“I’m here to help you, buddy,” Walt said, “and to get your help in return. Tell me what you need, and I’ll do the same. My request might overstep the bounds of friendship, but we is where we is.”
Mackiever sucked at his cigarette as though it were a narcotic. “Walter, by the end of the day, I’m going to be a private citizen. I won’t be able to help you. And there’s nothing you can do to help me.”
“You’re wrong on both counts. When you’re in the kind of fix we’re in, you do what you’ve gotta do to get the ox out of the ditch. Tell me more about Forrest. A guy that dirty has to have a weak spot. All of God’s creatures have an underbelly.”
“If Knox has one, he’s wearing armor over it.”
“Why’s he got such a hard-on to move you out?”
Mackiever lit a second cigarette off the first one and poured himself another scotch. “Walt, you may not believe this, but there are people in this state who saw Hurricane Katrina as a blessing. Divine intervention, even.”
“I’ve heard the talk.”
“But do you know what’s beneath it? For the past twenty years, New Orleans has been shrinking. Major companies have been pulling out, and white workers have been fleeing across Lake Pontchartrain. The trend seemed unstoppable—until Katrina. The storm destroyed the homes of huge numbers of blacks, and they were bused out of the city in the so-called evacuation. About four days too late, by my count, but that’s not my point. That ‘evacuation’ looked more like the relocation of the Indian tribes in the 1800s to me. That’s how it’s worked out, too. And the money boys don’t mean to let ’em back into the city. They want to raze the Lower Ninth Ward and demolish the housing projects elsewhere, then put up new developments for their kind of people.”
“White people?” Walt grunted.
“Or rich colored. They aren’t that particular, so long as you’ve got the green. Point is, the state’s elite doesn’t see me fitting into this new utopia. They want an enforcer with their own ideology heading up the state police.”
“What’s the LSP got to do with the city of New Orleans?”
“More than you think. The fat cats have got puppet politicians standing for all the municipal offices, but political authority is still subject to the whim of the voters. The man with my job isn’t subject to election. We have a lot of power and discretion, and with the right superintendent—or the wrong one—the state police can function like a paramilitary force. The governor can use us as an intimidation tool, sort of how Nixon used the FBI and the IRS against his enemies.”
“I see.”
“I first started to suspect what Forrest was up to about two years ago. I suspected he had my Internal Affairs division compromised, so I handpicked a mean son of a bitch named Alphonse Ozan to infiltrate the Criminal Investigations Bureau. Ozan’s a big Redbone, so I figured he’d be immune to Knox’s influence, Knox being such a racist, and half Cajun to boot. There’s no love lost between those two groups.”
“Bad bet?”
“Apparently. Ozan’s fed me steady reports ever since, claiming Knox is clean. But about two months ago I started smelling something. I ran a little test, the way the SOE used to do during World War Two, to test the integrity of their people. And I confirmed my worst fear.”
“Why didn’t you bust Ozan?”
“Better the devil you know, right? Since then I’ve been quietly trying to scope out just how big Knox’s operation is.”
“And?”
“He’s got his fingers in a lot of pies around the state. He’s taking cuts from various crooks to leave their operations alone. Coyotes moving illegals through the Port of New Orleans, drugs coming into the country on speedboats down around the barrier islands, prostitution. You name it, Forrest skims it. And after Katrina hit . . . I think he used a team of SWAT guys to selectively take out some of the competition.”
“Man alive. This is the guy the moneymen want to put in your job?”
“Most of Forrest’s supporters don’t know about the criminal stuff. All they know is, Knox did them some favor or other. Got ’em LSU tickets on the fifty-yard line or sprung their drunk kid from some backwoods parish jail. Hell, I still can’t prove anything against him. Nobody will testify against the guy. Everybody either loves Knox or lives in terror of him.”
Walt swirled some scotch around in his mouth, then swallowed. “Some of his thugs threatened my wife earlier today. Out in Navasota.”
Mackiever shook his head. “I’m sorry, Walt. But it doesn’t surprise me. She okay?”
“I’ve got some retired buddies covering her now.”
“Good.” The colonel looked around the room like a man startled from a dream. The daze Walt had seen when he entered the room had never really left his eyes. “Well, I think you see my problem. How exactly can I help you?”
“You know that trooper you lost up in Concordia Parish Tuesday evening?”
“Darrell Deke Dunn.”
Walt nodded. “He wasn’t yours. He was Knox’s.”
The colonel quickly gulped from his glass. “Are you positive?”
“I was there. Your APB’s right about that, but he was about to murder my best friend in cold blood.”
Mackiever looked at the ceiling and cursed.
“I don’t know how much pull you still have in this state,” Walt said, “but I need you to make that APB go away. If you don’t, I can’t help you or myself either.”
The colonel looked as if Walt had asked him for a million dollars cash. “How the hell can I do that? All the evidence points to you and Cage killing Dunn, and I can’t prove Dunn was dirty. I can’t pull the APB on suspected cop killers without good reason.”
“I did kill Dunn,” Walt said bluntly. “So you’ll need to make up a reason.”
Mackiever’s eyes had gone wide. “Christ, Walt. How the hell did you get caught up in this?”
Walt shrugged. “Helping a friend. How else?”