Shortly before three a.m. Maureen rolled up on Little E in a dark and quiet section of Central City. Madison Leary had been hard to find. Finding Shadow would be a challenge. Little E was not tough to track. His accessibility was part of what made him a good snitch.
E sat on the wide, dirty concrete steps of an abandoned house, next door to the Big Man Lounge, a can of beer between his feet. Maureen pulled up slowly, roof lights off, bouncing the creaking patrol car over the curb, halfway onto the cracked-up sidewalk.
On the steps of the house, three other men sat with Little E. Each of them was positioned on a different step. Each of them nursed the amber glow of a cigarette, or maybe a roach. They sat with their thin shoulders hunched deep into their old second-and thirdhand coats. None of them had so much as flinched at the arrival of an NOPD cruiser. They knew that had Maureen been looking to make trouble for them, she would have arrived with much more bluster.
She got out of the car, zipping up her black leather NOPD jacket. An old soul tune played in the bar, floating out into the street. She closed the car door, dug her knit watch cap from her jacket pocket, and pulled it snug on her head. She blew into her fist as she stepped up onto the sidewalk. She had gloves in her pocket but was saving them for later. Behind her, she heard the rattle of a metal gate. She turned to see the bar owner, his brown face a scowl in the shadows, locking up the Big Man. The music cut off mid-song. The neon beer signs and colored lights in the small windows went dark. The men watched her from the steps. She studied their emotionless faces, hoping to recognize someone in addition to Little E. She didn’t like that E wasn’t alone.
On the one hand, because he had company, Little E could be less likely to talk to her. He couldn’t have the whole neighborhood knowing he was an NOPD snitch. He at least couldn’t let it be this obvious. And if he did talk, an outcome to which Maureen was especially committed, his cover would be blown as soon as Shadow got picked up. At worst his life would be in danger, at best E might be useless to her and Preacher as a snitch anymore. The trick to negotiating the situation, she realized, would be what she and any other cops did with Shadow. They didn’t want to arrest him, not tonight. Not if it could be avoided. She could let that be known, make it part of Little E’s message. Tonight they wanted information. That might be enough to save Little E from too harsh a retribution. Maybe.
“Mr. Etienne,” Maureen called. “Come down from the steps and see me, please.”
E glanced at his compatriots, who looked away from him. They gazed past Maureen, their faces blank, and over the neighborhood, demonstrably ignoring not only E but her as well. No matter what happened in front of them, Maureen realized, they would see and hear nothing. Tonight, she realized the men were letting her know, lots of things otherwise forbidden would get a pass.
Abandoned to his fate, E leaned forward, groaning, to grab his beer. He stood, unsteady, and came carefully down the marble steps, one hand at the small of his back, as if Maureen’s visit had interrupted a long night of heavy lifting.
“Fellas,” Maureen called out, “why don’t y’all head back inside the bar? It’s cold out here, anyways.”
“They closed,” Etienne said, sniffling. “That’s why we out here in the first place.”
“They can take a walk,” Maureen said to him, her voice calm and low, “or I can call another unit and you and me can take a ride together to lockup.” She paused. Let the message sink in. It was smarter, she thought, better neighborhood politics, to let E negotiate the next moves with his friends than for her to push them around. She lit a cigarette. Patience, Maureen thought, that’s what Preacher would counsel. “I hate to break up a party, but we’re in a bad mood tonight.”
“Mos def,” Little E said, turning. “I got you. Fellas, I’ll catch up with y’all around the way.” He gestured at Maureen with his beer can. “I got some parole thing I gotta clear up. Ain’t no thing. Just be a minute. Nothing to worry about.”
No way they believe that story, Maureen thought. Nobody, especially not a beat cop, comes around following up on “parole things” at three in the morning. But the men got the message they needed. They stood, picked up their beers, and sauntered down the steps. One of them muttered an “all right” as they walked away into the darkness, shaking the cold out of their backs and shoulders.
She noticed Little E eyeing her cigarette. She gave him one from her pack, lit it for him.
“OC, I been hearing things,” Little E said, animated now. “Crazy shit.” He leaned in close, as if there were anyone else on the block to overhear them. He stank. “I heard the Klan got Preacher. That true? No way that’s true, right?” He swallowed hard. His emotion, his concern, it wasn’t an act, Maureen thought. Etienne was upset. Not because cops who were strangers to him got killed, she knew, but because Preacher, who had done Little E an untold number of small favors, had been shot.