Chapter Twenty-Three
New Orleans
Present Day
WALKER PULLED INTO the run-down service station and pre-paid for gas in cash through a sliding drawer to a man with hollow eyes sequestered behind thick glass. He then began fueling his faded blue van and took Paladin to a nearby patch of weeds so both man and beast could stretch their legs.
Parts of the Ninth Ward had clawed their way back from the brink, pockets of resilience scattered among the wreckage.
Here and there, clusters of retail shops stood like outposts, their windows scrubbed clean, their signage defiant.
Some homeowners had fought to reclaim their blocks, painting trim, planting flowers, polishing their porches like armor against the decay.
The ward wasn’t rotten to the core. In fact, its core was the part still holding on. It was the fringes, the outer edges, where the rot had taken hold. That’s where the streets turned quiet in the wrong way, where the houses jutted like broken teeth, and where the criminals dominated the night.
Walker was surprised at how inexpensive the fuel was in this part of the country. New Orleans was home to a number of petroleum-related businesses along the Mississippi Delta, which must have helped reduce cost of fuel.
The gas pump clicked off with a thunk while Paladin sniffed around a patch of weeds near the curb, tail twitching, ears perked. Walker wandered over to the dog and stood with his hands in his pockets, feeling the sun on his face.
He turned to the sound of a green seventies-era BMW 2002, patched with Bondo and coughing smoke, that had lurched into reverse and backed up in front of the van.
Walker’s spine stiffened. There were other pumps open, so it was odd that this driver had chosen the one directly in front of his.
His hand instinctively went to the Glock beneath his shirt.
The car looked familiar. He had noticed a similar vehicle when he exited the Federal Building.
The instinct faded when the driver’s door cracked open and a girl stepped out.
She was young and wiry, a pale waif with thick mascara-framed eyes.
Her dark jeans were torn at the knees and tucked into black Doc Martens.
A crucifix tattoo, medieval and jagged, clung to the side of her neck.
She looked like she weighed ninety pounds soaking wet.
She put the nozzle into her car, punched the buttons, and, while waiting for the tank to fill, ambled to Walker’s van. She must have assumed he was inside, paying the bill, because she kept to the driver’s side and peered through the windows, standing on tiptoe.
Walker calmly approached out of the dead space. “Can I help you?” he asked, careful to keep his voice neutral.
“Oh,” she said, turning. “Sorry, I…”
“You like old cars?” he asked, looking at her vintage Beamer.
Her pale face flushed.
“Sorry. Yeah, I was just checking it out,” she said, backing toward her car.
Walker wasn’t buying it. The way she had pulled in and immediately checked his van suggested that was her intent. He wondered if she might be related to the guys who had tried to rob him at his campsite on the swamp.
She removed the nozzle and hung it back on the pump.
Walker moved to his van’s driver’s-side door and opened it for Paladin.
“Dein Platz,” he said. The dog jumped into the van and across to the passenger seat, staying upright and watching through the front windshield.
“Platz? What the fuck language is that?”
“German.”
“Cute.”
“Blijf,” Walker said to Paladin.
“German?”
“That was Dutch.”
“A multilingual dog?”
“Kind of. The commands are more of a mash-up of Dutch, German, and a little English.”
“That’s weird.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know a couple guys who tried to break into this van the other night, would you?”
“What? No. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
She placed her hands on her hips, defiant.
“You know, I think I’ve seen your car before,” he said.
She studied him up and down, contemplating what to say next.
“What’s your interest in Connor?” she asked abruptly.
“Connor who?”
“Don’t give me that. I’ve seen you around.”
“Who says I have any?”
“I do. I saw you visit his grave. This van of yours was parked on Connor’s street. You were at his mom’s hospital and at the Federal Building. You a fucking cop? Undercover or something?”
Shit, I better up my game if I only caught her once.
“Cop? That’s a new one.”
“Like I said, what’s your interest in Connor?”
“Why are you following me?”
“Question with a question. Fine. It’s not like you’re hard to find,” she said, inclining her head at the van.
It was a fair point.
“I’m a family friend of the Staubs.”
“You knew Connor?” she asked, arms tightly crossed over her chest, fingers tapping against her elbow.
“I met him when he was young. I was tight with his father.” He stepped forward and offered his hand. “My name’s Chris Walker. That’s Paladin. He goes by Pal.”
She hesitated, then reached out and shook his hand.
“And I would guess you are Connor’s girlfriend.”
“I was Connor’s girlfriend,” she replied. “But we weren’t into labels.”
Walker noticed she hadn’t led with her name.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Yeah, well…”
“You hungry?” He gestured toward a greasy spoon diner across the street, its neon sign flickering like a dying star.
“You creeping on me?”
“No.” Walker held his hands up. “I’m here helping Connor’s mom tie up some loose ends. I owed her husband a favor.”
“A favor?”
“I’m really just here to help.”
“What does that have to do with buying me lunch?”
“Who said I was buying?”
The grill was a time capsule from a happier decade. Cracked vinyl booths, yellowed menus laminated with grease, and a jukebox in the corner flipping vinyl. The scent of stale beer and burnt fried chicken lingered in the air.
They slid into a booth in the back, while Paladin waited in the van. Walker had parked it so the dog could see into the diner.
“You live around here?” he asked.
“I thought you said you weren’t creepin’.”
“Isn’t that a normal question?”
“You don’t talk to girls much, do you?”
“I mostly talk to my dog.”
“I always attract the crazy ones.”
Walker shook his head. “Listen, I just want to find out a little more about Connor.”
“Yeah, well you could start by asking me my name.”
“Okay, what’s your name?”
“Mirabelle. Mirabelle Travois, but I go by Belle.”
“Nice to meet you, Belle. How’s that?”
