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  Lafitte felt the road press against his back. Someone was stepping over him, straddling him, while someone else held his arms. Knees were coming down, pinning his arms beneath them, an ass on his chest. Eyes back to normal. It was Fawn.

  “Shit,” he said.

  She looked down at him with a wide evil grin, her crotch touching his neck, got his gag reflex going. He tried to buck her off, but he didn’t have it in him.

  Guy standing above Fawn was new. Bad customer, mullet, thick-lensed glasses. Would probably clean up into a nice Home Depot clerk if he was interested. But Lafitte knew his type. Not tough enough to make his own way in the meth trade. Plus that sparkly gold shit on his face, a huffer. Hopping around in Lafitte’s peripheral vision was the little Goof kid from the parking lot. Doing some rap star poses and talking like a gangsta. Lafitte would’ve preferred the Troopers to these stooges.

  “Thought you’d get away with it?” Fawn sounded like a third-string actress in a local play. “Oh no no no, you cocksucker.”

  “Wait, let me—”

  “Fuck you!” She ground closer, his windpipe restricting. Felt like his face was full of blood, about to explode. Hoovered in air and tried not to black out. Fawn relaxed and took the pressure down a notch, titled her head back, laughed deep and throaty. Lafitte just concentrated on breathing, readying himself for one big push.

  She said to the rough guy, “So, I get to have some fun first?”

  He shrugged. “You’re not going to fuck him, are you?”

  Hands on her hips. “What if I did?”

  “No fucking.”

  “Even if I let you in on it?”

  “Jesus, Fawn.” The guy shook his head.

  “I’m just messing with you, Perry. Hurry up and do this before he bucks me off. I can feel it building up.”

  Lafitte heard a rattle and then a hiss off to the side. Couldn’t see what it was. Almost ready to jump, but he had to do it right. This guy Perry didn’t look like he was carrying anything gunlike, but Lafitte couldn’t see both hands. Was he holding his left behind his back?

  Perry looked towards the hissing. “You ready to do it?”

  Goof’s voice. “Ah-ight, you know whut Ah’m sayin? Let’s KO this bitch.”

  Not good.

  Lafitte lifted his knees, pushed his back up, straining against Fawn. She lifted an arm like she was on a mechanical bull, rocked her hips.

  “Perry! We’ve got to hurry!”

  Perry dropped to his knees and held Lafitte’s head steady. Hands over his ears, seashell rushing all he heard. Fawn draped herself move heavily across Lafitte, scooting her ass down over his hips, her breasts hard against his chest. Shit. He thrashed his head, tried biting Perry’s fingers. Perry gripped tighter, scraped the back of Lafitte’s scalp against the asphalt.

  Through the rush, Lafitte heard Fawn shout, “Goof, for fuck’s sake, do it now!”

  A couple seconds later, Lafitte watched this kid’s face descend, hand outstretched holding a plastic bag. Goddamned thing smelled like…fumes. Spray paint. Made sense. Lafitte kept thrashing, feeling the burn on his scalp, probably tearing a massive gash back there. Goof held the lip of the bag over Lafitte’s nose and mouth. He tried to hold his breath. One Mississippi…Two Mississippi…

  “Fucker’s not breathing it.”

  Fawn said, “Oh, he will.”

  She rose up, released the pressure off Lafitte, then sat down hard on his chest. Knocked the wind out of him, inflated the bag. Oh fuck, now his lungs were begging, and his body was going to take over and there was nothing he could do about it but take a nice, big breath.

  The chemical odor made him want to puke. His lungs didn’t give a shit and kept sucking sweet, sweet, golden air. Made him woozy.

  “Is it working?” Goof’s face too close, his nose too big.

  “Get out of the way. Hang back a sec.”

  So tired already, the paint fumes didn’t help. Like a visit to the dentist. Enough to numb, not enough to take him out.

  Perry smiled. Bad teeth. One incisor longer and sharper than the others. Definitely not a dentist. “How you doing, Mr. Biker? Feeling good?”

