Authors: Timothy C. Phillips
The real New Orleans is a city of culture and crime, Jazz and
joi de vive
, the devout and the despairing. The same pride and pain and hope and hate dwelled there, that dwelled anywhere else under the sun, because those things are the same everywhere.
As Tiller and I drove through the city, we could see its rich history reflected in its varied architecture. Post-modern skyscrapers reared up against the sky from the Central Business district, giant spires of reflective glass and steel. Beside them squatted brooding cathedrals that had stood since the city was the property of France, who had owned her twice, and Spain, in between. A lady with so much history is bound to be complicated.
“I told you so,” Tiller said for around the fifth time as we walked to the car. He kept repeating himself, but so far I hadn’t responded.
“Tiller, please stop saying that.”
“Well, damn it all, Roland, we need some help from these guys. How are we supposed to find Fain in a city of what, half a million? Two or three times that, if you count the metro area? Without any help from the cops?”
“They’ve got a lot on their hands down here, Tiller.”
“And we have no leads. All we have to go on is that newspaper story, and your mystery caller, who, I might add, hasn’t called you lately.”
“She doesn’t have to.” I opened the car door. “Get in.”
Tiller opened his door but then knitted his brow. “Why? Where are we going?”
“To do some investigating. There’s a little girl still missing. Danielle LeGrandville. We’re going to talk to her parents.”
We got off Highway 10 onto a blacktop exit and headed down to St. Rose, the smaller, rural community ten miles to the west of New Orleans, where the LeGrandville family resided. Tiller had called ahead, introduced us, and gotten directions.
LeGrandville had welcomed his interest in his daughter’s disappearance, and told us the way to his door with warmth that we had found surprising and uplifting after our rather disappointing meeting with Detective Bishop.
“Tiller, check this country out,” I remarked after the fourth turn onto a similar-looking country road. “This is worse than rural Alabama. It’s a maze.”
Tiller chuckled. “They pretty much have to do it that way out here. It seems like one big continuous piece of land, but it’s all actually little islands connected by man-made roads. But, mazes aren’t any problem, once you know how to defeat them.”
I looked sideways at Tiller, who was wearing a smug expression. “Yeah, okay, Tiller, have you ever tried to get out of a maze before?”
“Really, Longville, have you forgotten that like our nemesis, Fain, I also studied the art of magic?”
“No, Tiller, I haven’t forgotten.” Tiller knew a few tricks, to be sure. He could pick pockets, and do some sleight of hand. Although he never gloated about it, he also knew an escape trick, and he had used that talent in Arizona to save us both from certain death at the hands of Samson Fain, the man we were hunting once again.
“Okay. So tell me about this expertise of yours with mazes,” I said, having decided to indulge Tiller’s ego.
“Well, anybody can get out of a maze, if they remember one little thing, and don’t lose their head. The secret to getting out of a maze is just to put your hand on either the right wall, or the left, and follow it. Never take your hand off the surface of the wall, and you’ll walk out, eventually.”
“Really?”
“I absolutely guarantee it. It’s the reason those little books of puzzles no longer hold any fascination for me. No challenge.”
I smiled. We had come to the LeGrandville home’s driveway, a simple-looking house in a big yard, surrounded by trees. The yard sloped downwards toward a thick stand of trees that bordered the back yard. There were no other houses for quite a distance.
“I see. Well, I’ll try to remember that, if I ever get trapped in any mazes, Tiller.”
Chapter 7
Detective LeRoy Bishop looked out over the city he loved. Though most people who came here to visit remained blissfully unaware of the fact, New Orleans had problems more reminiscent of her Northern cities than other Southern metropolises. As one of the oldest inhabited places in the United States, she was also home to all the oldest ills—organized crime families so deeply entrenched that they were almost impossible to root out completely; deep distrust among its various racial and cultural sectors; and the clash of cultures old and new, a volatile mixture that had thrown fuel on the fire of the tempest that had raged after Katrina and Rita had come calling.
The gangs had been scattered in the hurricane’s aftermath, just like every other section of the city’s populace. But gangs are criminal organizations that prey on misery, and after the rebuilding had begun, they had returned with renewed vigor, for there was more than enough human misery out there for them to feed on. The system was in disarray, so in many ways, that was a dream come true for them. Large parts of the city were without effective law enforcement. Soldiers roamed the streets, but they were from other places, and they were unaware of the true scope of the many Gangs of New Orleans.
The Dooneys roamed the projects in the poor sections of the French Quarter down past Canal Street, where they were engaged in a seemingly endless turf war with the 3NGs that had, in the past few years, claimed over one-hundred lives. There were many more, of course—the ubiquitous Crips and Bloods, and the growing Gangsta Disciples; and their brethren in crime from south of the border, the Latin gangs; the Bandidos, the Latin Kings, and the Surenos. And down in the south of the city, Caribbean gangs predominated—the Rastas, a loose but growing coalition of Jamaican, Haitian, and other Caribbean migrants. The gangs represented the history of New Orleans come back to haunt her, lost children come to tear down the great works of their forefathers. But that was happening in varying degrees all over the United States, Bishop thought, with a bitter shake of his head. The hurricanes had just made it worse here.
