She reached into her pocket and took out her cell phone.
The right thing to do, the professional thing to do, was to call Detillier and tell him about Shadow. He was more qualified to do the questioning, especially in a huge case like this. The reason she’d been paired with Detillier in the first place was so the FBI could put her connections to the Watchmen to use, to better use than she and the NOPD could. And if Detillier was in the doghouse, she thought, giving him a fresh lead might be the thing to get him out of trouble. And if that were the case, wouldn’t he owe her a huge favor? How was that for turning the tables? She had no loyalty to Shadow. Sure, she’d promised through Little E that he would walk away free from the meeting with her. But, in the end, fuck Shadow. Too bad for him if the FBI needed him. Keeping promises to career criminals wasn’t a top priority for her.
She scrolled through her contacts, found Detillier’s number. She hesitated.
And what if he shows up with a dozen other guys and whisks Shadow away in a van? What if it would be hours, or days, before the feds got anything out of Shadow? What if lawyers got involved? That happens and here we are again, Maureen thought, waiting for, counting on the feds to come through and pluck us off the rooftop. No thanks. And really, what leverage did the FBI have? Shadow presented the same problem as Solomon Heath did. Unless he was suddenly inspired to incriminate himself, nobody had any proof that Shadow was guilty of anything.
And what if another attack happened while the feds were dicking around with Shadow? Maureen thought. More shootings? A bomb, even? Who knew what else the Watchmen had up their sleeves. The FBI couldn’t, they wouldn’t, go after Shadow like she could. She had a freedom, at least that night in that bar, the FBI didn’t have.
On the other hand, she thought, with Madison Leary dead, Shadow was the one lead, the only extant lead into the Watchmen that anybody, feds or local, had right now. She was done, done in the NOPD if she blew that lead. What if another attack happened then? How would she live with herself? She’d already maybe failed, despite what Preacher had said in the hospital, to stop the first attack by failing to find Madison Leary. What if she failed again?
She took a deep breath. Okay, then. Me first, then him. We can both have him, she thought. I can make this work. She called Detillier. When he answered, she could tell he’d been asleep. I hope I never learn that, she thought, to sleep on a night like tonight, when there’s so much work to be done.
“I might have something for you on the Watchmen,” Maureen said.
“Might? Where are you?”
“I’m working. Get up, make some coffee. And be ready to move. I’m gonna call you back in thirty minutes.”
“Excuse me?” Detillier said. “You know who you’re talking to?”
Maureen disconnected, slipped her phone back into her pocket.
She went back to her table. She righted another chair, set it across the table from where she’d sat before. She put an empty ashtray on the table. She lit the mason-jar candle. Then she sat and waited again. This time the waiting was easier. This time she knew the wait would be short. She unzipped her leather jacket, making the ASP easier to reach.
32
Twenty minutes later, she heard someone bang three times on the metal gate. Either Wilburn or Cordts. The three bangs was their signal that Shadow had arrived and everything was copacetic. She got up from the table, found LaValle’s office in the back. She rapped a knuckle on the door. “They’re here,” she said. “Do not come out of this office for any reason until I come back and give you the all clear. For safety’s sake. Your safety. Am I understood?”
LaValle hollered back that she was.
Maureen walked to the front door and opened it.
Shadow stood on the other side of the iron gate, a bored look on his face, his hands loose at his sides, his eyes so red Maureen thought he might have burst a few blood vessels. The weed stink off him made her own eyes water. He was slender with a small potbelly, and looking at him face-to-face Maureen realized he was not much taller than she was. She remembered him as a bigger man, taller and more rangy. Then again, she’d only gotten one good look at him, and that was from across the street before she knew who she was looking at. Back then, months ago, she’d had no reason to pay close attention; he was an older boy yelling at a younger boy she was talking to at a crime scene.
After that he was the guy who ambushed her with a throat punch. She hadn’t seen him that day, not coming at her, not running away.