“So it wasn’t them,” Detillier said. He ran his hand over his shining bald head. “Man, we scared the shit out of those people in Dizzy’s.”
“I don’t know who the fuck that was in the van,” Maureen said. “I have no idea. Could’ve been them. Could’ve been fucking with us. Could’ve backed down when we spotted them. They don’t strike me as the type who get too brave when the prey starts shooting back.”
“Speaking of,” Detillier said. “You can put that gun away now.” He glanced up and down the avenue. “We have to get you off the streets.”
Maureen holstered her weapon. “I got the plate for that van.”
“Great, great,” Detillier said. He remained nervous.
She realized that the van could be making the block, preparing for another pass now that the shooters knew what they were up against. Detillier had started walking away.
“We take my car,” he said. “I’ll call in the plate from there. We’re wasting time standing around here, especially if they’ve made it to the highway.”
“Right. Okay.” She pulled her phone from her pocket. She could feel herself returning to earth, could hear the sounds of the neighborhood again. “Okay. Okay.” She scrolled through her contacts. She raised her other hand in a “stop” signal. “Before we do anything, I have to make a call. I have to call Preacher.”
Detillier stopped walking. He took a couple of steps back to her. “Maureen, Preacher’s one of the cops who got shot.”
19
“Take me to him,” Maureen shouted from the passenger seat of Detillier’s sedan. “Take me to him right fucking now.”
“I don’t know where he is,” Detillier said, his eyes fixed on the road as they hurtled up North Rampart Street, dodging traffic, running red lights, speeding away from Dizzy’s and the Tremé, headed for the wide boulevard of Canal Street. “He was shot in Mid-City, at a place on Jeff Davis. I don’t know what hospital he’s going to.”
“Get on the radio and find out,” Maureen said. “Find out where he is. Find out if he’s alive.” She pounded her fist on the dash. “Right! Fucking! Now!”
“Let me fucking drive,” Detillier shouted back. “There’s nothing we can do about Preacher right now.”
They caught the green light at the intersection of Rampart and Canal. Detillier muttered under his breath for the foot traffic to keep clear. Maureen braced herself against the dashboard as they sped through the intersection, the sedan bouncing hard over the streetcar tracks, tires screeching as Detillier hung a hard left onto Canal. Maureen saw stars as her shoulder slammed into the door, knocking her head on the window and the breath out of her lungs. They missed crashing into a parked car by half a foot, passing so close that Maureen could see the foam daiquiri cup in the console. She coughed as she fought to regain her breath.
Leaning forward in the driver’s seat, Detillier stomped on the gas, swinging around slower traffic where he could, running lights, headed toward the river.
“This is an active-shooter situation,” Detillier said. “It’s not over.”
“I’ll find Preacher my fucking self,” Maureen said, reaching for the sedan’s police radio. Detillier slapped her hand away.
Maureen almost punched him. “What the fuck was that?”
“Are you not listening?” Detillier said. “If not to me then to the radio. We’re on the job here, we’re in a situation.”
Maureen had not been listening to the radio chatter. The fate of Preacher was everything. She couldn’t focus on the voices coming over the radio long enough to make sense of the frantic calls and commands rasping out of the speaker. She tried to tune in. SWAT was rolling. The harbor police were involved. Demands for roadblocks at the bridge and on the highway at the parish line, and at the Causeway and the Twin Span. She heard codes and orders that she knew weren’t NOPD. Everyone in the area was on deck. Everyone. It made sense to call in other law enforcement, but she couldn’t decipher what any of them were doing. She didn’t know who was going where. From the sound of things, nobody was really in charge.
Near the foot of Canal, at the big palm-tree-flanked casino, Detillier made a hard right onto the much narrower two-lane Tchoupitoulas Street, bobbing and weaving as fast as he could through the business district toward Uptown. Maureen felt her brain beginning to catch up, to function and put things together in real time. She hadn’t asked where Detillier was taking her. He hadn’t said. Now she had an idea, not of the physical destination but of what would be waiting for them when they arrived.
“Where are we going?” she asked. She rubbed her sore shoulder, touched the tender bump rising on her forehead. “We’re going after them, aren’t we?”
“We are,” Detillier said, nodding.
“Where?”
“The Walmart. Pay attention to the radio, get me an update.”