ELEVEN

A keyhole dive on Bourbon Street, Sinners Too slumped near the corner of Bienville. Big black wood doors sealed off the premises during daylight hours, only to be turned back 180 degrees to admit patrons after dark. The name played off the marching saints of the famous song and the football team, but came across to many as cute. For that reason, or merely to be less inviting, no sign stood was visible on its faded brown façade. A patron had to know the joint to find it, and once inside, if he knew where to look, the name was located on a sticker affixed to a mirror. Dupree showed it to Cinq-Mars, proud as peach. The mirror reflected the bar, manned by a redheaded Irishman to whom Cinq-Mars was introduced and who seemed to be perpetually washing up as he worried who might be coming through the front door or returning out the rear toilet. The man grunted often and incessantly glanced around warily—and unnecessarily to Émile’s mind—and he judged his problem to be a Tourette’s tic.

The dark narrow space that the bar presented to the street kept tourists at bay and encouraged cautious locals to scorn the premises as well. Inside, the regular barflies were positioned on their familiar stools, calmly inebriated and somewhat intent but nothing serious. Solemn in their declarations, they exhibited only quiet, desultory affections for drink, for the air they breathed, and for the company they so faithfully embraced.

Cinq-Mars and Dupree settled into a side booth where no one, the former Montreal cop noted, could come up behind them. “A favorite haunt of yours? Or are you trying to psyche me out?”

Loud laughter burst from Detective Dupree. The sound struck Cinq-Mars as jolly and genuine, which gave credence to the detective’s repertoire of smiles. A joyful soul. He still had no clue how to take him. At this early juncture, to trust him was out of the question, but whether he should weigh the merits of his skepticism or let things ride until real evidence presented itself remained a puzzle.

“No psyche-out intended. I drink to modest excess, Émile.” On the way over, they had agreed to use each other’s given names, as opposed to their ranks or surnames. Émile could no longer abide being called sergeant-detective, and Dupree couldn’t pronounce Cinq-Mars in any acceptable form. His accent made it sound like a muffled scream, and after Émile spelled it for him, his pronunciation worsened. For his part, Dupree confessed to hating the diminutive “Sarge,” which he got all the time. “I like to stay afloat. Not that there’s a man in here who couldn’t put me to shame if we raced a bottle down, but I drink enough that I prefer to stay away from places where the righteous might find me. They’re a bore. I don’t know what attributes make up a child of God, but boring can’t be one of them. Thing is, neither the boring nor the righteous are likely to find me in here.”

Here, no drinks were called “Hurricanes.” In honor of the city, Cinq-Mars ordered bourbon, and Dupree joined him in that choice, adding a beer chaser.

“Drinking on your shift is not a problem here in corrupt New Orleans?”

Cinq-Mars thought he was chiding him gently, relaxing into their pending talk, but Dupree took it differently.

“I don’t taste the divine mistress when I’m working. Y’all can take that two ways.”

“Can I? How so?”

“If I take a sip it means I just booked off. It’s my way of saying so.”

Cinq-Mars chuckled lightly. “Okay. What’s the second way?”

“I don’t drink and work. Period.”

“You aren’t working now? You were in my hotel room.”

“No, sir, I was not. I was passing by. Just visiting. I came to your hotel room because the man flying in to see me about a cold case was reporting serious trouble to the police. That news got back to me. The man who has a rep for taking down his own police department called my police department to say his room had been invaded. That’s a curiosity to me. Wouldn’t it be to you, Émile?” He was speaking a lot, yet slowly, almost methodically, in deference to the music of the night and the calming effect of his drink. “I came to see you because people in my department, friends of mine, they know that I haven’t been sleeping so well lately, on account of y’all being on your way here, and because I worry about why a man like you is coming down here wanting to talk to the likes of me for who knows what reason. So they informed me that your name was in the news, that it jumped across the wire. I like to be informed and they do have my back on occasion. Émile, this whiskey I’m sipping—here I go now … ain’t that sweet?—this whiskey, sir, is going so smoothly down my gullet on my sweet time off. Don’t think otherwise. Because if you do, you’ll be wrong, and I got this feeling that you’re not the type to cozy up to being dead wrong too often.”

