Let the Devil Out (Maureen Coughlin #4)(20)

A few blocks away from Frenchmen, across the wide lanes of Elysian Fields, behind the warehouses, the Marigny neighborhood turned more residential. The narrow streets were dark with the shadows of crepe myrtles and banana trees.

In those shadows, Maureen spotted a drunken kid standing between two cars in the unmistakable wobbly posture of someone trying not to piss on his own shoes.

She’d shouted out to him, “Why don’t you go home and piss on your own neighborhood?”

The boy hadn’t looked over, hadn’t altered his posture or pinched off his stream, but he’d responded, “This is my neighborhood, bitch.”

That had stopped her in her tracks. “That makes it worse, not better, you *,” she said. And then she crossed the street in his direction.

The original plan was to tell him she was a cop, and that she could have him locked up for what he was doing. That he could’ve used one of the dozen bathrooms available to him only blocks away back on Frenchmen Street. She wanted to intimidate him, maybe shame him for being confronted by a grown woman while he stood there with his limp dick in his hand. But then she thought, as she got closer, her boots crunching on the crackled asphalt, why tell him anything? Why waste her time and her breath? He’d had his chance to do the right thing when she’d yelled at him, and he’d chosen not to. He’d had his chance to be a decent human being, she thought, before he’d ever unzipped his pants, and he had passed.

Now came the consequences.

When she got close he looked up, unsteady. She anticipated another smart-ass remark. She expected to hear “bitch” again, once if not multiple times. She noticed he had his car keys in his hand. His blond head with its puffy pink face rotated in her direction.

“Wha’?”

She slapped him in the mouth. Hard enough that the crack of it echoed down Dauphine Street. And then she slapped him again. After the second slap, blood trickled down his chin like baby’s drool. He sputtered, staggered, and dropped his keys in the puddle of piss in the street.

“Wha’?” he said again, and he leaned against the trunk of one of the cars. He belched.

Maureen did a quick check of the block for foot traffic. Her palm stung. Her knuckles throbbed. So far, so good; they were far enough away from Elysian Fields that they wouldn’t attract attention. Maybe they looked like a couple arguing. Maybe they weren’t worthy of anyone’s attention. She grabbed a fistful of his hair at the back of his head, forced him down onto his hands and knees in the piss puddle.

“These people who live here,” she said, “don’t need to be smelling your piss with their morning coffee. Mind your f*cking manners next time you go out. Or better yet, stay home.”

Then she kicked his keys under a nearby car. She heard them jingle as they dropped down a storm drain. A happy accident, she thought. She pulled a ten-dollar bill from her pocket, tossed it in the puddle.

“Call a cab,” she told the man at her feet.

Walking away, her heart racing, sweat beading along her hairline, she felt better, higher, smoother than she had since they’d taken her badge. Like cold, clear water had flushed out her veins. She took what felt like her first honest deep breath in months. Once, she’d told herself as she popped a piece of gum into her mouth. I do this once.

Kid had it coming, she thought. I didn’t really hurt him. He’ll hardly even remember it. Just this once.

*

Turning from Philip onto Constance, she finally lit that cigarette she’d been craving. The pink-faced boy with piss on his shoes had been her first time. And now she’d done it for the last time.

Tomorrow she’d be Officer Coughlin again. She’d find other ways to satisfy her less professional cravings. The job and the city she did it in were good to her that way. She and New Orleans, they were made for each other.

Maureen limped off into the dark, trailing smoke behind her into the night sky like a dragon.





7

The next morning, in her sunlit bedroom, her closet half-empty, her clothes strewn across her bed, Maureen changed her outfit five different times. She’d be so glad to be working in a uniform again.

She finally committed, more out of frustration than preference, to the outfit she’d started with: black cotton slacks and a matching jacket, under which she wore a button-up white top. Instead of her black boots she wore a pair of black patent-leather wedges. The combination made the closest thing she owned to a business suit. This was how you looked like you meant business off the streets, she thought. Clothes like this proved you were a grown-up. This was the uniform of offices, of courtrooms, of people talking over a desk or a conference table and not over the hood of a patrol car at three in the morning. People who weren’t borderline crippled by what they’d done the night before. She bent forward, her hands on her knees, taking deep breaths.

Her hangover was brutal. Epic. A record-setter. Her ankle throbbed like a second panicked heart. A pulsing reminder of the violence she’d dished out. At least, she thought, someone out there was having a worse morning than her. She felt like she was moving through glue. She was almost ready to leave. Almost.

She took off her jacket and blouse, laid them carefully on the foot of the bed. In her bare feet, she walked into the bathroom. She tied her hair up, and in her slacks and white bra, made herself throw up one more time, her knuckles white as she gripped the cold rim of the bowl. Nothing but bile came up; she was empty inside.