Let the Devil Out (Maureen Coughlin #4)(40)

The trunk of a car. The stink of the Arthur Kill. The roar of the oncoming train.

Maureen had already seen what Caleb Heath would become.

She had already killed him once.

And for the life of her, Maureen couldn’t think of a sane way to explain everything she knew to Preacher, or even to Atkinson. Forget Detillier. There was no talking to any of them without sounding like she had Poe’s beating heart under her floor. Not without telling them that, on a cold November night very much like this one, she had killed two men with her bare hands. She didn’t know how to talk about what she had done. Or how it had made her feel. Not without revealing that deep, deep down inside her, in places where no man’s breath or body, where no doctor’s probing fingers or questions, where no other human being had ever reached, in the abyss inside her where the darkest things with the sharpest teeth lived and swam and hunted, she missed that killing feeling, the blood running over her hands, through her fingers. The unassailable power of being the one who lived.

Not everyone gets to be the killer. Most don’t. Most women who’d been where she had, they became the killed. The dead. The forgotten parts of someone else’s story.

*

Maureen’s phone buzzed in her pocket, calling her back to Magazine Street. She checked the screen. The number was private. She answered anyway; she had an idea who it might be. “Coughlin.”

“Officer Coughlin, it’s Agent Detillier. I thought I’d hear from you tonight. We need an answer from you about meeting with Gage. We want to keep him interested while he’s in town.”

“I understand,” Maureen said.

“I’m sorry,” Detillier said. “I have another call coming in. Hang on.”

“Sure,” Maureen said.

Voices rose outside the Balcony Bar up the street, catching her attention. Two short fat girls in high heels, tight tops, and too-tight skirts had started screaming at each other, thrusting fingers at each other. The front of one girl’s top was damp. She’d had a drink thrown in her face. That wet spot was gonna get cold, Maureen thought.

By the door of the bar, Maureen could see the large form of the bouncer rising above the crowd. He had his massive arms folded across his chest, and he was paying close attention to the unfolding conflict. She knew there was another door guy there, too, somewhere in the crowd. A smaller man who checked IDs. Unlike the NOPD, she thought, the bar had enough staff to handle their business. She saw that no boyfriends or wanna-be shining knights had stepped into the conflict. Good news. Alcohol-infused testosterone always made things worse. Always.

Even if the girls came to blows, Maureen would make a move only if a weapon appeared. She’d see it and hear it from the crowd, which would open up like a slow-motion explosion if something got drawn. Unlikely, considering the combatants. Which was fine with her. She really didn’t feel like jumping into a drunken catfight. Not the return to action she’d had in mind. In a minute and a half to two minutes, the incident would escalate or defuse.

Maureen turned again, her phone held to her ear, looking at Preacher through the windshield. He was watching the busser at the Rum House across the street sweep under the outside picnic tables. He was picking his nose. What was Detective Atkinson doing right then? Maureen wondered. She thought about the Sixth District task force, the one that specialized in dangerous arrests and warrants. She thought about Homicide, Vice, Special Victims. The fast track to plainclothes work, like Detillier had mentioned, that was what she wanted. Plainclothes, property and persons, they were the way out of uniform and into the bigger and better work. It was never too early to start thinking about the future, now that she was putting past calamities behind her.

“You there?” Detillier asked.

“I’ll be happy to talk to him,” Maureen said. “Anything it takes to get these guys. Do I need to wear a wire? Because I’m okay with that.”

“Won’t be necessary,” Detillier said. “This isn’t an investigation of the man. Think of it as a fact-finding mission, a feeling out, to see if he’s worth continuing attention after he settles matters concerning his son. You won’t have to wear a wire. You won’t have to make an arrest.”

“What do you need from me?”

“Give me a time and place where he can meet you,” Detillier said. “Someplace you’ll be comfortable. Someplace informal.”

“You don’t want him at HQ? Or maybe at the Sixth District?”

“We don’t want the meeting on police property,” Detillier said. “He’s paranoid. Fearful. We want him to relax if he can. Put him at ease. Again, the meeting should come across like a favor, like the NOPD is reaching out and complying with his wishes, not like an interview or an inquiry. He’s coming back to HQ in the morning; we’re going to send someone out to him with the details on where to meet you.”

Maureen sighed. The f*cking feds. They loved to overthink things. Okay, where did she want to do it? Someplace she’d feel more comfortable than Gage would. Someplace that would give her the upper hand. If he was nervous and paranoid, she wanted to use that against him.

“Tell him Li’l Dizzy’s,” she said, “corner of Esplanade and North Robertson, at one o’clock.”

Detillier paused, mulling over her idea. Maureen wasn’t entirely surprised. Detillier was local. That meant he’d know Dizzy’s.