Cinq-Mars clinked the other man’s glass as a way to concede and apologize. “Here’s to free time and plain talk. Pascal, I don’t get what’s going on.”

“Call me Dupree. Pascal is not a name a go by much. My mama calls me Pascal, as do people just getting to know me on a familiar basis. I’m jumping the gun, but a man whom I like and respect right off the bat, a man with whom I may feel a kinship, that man should call me Dupree. So what is it that y’all don’t get? Why you were accosted?”

“That, too. But mainly why my presence registered with anybody down here, including with you.”

“You wanted to show up incognito?”

“Why would I? I never felt the need.”

“And if I say to you—Danziger Bridge—what do y’all say back?”

Cinq-Mars shrugged. “I’m ignorant. Only what you said. It’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Seriously? Maybe so. But appreciate that it has us all on edge around here. A public relations nightmare times ten.” Seated, relaxing, his big head easing back, Dupree displayed multiple chins and a bull neck. “Cops who go around shooting people on account of their tragic circumstances and the color of their skin, and then those among us who made some objection to that particular practice and assisted in the investigation, both sides, are on edge. You see my circumstances. But a person like myself, who’s gonna come out of the shadows and shoot me down on the streets now? It’s not only that I’m a moving target, I’m an obvious target. Too obvious. So if I take my leave of absence from this world to go mingle with the saints and sinners who have gone before me, suspicions are going to be aroused before whatever dust I might disturb settles back over me, and who is going to think that my demise is anything but unjustified? A consequence of a situation. Folks of different stripes, some of whom have power, will want to know who pulled the trigger. On the other hand, if forces are aligned against me, if some folks want to take me down and some of those folks have power also, then they might seek another way, given everything that’s afoot. So. I hear that a cop from another force—hell, from another country—is coming down here to inquire about some cold case murders that I investigated years ago without much success after a screw-up and I’m thinking to myself, hold on, buddy, watch it now, this could be some strange- colored shit walking straight upright out of the john. Y’all follow me?”

“I do now,” Cinq-Mars assured him and sipped his whiskey. “I see your predicament. But I had no idea about all these preexisting circumstances.”

“So why y’all here?” The query was forthright, but Dupree tacked on a smile in any case, and once again Cinq-Mars did not know how to take the man.

“I wish I could simplify it for you,” he told him, “about as much as I wish I could simplify it for myself.”

“Complicated, is it? Try me out.”

Cinq-Mars leaned closer to him, not to make himself heard as it was a quiet bar on a relatively quiet night. Nor was he indicating that his words were about to be shared in the strictest confidence. But he leaned in closer to indicate that what he had to say would need to be contemplated and managed on an intimate level, if his words were going to be understood at all. “If I knew why I was here, Dupree, I probably would not be here.”

Cinq-Mars had expected that the New Orleans detective might request further clarification, that in thinking it through his mind might short-circuit and leave him stuck in a mental loop, in a maze, with no way out. That was his intention, perhaps. But the man cottoned on quickly. He understood how a dilemma could draw a man in and not let him escape with his skin still attached.

“So your lack of understanding, Émile, and mine, match up.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Cinq-Mars remarked.

“Let’s do so.”

Cinq-Mars raised his glass to the Irish bartender for another round of bourbon, and this time added the beer chaser for himself. Dupree was still working on his in a contemplative fashion.

“So what do you know,” Dupree asked him, “about what y’all don’t know?”

Cinq-Mars moved the glass in his hand around the table, then drank. He didn’t like the bourbon as much as his favored Scotch, a mite harsh on the throat, but it possessed its own guile that he could appreciate. “You investigated the deaths of Dorsey and Gifford Lanos. The cold case you mentioned. An unsolved crime.”

“I did. Who is it who cares?”

“The FBI, for starters.”

“You’re working for the FBI now?” He laughed that bright laugh again and resolved the tempest with the widest grin.