  Lafitte started talking without thinking. Couldn’t understand what he said. Wait, did he say anything? Couldn’t even remember. Where was Ginny? She was here a minute ago.

  The bag descended again with a fresh blast of fumes. Stronger this time, but Lafitte didn’t react as violently. All was cool, so cool.

  Voices said things. Like a dream, he could make out words but not meaning. Stars above. Blurry people all around. Hard to keep his eyes open. Then a great weight was lifted from him and he was floating. Rising slowly, helped by invisible hands.

  Being led. Not in the right direction. Opened his eyes. Towards an old Mustang, tricked out. Smelled rancid inside. Someone pulling his hands behind his back. He could only feel it vaguely. Heard a ripping noise, felt something sticky on his wrists. Tape?

  Something pushing his head down, bending him towards the back of the Mustang. He reached a foot inside. Crunches, rattlings, cramped space. Like trying to fit a python into a coffee mug. Before he was in, sort of halfway, he heard, “Listen, one more thing.”

  Lafitte’s head shook. Numb, it was like a bell being struck. But it knocked him damn near back into dreamland.

  Where Ginny was waiting. She said, “Who’s Kristal?”

  EIGHTEEN

  Rome found Ginny in the hotel’s dining room, all the lights dimmed and candles out except the one at her table. Someone had spread a towel on the floor in front of her chair. She was hunched over, holding herself tightly. As Rome approached, he saw the blood-stained dinner napkins wrapped around both her wrists. Like the manager said, “You should see her bathroom.”

  Savannah was the only reason they found her. The couple across the hall called to say there was a hysterical child screaming for a good ten minutes straight. The manager went to check on the situation, knocked over and over, hearing Savannah wailing. He finally used his master cardkey and found Ginny in the shower, conscious but fading, with her forearms gashed. Bloody handprints on the sink, mirror, toilet, shower curtain.

  How had Rome missed it? Clear as day in her medicals, a hospitalization for “post partum depression”, but the doc must’ve known the family pretty well to have kept a suicide attempt off the public record. Shit. Rome had wanted her afraid, yeah, but not that afraid.

  He pulled out an empty chair and set it in front of her, very close. He sat down, reached for her arms, now draped in a thick hotel robe, gave them a rub from the shoulders down. Her hair was still damp. The manager had filled a glass with ice water for her, but it remained untouched on the table, sweating all over the linen.

  “Ginny? I’ve got some paramedics on the way. How are you doing?”

  She didn’t look up. Took her a while to say, “I don’t want to see him. I don’t want him to see the kids. It’s all my fault.”

  “Nothing’s your fault.”

  “Yes, it’s all on me. If I’d just stood by him back then instead of letting my parents talk me into the divorce.”

  “Hey, he was a bad guy. You did the right thing.”

  Ginny shook her head. “I can’t face him. He won’t understand. He won’t forgive me.”

  Rome sat back. He’d been stoking her because he thought she was afraid of Lafitte, but maybe that wasn’t it at all. She sounded ashamed.

  He said, “There’s nothing to forgive. Ginny, you’re the good one here. He didn’t deserve the second chance you gave him. Hell, probably didn’t deserve the first. I’m telling you I’ll get him in in handcuffs on his knees and make him apologize to you.”

  She looked up, eyes like a scared bunny.

  “We’ll make sure he doesn’t threaten you ever again.”

  “No, no, no! You don’t get it.” She shot up from the chair. Rome reached for her but she slipped out of his range and began circling the next table, hand trailing along the tablecloth. “He lost his jo
b and I took away his kids. If I had stayed, he wouldn’t have turned bad. I know he wouldn’t. I took away his reason to live. That’s why I called Graham. See? That was supposed to be his way back.”

  Rome said, “He killed Graham. Betrayed him.”

