The man gave up searching the bar. He made for the door, shouldering people out of his way. He hurried out in pursuit, Maureen knew, of the woman who had slipped away.
She grabbed her cigarettes and slid off her barstool, pulling on her gloves and moving for the door as quiet as a shadow. She raised her hood over her head, slipped her hands into the pouch of the sweatshirt, gripping the weapon hidden there, a telescoping baton with a weighted tip called an ASP. She kept her head down as she passed by the bouncer and out the door. A few paces ahead of her on the crowded sidewalk, she spied the angry man searching for the frightened woman.
Like she had with the others, she’d take him from behind, start with a quick strike to his knee. A man who can’t stand can’t fight back. Then, before he even hit the ground, she’d go for his throat. For control of his voice, his breath, and the blood rushing to his brain. Destroying the knee hurt him, and it gave her strategic advantage. But compressing his throat in the bend of her elbow, strangling him? That was what induced the panic; that pressure conjured the terror. The terror was what she wanted. Terror left a lasting impression. She knew that from experience.
Maureen would make sure he never found the woman he pursued. Not tonight. Not ever. And that he’d never know what hit him.
2
Hours later, on a quiet residential street, a couple of blocks away from the late-night bustle of Frenchmen Street, Maureen climbed into her beat-up old Honda, the door creaking as she opened it. She sat in the driver’s seat, the door open, one foot out on the sidewalk. She found her cigarettes and lit up. She was not quite ready to drive home. Too much to drink. She needed more time than one cigarette would give her, but that eight to ten minutes would have to suffice. What she should do, she thought, was call a cab. Maybe she would.
She put her head back on the headrest. Yeah, maybe a cab was best. In a minute, though. After this cigarette.
With her right hand she felt around on the Honda’s passenger seat. Where was her gum? She always had gum in the car. Right? Where the fuck—no, wait—that was the patrol car, that was when she always had gum. Nothing but empty cigarette packs on the Honda’s passenger seat. Well, whatever. Fuck it. If she wasn’t going to be driving or kissing anyone, she didn’t need the gum. Her eyes closed, she smiled. No, no kissing anyone tonight.
Only one man that night had attracted her attention.
And she’d left him, the man she’d followed out of d.b.a., crumpled on a curb on Burgundy Street, on the other side of the neighborhood from where she was now, but not far from the front stoop of the woman he’d followed. She’d left him weeping hot tears onto his bloody cheeks, bleeding from the mouth, and clutching his broken wrist to his chest.
But she’d left him hours ago. She should’ve gone right home after that. The interlude had left her spent. Now here she was, too drunk to drive and too tired to deal with a cab.
Instead of going home like she should have, she had restarted that night’s intended mission. Hustling away from Burgundy Street, Maureen had worked her way deeper into the Marigny neighborhood, toward the Bywater, asking again at the neighborhood bars and corner stores if anyone had seen Madison Leary. Of course, same as always, no one had. This search had been going on for a month.
Maureen was asking the same questions of the same people in the same places every week. It was bad police work, and she knew it. Because now these people she pestered for information that they had already told her they didn’t have were starting to ask her questions. When they did, she dodged. She copped an attitude. Or she tried to charm. No matter what tack she took, she tried to hide her face as best she could. She kept her hood up. She looked at the ground. Anything not to be memorable.
She couldn’t tell the people she talked to that she was a cop. She definitely couldn’t have them figuring it out for themselves. If anyone IDed her and called the NOPD to complain, she’d be sunk. She’d never get her badge back then. She was supposed to be staying at home this month. Behaving. Waiting. Being a good girl.
Conducting her investigation while half-drunk and totally disheveled made for good-enough cover, Maureen hoped. Her wardrobe helped her blend in with the neighborhood. She hoped to come across more like a desperate ex than law enforcement. She figured she hadn’t been a cop long enough to emanate the vibe of a narc. While she hadn’t scored the information she wanted, she hadn’t gotten caught looking for it. And she hadn’t gotten caught doing anything else she shouldn’t be doing, either. But that night, she’d done something she’d never done before. Because she had gone out asking questions after dealing with the man, she had left witnesses to the fact that she was in the same neighborhood at the same time as one of her men.