“Apparently I am.”

The grin vanished. “What, they’re hiring out private now?”

“One of many puzzles.”

When Dupree drank again it seemed it was less to slake a thirst or to savor his drink than to settle his nerves. “Okay,” he said. “You got me. Where do we stand? What’s going on?”

Cinq-Mars took a breath, and started in. “A similar killing occurred in my backyard, except that two cops on the scene were also gunned down. Several similar murders have occurred around the U.S., always in the aftermath of a natural disaster. I know what you’re nervous about. You investigated the murders of Dorsey and Gifford Lanos when the killer was hanging out over your head. In the attic. I’m not down here to burn a detective for not looking in the attic. But those murders, how they all add up, including what doesn’t add up, paint a picture. And it’s that whole picture that gets interesting. Why me? The FBI will tell you they need someone on the ground in Canada who speaks French and is a Canadian. I don’t buy it entirely, but for now I’m on the case. My being here is purely a background investigation, to see what your case, and others like it, tell me about mine.”

Dupree waggled his head a little as he processed the news. “I was getting myself worked up. Shadows jump out at me these days, you know? I fingered y’all to be a man behind a shadow, you know?”

“I understand. Well, to a point, I do.”

“He was in the attic all right. But we only learned that later. It’s true I thought y’all might be here to rub my nose in it somehow. So, you said … let’s take it back a step. Y’all were talking about what adds up, but also saying that this is about what doesn’t add up. So tell me, what doesn’t add up for you?”

The alcohol was buzzing in his veins now, and he could feel his body relaxing. Cinq-Mars sat back a little. “Why the victims?” he asked. “Why them in particular? Arriving in the aftermath of a storm, I can see that. The authorities are preoccupied. But how did he choose his people? Maybe some of his personal psychological headspace accounts for picking couples, but why those couples? Do they relate to one another in any way, and will that help us? That’s one thing I’m after.”

“My people, Dorsey and Giff, seemed pretty ordinary types.”

“My dead couple, too. So there’s that. But how does ordinariness help us?”

“Go figure. Do you want to go up there tomorrow, Émile?”

“Scene of the crime? I do.”

“It’s a date.”

A man was moving closer to them, swaying, barely staying upright and now holding to a chair back. He had his eyes on Dupree, apparently with some intent, though he didn’t get within ten yards before he toppled forward, caught himself, then fell backward. The Irishman came out from behind the bar in a shot. Rather than drag him out to the street he heaved him off in the opposite direction.

“What’s back there?” Cinq-Mars asked.

Dupree smiled, then laughed at his own joke before he told it. “Triage, a recovery room, emergency. Whatever you want to call it. A patch of concrete next to the garbage cans. A place to puke, piss your pants. When the guy wakes up, he’ll be no worse for wear. Probably he’ll be left alone back there. Trouble-free for a night. No bust. Tomorrow evening, in the warm air, he’ll find his way through the front door again. All in the name of peace and quiet, Émile.”

“Dupree,” Cinq-Mars said.

“Yes, Émile?”

“A man was following me—me and Sandra—outside tonight. A black man, brown-skinned with pale pigment patches on his cheeks. A good-sized middle- aged man who just naturally kept his eyes down. Was he one of yours?”

“You’re figuring him for a cop? Not one of the bad guys coming out of the woodwork to check on you?”

“I figure him for one of yours. You had motive.”

“Well, okay. Tell me about this patch on his skin. Looks like a continent? Darkest Africa with a splash of sunlight, let’s say, with some islands lying off the coast to the south, down his neck some?”

“More or less. So he’s yours?”

Dupree shook his head slowly. No smiles this time.

“A dick-for-hire. Ex-cop. But you were with your wife, so I don’t know who’d hire him to tail you. Do you?”

“No clue,” Cinq-Mars admitted. “That’s all I’ve got no matter which way I look. No clue.”

Dupree ran a hand under his chin and across his neck to dispatch the perspiration there.

“One more thing,” Cinq-Mars broached.

“Go ahead.”

