Let the Devil Out (Maureen Coughlin #4)(65)

Her relief was so overpowering she lost her balance. She found a concrete planter by the door, sat on the edge. “You were there? You saw him?”

Sansone shook his head. “Fuck, no. This is my day off. This parking lot is the first place that I’ve been. I’m just now catching up myself. I missed everything.”

“And?”

“Straight into surgery is what I heard. He got that far.”

“Nothing since?” Maureen asked.

“It hasn’t been that long,” Sansone said. “Not much more than an hour since the first calls came in to nine-one-one.”

“Holy shit. An hour? I feel like I’ve been running for days. This is f*cking insane.” She crushed out her cigarette in the dirt of the planter. She was absolutely fiending for a drink. Preacher hadn’t been the only officer shot. Waiting to hear it wouldn’t make the news any better. “What about the others? What’s the word?”

“Bad, bad, bad.” Sansone nodded at the Walmart. “Those two dead pieces of shit in there walked into the Reginelli’s on Poydras and opened up. Pulled AKs out from under long coats, like in a f*cking movie. Mays and Harrigan from the First were in there on lunch, splitting a pizza, sitting right by the door. They never had a chance. Not a chance. Died with their weapons in their holsters.” Sansone coughed into his hand, covering the cracking in his voice. “Harrigan’s old lady had a kid like six months ago. Fucking family man. Mays wasn’t even thirty yet. This is a f*cking nightmare.”

Maureen looked away from him. She focused her gaze on a leafless, half-dead tree on the edge of the parking lot. She let her tears run. “What happened with Preacher? Can you tell me?”

Sansone looked over his shoulder. “Landry, you know him, the fat kid from the day shift? His girlfriend is an EMT. She was there.” He sniffed. “According to what Landry’s girl heard, Preacher was in Neyow, in Mid-City, eating lunch with some guy named Bridges, a lieutenant from the Fifth District. It’s a regular thing they do, I guess. Every Tuesday.

“The shooting, it was like with Harrigan and Mays. Guy walked in quick, drew down with an automatic rifle. Went right for the cops and started shooting, not giving a f*ck, not about civilians, nothing. People screaming, diving out of the way. Busser caught a round in the hip. I think a patron caught some shrapnel. Preacher had his weapon with him. He was sitting in the back of the dining room facing the door, saw the man walk in. Dropped him. Killed the f*ck out of him. Emptied the f*cking clip from his seat is what I heard. Took a couple of rounds before it was over. Bridges had his back to the door, took a bullet in the back, another in the shoulder. I think the lieutenant caught the worst of it. It was bad. Way bad. He’s hanging in, though, the word going around. But who the f*ck knows, you know?”

“I heard the shooter had grenades strapped to his chest,” Maureen said. “Is that true?”

“I heard that, too,” Sansone said. “After what these two here did, I’m thinking Preacher saved a lot of lives. I bet you that f*ck was gonna blow the whole place, pull the pin and go out in a blaze of glory, that kind of shit.”

“Mays and Harrigan,” Maureen said. She bummed a second cigarette. “They were working, they were in uniform, right?”

“They were. Why?”

“Preacher was supposed to be running the night shift in the Sixth tonight,” Maureen said. “And the lieutenant, was he on duty?”

“I don’t know.”

“I bet not,” Maureen said. “How did these guys know Preacher’s a cop? If they were randomly driving around Mid-City looking for cops to kill, didn’t they see a unit in their travels? They didn’t see anyone else in uniform? Instead they go after two guys in civilian clothes?”

“Preacher’s being a cop,” Sansone said, “means he’s been making enemies in this city for thirty years. Lots of people know him, know his face. You know him: if he’s in the room, everybody knows it. He’s done some things, did some things back in the day, I mean, he’s Preacher, but you know how it is.” He frowned at the sky, trying, Maureen could tell, to fit the pieces together. “But personal shit would’ve been just people going after him. What happened today is plain crazy. Nobody does shit like this, not the Mob, not the gangs. Blowing away cops two at a time? Four in one day? Honest guys, every one of them. Nobody was mixed up in any shit.”

“Detillier’s been telling me about these guys,” Maureen said. “The shooters. They’re a new breed, part of a bigger movement, a national thing. They’ve gone after cops before, been doing it for years, across the country. Ambush. Suicide-mission sneak attacks on random cops. Or they set traps, create emergencies, and pick off law enforcement as they respond.”

“What the f*ck for?”

“Protest,” Maureen said. “Revolution. Martyrdom. You know, because their noble deaths will inspire their brothers-in-arms to put down the remote and pick up their guns. To fight the New World Order or whatever.”

“You are f*cking kidding me,” Sansone said. “This shit is national?”

Maureen nodded. “It is. All it takes is a Google search to find out about it.”

“Then why am I only hearing this from you now in a Walmart parking lot after four cops get shot? What the f*ck?”