Let the Devil Out (Maureen Coughlin #4)(82)

Etienne shrugged. “Their spots in the Iberville are torn up now. Their neighborhood is gone. Ain’t there no more. Nobody living there, and the new place is going to look like that Harmony place across from the grocery, nice and shit. Prob’ly put a school there, too. Times are changing, I guess.”

“So how did news of two uptown crews beefing get down to the Iberville?”

“You got me,” Etienne said. “Small city, you know. Everybody in the same business, basically. Word travels.”

Maureen moved half a step closer to Etienne. “No. No. There’s more to it than that. It’s a big leap, a big power move, bringing people from way down the Iberville up to Central City. Especially for someone like Big Mike, who’s not real known as far as I can tell, certainly not outside this neighborhood.”

“I mean, I don’t know,” Etienne said. “I’ve never been in the game. I use every now and then, I ain’t gonna lie, but I ain’t like in it, ya know?”

“And yet you do seem to know quite a bit,” Maureen said.

E stepped away from her. He straightened his coat. “No offense, but shouldn’t you be after those boys that shot y’all’s own? You know how we do. You don’t like Big Mike, give it six months, someone else be out in front of that store with a different car and a different dog and everyone be wearing, I don’t f*cking know, whatever the f*ck, purple or some shit.”

“Back to Big Mike,” Maureen said. “Here’s what I’m thinking. There’s one key thing that he would need to exploit a crisis like a gang beef with new muscle from outside the neighborhood. He’d need a broker, a go-between.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Etienne said. “I’m not smart enough to follow you. I’m just a convict. And I’m getting cold.”

“An inside man,” Maureen said. “A matchmaker would make a move like Big Mike’s so much easier. An inside man would get himself paid and protected greasing the wheels for a man like Big Mike, a big mover like him.”

Little E raised his beer can to his mouth, but he’d drunk it dry. He studied the empty can, tossed it in the gutter, jammed his hands in his coat pockets. “If you say so, Officer. You’re the one trained in this shit.”

Maureen closed the distance between them again, steeling herself against his stench. “I want you to stand there and tell me you haven’t seen Shadow hanging around these past couple of weeks. Everything that’s gone on, you haven’t been hearing his name?”

“Shadow?”

“Yeah, Shadow. I’m stuttering? This alliance with the Iberville guys, you think that doesn’t have Shadow written all over it?”

Etienne’s mouth hung open as he thought of what to say.

“Don’t you f*cking lie to me,” Maureen said. She touched the leather over her ribs. The ASP rested in an inside pocket. She’d carried it with her everywhere she’d gone tonight. She didn’t want to use it on Little E. He was small and scared, cold and weak. Not the kind of person she carried it for. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t use it if he left her no choice. “Don’t you lie to me, E. Not now, not tonight.”

“I heard things,” Etienne said. “I heard this was Shadow’s big move. Y’all saw to that, you gave him the opportunity. Getting rid of Scales like y’all did opened up the game for Big Mike.”

“One goes down,” Maureen said, “and another steps up.”

“Only, you know Shadow,” Etienne said. “He never the man on the throne. He the man behind the man, that’s how he do. Someone else always get to take the fall.”

“Not this time,” Maureen said. “This time it’s him I want.”

“Get in line,” Little E said. He stamped his feet against the cold. His discomfort was making him brave. “Nobody know where Shadow stay. You think you’re the first cop to ask me that? Damn, OC.”

Maureen reached into her jacket pockets. She pulled out her leather gloves. E’s eyes got wide. She’d been standing there with her hands turning blue to preserve that effect. She slid one hand into a black glove then the other. “I’m not the first cop to ask that, but, and this I promise you, I am the most persuasive. I’m the one asking tonight.” She flexed her fingers in her gloves. The leather creaked. “Where is he?”

“Whoa, whoa, Officer.” Etienne went to step back, his hands in the air. “Preacher wouldn’t do me like this.”

“Preacher ain’t here,” Maureen said, moving in closer. “He’s laid up in a hospital bed, and Shadow knows the guys behind it.” She reached out, put her hand on E’s shoulder. Her touch was light. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know that,” Etienne said. “I don’t. There’s no way I would know that. Shadow is a player. I’m a piss stain. You know that. C’mon, now. You scaring me.”

“How many f*cking times you gonna make me ask you the same f*cking question?”

She twisted the shoulder of Etienne’s coat in her fist. A thought occurred to her. Solomon Heath wasn’t the only one who could’ve given Preacher away.

She said, “Preacher took three bullets. Preacher was having lunch in street clothes. How did the Watchmen know who he was unless someone told them? You ask me, that rat was Shadow. He knows who Preacher is, what he looks like. He knew the Watchmen before Scales did. It connects.”