
My eyes narrow at her sly expression. If you’ve ever seen a sly expression on a marshmallow, you’d know why I’m suddenly distressed. “What did you do?”
She holds up her hands. “I didn’t do anything. It’s possible that Jenny may have made some inquiries or suggestions on your behalf, but I’m completely innocent.”
I’m shaking my head as I move the van forward into the flow of traffic. “You have got to be kidding me.” Equal measures of panic and exasperation fight to express themselves. I grit my teeth to keep both emotions at bay. My jaw starts to ache. Jenny the matchmaker strikes again.
May finally stops talking, which only gives my mind the space to go crazy. Paranoia fills me. What did Jenny say to Lucky? Is that why he was messing around with me at the bar? Does he think I’m into him?
I have twenty questions to ask May and her silly sister, but if I do that, it’ll just give them more fuel for their fire. Their matchmaker radar will start blaring and both of them will put all of their sticky, gooey, marshmallowy efforts into getting Lucky and me together. Lucky probably already figured out what they were doing and now he’s lying low, waiting for me to lose interest. God, how awful.
I say nothing about this fresh hell that’s just become the focus of my ire. I grind my teeth and squeeze the steering wheel as we pull into the Mid-City area, off Tulane Ave.
“You’d better go get your stuff,” I say to my partner in measured tones. “We’re getting close.”
“Okay. Cool.” May leaves the front seat and climbs into the back of the van. The banging around tells me she’s getting out her photography equipment.
“Am I just doing stills, or are we going to shoot some video, too?” she asks.
“Better be prepared for both.” Ozzie’s and Thibault’s instructions were pretty vague. I’m not sure what they expect us to come up with just driving around these neighborhoods, but my plan is to get the lay of the land, so I know the escape routes and the places where the different street thugs hang out during the day.
It’s always the case when the weather is decent, which it happens to be right now, that groups of guys hang around outside chatting. Curbside is where deals get done in the Sixth Ward. We never see the big players out here, of course, but the little guys always lead us to the big ones eventually.
May joins me in the front seat. She sits down and buckles up. Seconds later, her attention is on something else. “Look! Hookers.” She lifts her camera and shoots off a few frames. When she’s done, she takes a look in her viewfinder and smiles. “She’s actually really pretty. Did you see her legs? Gorgeous. I wish I had legs like that.” She sighs.
I snort. “You’d need a set of testicles to have those legs.”
May looks at me, confused. “What?”
“She’s a tranny. She’s got testicles tucked up underneath that miniskirt. You don’t get legs like that if you’re born with parts like ours.”
“Oh.” May looks into the viewfinder again, zooming in. “I don’t see any bulges. Are you sure?”
“They tuck that shit up in there so far it practically disappears.”
“Seriously?” She frowns. “I’m asking Ozzie about this. I’m not sure I believe you. I think you’re messing with me.”
I laugh, enjoying her naivety. “Whatever. Ask him.”
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about our earlier conversation.” May’s voice has gone a little sinister.
“What’re you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about. Lucky. I really think you should talk to him. Open up a little. Let him see your softer side.”
“I don’t have a softer side.”
“Sure you do. Everyone does. I know that you killed someone, but that doesn’t mean you’re a criminal. I mean, you used to be a criminal, but you’re not anymore. It’s not like it means you’re a horrible, awful person who can never be happy again.”
The van jerks to a squealing stop as I slam on the brakes. A horn honks loudly behind us, but I ignore it. I look over at her, shooting bullets at her with my eyes. “Are you kidding me?”
She squirms a little in her seat. “Too far? Oops. I’m sorry. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it for a really long time, and I’ve been trying to think of the best way to work my way up to
it, but I guess it just spilled out ahead of schedule.”
“I don’t get where you think it’s any of your damn business.” I seriously want to slap her right now, or worse, but I’m not ready to deal with the aftereffects that would come from Ozzie if I indulged. He wouldn’t understand. He thinks her inane chatter and complete lack of personal boundaries are cute.
“I don’t mean you any harm, Toni. I respect you, and I like you a lot. I’ve got your back, no matter what. The only reason I would ever say anything to you about something so private and personal is because I care about you.” She sounds like she’s about to cry. “It’s the anniversary today, right?”
I get the van moving again, not sure I trust myself to respond and not be vicious. As far as I can tell, she’s the only one who remembers that horrible fact about my life, and it makes me want to rage against the world. Why hasn’t anyone else said anything? Why May? My anger is like a poison, leaking into my veins from somewhere dark, a deep hole inside me that is pure blackness. I served my time and I learned my lesson, but that didn’t get rid of the fury that sometimes threatens to take over. May is very wrong about me. I am a horrible, awful person.
“I know you’re mad, so I’ll stop talking about it, but I just want you to know that you’re important to me and you’re really important to Ozzie, and if you want to talk about what’s going on in your life or what’s happening with you or with your love life or whatever, we are both here for you. We only want what’s best for you and will make you happy.”
I speak through nearly gritted teeth. “Good to know.” And just like that, my day is completely and utterly ruined. Not that it wasn’t already shit, but this just puts a cherry on top of it. Not only is the one guy who I really care about blowing me off after having awesome sex with me, but the man who practically saved my life is talking about me behind my back with his Jet-Puft marshmallow girlfriend, who still has no business being on the team as far as I’m concerned.
CHAPTER NINE