And somebody had called for help for the rotten bastard. Maureen had seen the emergency lights of the cops and the ambulance flashing down Burgundy Street. Which meant there was a police record now of his beat-down.
Avoiding someone calling an ambulance, though, would’ve required hurting him less. But less pain and less injury left less of a lasting impression. She had the silver-haired man to thank for teaching her that.
So, so wise of you, Maureen. Every step of the way. You’re letting him burn you down, she thought, from beyond the grave. After everything you did to get away from him.
How stupid can you be?
“Excuse me, Officer.”
Maureen opened her eyes. Had she really heard that? Had she fallen asleep and dreamed it? That voice, she thought, feeling herself grinning, is in your head.
“Officer?”
It took Maureen a moment to recall that she wasn’t in uniform. So was someone she knew approaching? She took a deep breath, willing herself attentive. Shit. Maybe someone she’d hassled in the neighborhood had figured her out. She checked her sweatshirt pocket for the ASP.
She put up her hood and climbed out of the car. Her legs were leaden. Her butt had fallen asleep. She slipped her hand into her sweatshirt pocket and gripped the ASP.
Blinking, she watched a short, slight figure approach out of the darkness, walking, no, not walking, more like sauntering, right down the middle of the street. Puffs of breath rose into the air around the figure’s head. The night was so quiet Maureen could hear a metallic tinkling with every step the figure took, like the sound of spurs.
“I hear you’re looking for me,” the figure said.
Not spurs, Maureen thought. Metal buckles. Undone metal buckles running up the front of a pair of tattered, knee-high leather boots.
“Dice,” Maureen said. “Not you, exactly. I’ve been looking for Leary.”
Dice was a street kid, a skinny girl around twenty years old. Silver piercings adorned her nose and lips. An elaborate tattoo of Smaug the dragon wrapped around her shaved head. She and the other young homeless in New Orleans called themselves “travelers.” Cops, shop owners, bar owners, and anyone else who didn’t like them called them “gutter punks.” Dice was a panhandler, a pickpocket, and a petty thief, depending on her needs. And she was also a heroin addict who, the last time Maureen had seen her, had managed to string together a decent amount of clean time through force of will alone. She often toted around a beat-up banjo that she plucked at for tips on street corners while sitting on an overturned pickle bucket. At least that was the theory. Maureen had never seen her do more than attempt to tune the thing.
Tonight, as Dice got closer, Maureen couldn’t see the dragon. Against the cold, Dice wore a black knit watch cap, low over her eyes. The rest of her was wrapped up in a bulky wool herringbone coat many sizes too large. The coat fell below her knees. She looked to Maureen like a child in her father’s overcoat. She didn’t have her banjo, either.
“You’ve been following me,” Maureen said.
“Only since you left the Spotted Cat,” Dice said, grinning.
The last place I was in before coming to the car, Maureen thought. After the man on Burgundy Street. “Where have you been?”
“Here. There. Around.”
“You’ve been hiding from me,” Maureen said.
“How can I be hiding from you,” Dice said, “when you aren’t even looking for me? You said a second ago that you’ve been looking for Madison.”
Maureen closed the car door. She stepped into the street to meet Dice. “Have you seen her? Do you know where she is?”
Dice pouted, toeing the asphalt. Maureen noticed the toe cap of her boot was wrapped in duct tape. “Nothing more for me? No ‘How are ya’ or ‘How ya been’ for me?”
Maureen rubbed her eyes. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s late and I’m tired. Of course I was hoping to find you, too, along the way.”
“I’ll forgive you for a cigarette,” Dice said.
Maureen obliged. Other than Dice, Maureen wasn’t sure there was another person in New Orleans who had spent any time with Madison Leary and lived to tell about it. As Dice had told the story, they had lived together at a hostel for a few weeks, when Leary had first arrived in New Orleans and before she had run out of the powerful medication that kept her demons at bay. Paranoia, schizophrenia, and who knew what else. Maureen had tried recruiting Dice to help find Madison when she’d first become a person of interest in a murder case.
Soon after that, though, Madison had gone from person of interest to number one suspect. Then things had gone to shit for Maureen on the NOPD, and Dice and Madison had both disappeared into the New Orleans underground. For the past six weeks, Maureen’s conscience had been gnawed raw by the idea that she had gotten Dice killed for asking her to betray Leary.