“Better.”
A waitress who could have been anywhere from forty to seventy took their order and then disappeared into the kitchen.
“And do you live around here?” Walker tried again.
“No. I live east of the Quarter.”
“What do you do?”
“Day job? Tattoo artist. Shop’s a block off Bourbon. Drunk college kids and men having a midlife. You have any tats?”
“Are you implying I’m having a midlife?”
“If the shoe fits.”
He laughed.
“I do,” he said, tapping his ribs. “A little something from my Navy days.”
“You don’t look like a military guy.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“I was going to say you look homeless.”
Walker ran his hand through his greasy blond hair and beard.
“Yeah, I guess I could use a trim.”
“Are you and Leigh Ann involved?” she asked.
“You mean romantically?”
“Hey, I wasn’t accusing you of anything.”
“Well, the answer is no. Did you have a good relationship with her?”
They were interrupted as their burgers and soft drinks arrived.
“Hardly,” Belle continued when the waitress was out of earshot. “She thought I was a bad influence on her son.”
“Were you?”
“Guess so. Connor’s dead.”
Walker studied her with fresh eyes. She was hurting.
Her eyeliner was smudged, and her black nails were chipped. She sat with one leg tucked under the other. She picked at her burger, took a few bites, then pushed the fries around her plate.
“I saw the guitar in your van,” she offered, distant eyes gazing out toward the parking lot. “Nice vintage Martin.”
“You play?”
“I dabble, but not acoustic. Industrial punk.”
“Well, that’s a bit of common ground.”
She grunted and stuffed a ketchup-covered fry in her mouth.
“I go to LSU Extension. Got my bachelor’s in accounting. Working on my master’s in management information systems.”
“What’s that?”
“How old are you?”
“I’m not much of a computer type.”
“Well, it’s like the technical infrastructure of the business world.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“Doesn’t much matter. I ink people up to pay for school. Live with my grandmother to save money and help look after her.”
“How’d you meet Connor?” he asked.
“A show at the Dungeon.”
“Dungeon?”
“Punk venue. Connor was different. Smart. Angry, but in a good way. He had a kind of… coyote energy. He was a doer, wanted to fix things. Found out we both went to LSU.”
“Did Leigh Ann think you got him into drugs?”
She dropped a fry. “Fuck you, man. You think just because I look like this, I got a clean kid from the Garden District to OD?”
He had pushed too hard.
“If the shoe fits,” he said, echoing her words from moments earlier in a bad attempt at a joke. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. Most everyone, like you, correctly assumes I’m homeless.”
“Well, get a haircut and take a shower,” she said, settling back down.
“Maybe I will.”
“And for the record, I don’t do the hard stuff.
Connor lost a friend to some synthetic hard shit.
He hated the drugs that ripped this town apart.
That’s one of the reasons he was going into journalism.
He wanted to bring a light to it. He was different than other kids from the Garden District.
Guess I was attracted to the contrasts.”
Walker took a breath.
“Belle, I wonder if you can help me.”
“Help you with what?”
He reached into his bag and withdrew Connor’s journal, the leather cover worn and creased. He laid it on the table and opened it to the center. “You recognize any of this?”
She leaned in and froze for a moment when she saw Connor’s handwriting. “Let me see that.” She flipped through the pages. “So it exists.”
“You’ve never seen this before?”
“No, but I knew about it. Connor told me he wrote in code.”
“He did. He used some sort of a cipher, a key book that I don’t have,” Walker said.
“I know it had something to do with his dad’s old work.”
“Old work?”
“Military stuff.”
“That’s helpful.”
The waitress stopped by to check on them. Belle was still picking at her food. Walker asked for coffee.
“He was looking for Snowball,” she said.
“Do you know it?”
“Of it.”
“Leigh Ann thinks Connor was framed by the cops for digging into this. Would that make sense to you?”
“You’re kidding, right? In this town, cops and criminals work together. Connor wanted to blow the lid off something like that, make a difference.”
“How do you know?”
“Know what?”
“That he found a connection between law enforcement and this Snowball drug.”
“I was his girlfriend. We talked a lot, but when I asked too many questions about this story, particularly around cops and the drug trade, he would tell me the less I knew, the better, at least until his story broke.”
The waitress set down a coffee and the check and walked away.
“Another dead end,” Walker said to Belle as much as to himself.
“We’re in the Lower Ninth, Chris. New Orleans kids hit the Ninth to score pills. All those empty shacks after Katrina have turned into a drug mall.”
“I’m noting the police activity out there.”
She closed the journal and slid it back across the table. “You some kind of private detective or something?”
“More of an ‘or something.’ ”
“How did you say you knew Connor’s dad?”
“I didn’t.”
“Did you work together?”
“We did.”
“At the CIA?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Connor didn’t know much about what his dad did, but he knew it had something to do with the CIA. It was another reason he was so motivated to become an investigative journalist. I think he intended to investigate his father’s death one day, even talked about going to Afghanistan.”
Walker’s eyes fell to his coffee cup.
“Hey, what time is it?” she asked.
Walker turned up his left wrist. “I don’t know.”
“No watch?”
“Homeless, remember.”
“What’s your phone say?”
“I have a flip phone in the van.”
“What century do you live in?” she asked and dug into her pocket, pulling out an Android with a cracked screen.
“Didn’t realize it had gotten so late. I’ve got to get going,” she said, pulling the check to her. She flipped it over and wrote her phone number on the back of the receipt with the waitress’s pen. “Call me if you think I can help. Connor deserved better.”
“I will. And, he did.”
“Thank you for lunch.” She began to gather her things and then stopped. “What are you really doing here, Chris?”
He hesitated. “Like I said, I owe Connor’s dad a favor.”