“The two guys who tried picking my pocket and Sandra’s purse. I find it very strange that they also broke into my room. So I’m wondering, do they ring any bells?”

Dupree nodded, to confirm that the question was a good one for this hour. “I know the pushers and pimps, the loan sharks and kneecap specialists, the backstreet hustlers, the dips and stalls, the gamblers and lenders. They all faithfully adhere to my parish, Émile. Others, too. So it’s a strange tale you’re telling me. They sound new, and since they sound pro, that makes them sound out-of-town. Maybe you brought them down with you? But you say they were of the Spanish persuasion, so maybe not. I’ll check into them, but I’m saying at this point that they interest me for the same reasons they interest y’all and one more—their action and their description comes across as foreign to my town.”

At first he declined, but under Dupree’s steady heckling Cinq-Mars agreed to have another, and the two men talked about the weather in their respective centers, one stunned by the heat and humidity, the other by the cold. Then they discussed police pension funds before Cinq-Mars announced that he was packing it in.

He insisted on picking up the bill. Dupree agreed only after he was assured that all his expenses that week would be passed along to the FBI. After that, their goodbyes were cordial and brief, and they set a time to meet up the next day.

The walk home informed Émile Cinq-Mars that he had probably had more to drink over the full course of the evening and night, first with Sandra, then with Detective Dupree, than he had intended, or had consumed for quite some time. He was walking straight enough but repeatedly lost his concentration, and once, captivated by the coloring of a series of old buildings, his direction. Tipsy, but upright, he knew that he’d feel rough come morning.

Scudding clouds cleared out, unveiling a few faint stars whenever he hit upon a dim stretch. They would never be so brilliant here as they appeared from the darkness of his farm, yet they bequeathed a sense of companionship this far south in this other land. Constant travelers. All part of his inebriated bloodstream, he surmised. Nonetheless, he welcomed their relative vicinity.

He was heading straight for the elevators when he arrived back at the Hilton, bypassing the front desk, and almost punched a button to take him up when he realized that he could not do that. He didn’t know where to go. He returned to the front desk, explained his predicament, and soon exchanged his old keycard for a new one, this one passed to him in a sealed envelope.

“Which floor?” he asked.

“That information is in the envelope, sir. It’s not in our system.”

Security had intensified.

The eleventh floor this time. The elevator seemed swift, silent, and steady, yet Cinq-Mars detected himself wobbling. Excess Scotch usually spared him the morning headache, but he was less confident that the harsh bourbon would treat him as kindly. The cabin eased to the gentlest of stops and Émile exited.

He had to read the directions indicating which rooms were which way three times before he gathered that he must turn left. Left he turned, found his door, and skimmed the keycard through the gizmo. A green light blinked. In he entered.

Cinq-Mars undressed in the dark and performed his ablutions in the washroom with the door closed to protect his sleeping wife from the noise and light. Everything had been laid out as if he had never changed rooms. Blindly, he fished an undershirt from his bag and put it on to neutralize the air-conditioning, and a favorite pair of oversized Jockey’s served as his traveling pyjamas. He felt his way back through the dark and slipped in under the covers. His side of the bed was always the same, a stringent rule of his wife’s.

She didn’t stir, which pleased him.

Especially with so much drink in his system, he started out sleeping on his back, his head raised. As the liquids were processed, he could strike out upon his side, his preferred position. He attempted that position early, and yet he was in bed for as long as four minutes before he realized that he was alone.

He flicked on the light switch, anxious now, and confirmed that he was in the room by himself. Perhaps she stepped out for air? Went hunting for ice? He poked his head out to the corridor. She was certainly nowhere in view. Coming back into the room he saw a blood splotch on the wall and the door jamb and felt his heart smash through his ribcage. He ran to his pants and almost ripped the pockets open to get at his wallet. He snatched up Dupree’s card and called the man’s cell on the hotel phone.

The New Orleans detective answered. “Hello?”

“My wife,” Cinq-Mars barked. He gasped as the reality caught up to him. “Dupree. She’s been abducted.”