And worse, it definitely was. The most violent of the gangs brazenly engaged in gun battles in the full light of day. Some of the combatants were children as young as 15, carrying Uzis, Mach10s or AK-47 rifles. Los Angeles thought they had problems, Bishop thought wryly. But the blindness of the news media is what really got under his skin. A few nights before, Bishop had seen a report on television by an earnest young reporter, during which she had detailed the horrors of militias of the Third World, who were using children as soldiers.
Despite himself, Bishop had laughed aloud at the myopia and foolishness of the news media. Once again, they had managed to look over the heads of their countrymen, and weep about problems far from where they lived—problems that were remarkably similar to the ones they were ignoring right here at home.
“Help me clear up that very same mess right here on the streets of New Orleans,” he had told the wide-eyed reporter’s image on his television screen, “and then we’ll know better how to help those poor bastards over there. Until then, honey, I just don’t give a shit.” And with that, he had turned off the television.
Bishop walked to his office window and watched Roland and Tiller go to their car and drive away. He watched them go with ambivalence, because he knew there were things he might have told them that would have made their way easier. But he had his reasons. They were all trying to accomplish the same thing, he and Tiller and Longville. But he had a mission that was much larger in scope, and far more urgent.
How could they understand? His city had been cast into utter chaos, all but abandoned by the rest of the nation for many crucial hours, during which many had lost their lives. Horrors had played out here, and those around the country who had wanted to help had no way to do so. The government had failed them all, the people of New Orleans as well as those who sought to ease her suffering. The levees that the Army Corps of Engineers had built to protect her were slipshod, it turned out, made to bad plans with worse materials. When the hurricanes had come, the levees had not withstood their rage.
Three quarters of the city had been inundated. New Orleans had been steeped in fifteen feet of water for weeks. The waters that pressed eternally against the levies had revenged themselves at last on the place that people had called the Doomed City, that free-wheeling, birthplace of jazz that had dared to exist for so long beneath sea level, in a bowl made by man, protecting the fragile home of half a million. When the breach had come, it was as if a bell, long silent, had finally sounded. It was the knell of doom for many.
The federal government had stunned the world with its self-involved, excuse-laden inability to act. The glacial reaction time of FEMA and other agencies certainly contributed to many deaths. More people had died because of government ineptitude than because of the storms themselves, Bishop thought, with a sad shake of his head. And now, these two men from Birmingham come down here trying to find a single killer in all of this chaos. It was almost laughable; there were so many killers out on these streets, today.
He wished them luck, he really did, but their odds were slim. The people out on the mean streets had learned a hard and very recent lesson, and it wasn’t likely that these two gentlemen from Birmingham were going to encounter much in the way of cooperation. But enough of them right now, he had other things on his mind.
Bishop turned to his desk, and pressed a button on his phone. A red light lit up on the console.
“Detective Burns,” came the voice on the other end.
“Charlie, I need you to put a surveillance team together for me.”
“Passive or active?”
“I need a team that’s capable of both. The suspect will be on the move a lot, but there will be telephones and verbal communications we’ll need to monitor. I think we can move under the warrant that we already have, but I’ll put in a call to the judge and make sure.”
“Okay. What’s going on?”
“An old friend of ours has resurfaced. I think that we’re going to need to keep a close eye on him, this time.”
“Can you give me some details?”
“You’ll get them. I’ve got a file here that you’ll need to review.”
“I’ll be right down.”
Bishop pushed the button again and the light went out.
Bishop went back to the window. A light rain was falling, raindrops no bigger than grains of rice spraying the panes. With a deep breath, he turned and went back to his desk. He picked up a file and began reading.
Chapter 8
We sat in the car for a minute, there in the marshy countryside that surrounded New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, and regarded the LeGrandville Residence.
It was a modest, one-story house, painted a lemony yellow. The house sat back away a polite space from the road, and had a huge, sloping backyard that was bordered on all sides by forest. Giant Oaks shaded the house, trees over sixty feet high with huge limbs bigger around than oil drums. There were no neighbors close by. With a cop’s instinct for security, Tiller said aloud what I was thinking.
“A burglar’s wet dream. I’ll bet that back yard’s darker than hell at night.” After a minute, Tiller added to his own thoughts. “Hell. I bet the front yard’s pitch black, too. It’s all quiet country living out here. No need for extra locks or security lights—until something like this happens. Now I bet everybody within ninety miles has two deadbolts on every door, and a loaded shotgun under their beds.”
We pulled into the drive and got out. When we had called ahead, the LeGrandvilles had graciously agreed to meet with us and allow us to look around the property. Anything to help find Danielle, both her parents had told us.
Thomas LeGrandville was a weathered-looking man, just under six feet, with a proud bearing that made him seem taller than he really was. His wife was thin and dark, with an attractive Gallic face and piercing, dark eyes. They both looked like people from a bygone era, when people were made of sterner stuff. They seemed ancient to me somehow, a last vestige of a vanished people that had come here when the swamps were still wild and uncharted, centuries before.
LeGrandville welcomed us with quiet composure and showed us out to where the abduction had taken place. The intruder had entered the LeGrandville home via the screened-in back porch. The porch was just a step lower than the level of the rest of the house. The screen was a practical defense against mosquitoes, common throughout the south, particularly so here in coastal Louisiana. The back door opened onto the back porch. The abductor had gained entry to the house there. Danielle’s bedroom was the first door to the right, practically adjacent to the porch. It had been easy for him, after that.