  Ginny giggled a little but her words were forceful. “I don’t believe it, and I never will. That’s what you’ve been saying from day one, and every time you say it, you sound like you’re trying to convince yourself. You sound like an atheist on his deathbed.”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

  She crept back in front of Rome and bent over at the waist, eye to eye. “Tell me again. Don’t blink. Look at me.”

  “Ginny, please sit—”

  “Look at me.”

  He did. Her face was pale, childlike, but lined with stress. Breath was like she’d had too much spearmint gum. Every pore shivering. Rome believed Lafitte was stone fucking guilty. Lack of evidence, solid alibis, and the confessions of the Detroit cell members they’d caught, none of it shook Rome’s faith. Told himself, Lafitte’s a slick talker, a quick thinker. He’s built himself an escape hatch. Maybe that girlfriend of his, Drew, could’ve changed Rome’s mind, but she had to go and point a shotgun at him. What was he supposed to do? Let her shoot him? And since when did an innocent girl try to take on a whole ring of cops? Guilty, guilty, guilty.

  “Billy is a traitor and a murderer.” But he blinked. Goddamn it. Couldn’t hold it back for ten more seconds. Or even five.

  Ginny backed into her seat again. Slumped. “It’s all my fault. Let Billy go and take me instead.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  Ginny picked at the napkin on one wrist. “I don’t want to help you any more.”

  Some voices from the entryway, rustling. The ambulance had arrived. They came in fully packed, stretcher and everything. Rome stood, touched Ginny’s shoulder.

  “We’ll talk later. Let these men help you.”

  She didn’t respond.

  Rome stepped out of the way as the EMTs started their cooing and sweet talk. The manager stood at the door, and Rome walked over to him.

  “Where’s her daughter?”

  The manager said, “The head of housekeeping has her in the office.”

  Rome looked back at Ginny and the EMTs as they untied the make-do napkins to check her wounds. “I’ll be back. If they want to move her, come find me.”

  The manager nodded. Rome headed out into the lobby. Very quiet, all of the noise from the Quarter oddly muted inside the hotel doors. The light had an old-fashioned quality, low and amber, an easy way to give that feeling of stepping into the past, even though out on the street all the neon and thumping bass made it obvious what century this really was. Rome thought about calling McKeown, seeing if he could dig up some more dirt on Ginny. He was not going to let her bring them so far and then cut the line like that. Hands on his hips. Pacing. Staring at the floor. Shit. Something about his way of handling things, he supposed. Could’ve been a softer touch. If Rome had known she felt this guilty, he would probably have built her up all this time instead of trying to wear her down.

  Goddamn. In his head first, but then he said aloud, “God-damn.”

  “Shhhh!”

  Rome searched out the noise, over his shoulder. Coming from the office behind the front desk.

  “Excuse me?”

  An older black woman’s head peeked out from the office. Very short-haired, narrowed eyes looking over the top of big-framed glasses. “Watch your mouth, please. There’s a child in here.”

  Rome walked over to the office. The lady’s head disappeared. Very bright light spilt from the office, ruining the illusion. He stepped behind the front desk and over to the office door, leaned on the frame. He guessed this woman was the head of housekeeping. Reminded him of his aunts on his Dad’s side—tough exterior but generous to a fault beneath it all. She sat in the manager’s desk chair, rocking back and forth as Savannah played with a couple of dolls nearby on the floor, making up voices for both of them. The woman’s nametag: Margherita.

  “Beautiful name,” Rome said.

  She looked up. “My mother loved Italian stuff. But for a long time she thought you pronounced the “H” hard. Called me “Harry” all the time.” A smile. “She figured it out about the time I was twelve. Too bad she never made it to Italy.”

  “What about you? Did it rub off?”

  She shook her head, screwed up her mouth. “All that cheese makes my stomach hurt. Who are you, anyway?”

  As soon as Rome had spoken, Savannah had stopped playing and crawled over to Margherita, hiding behind her leg. She watched Rome with one eye.

  Rome said, “I’m with the FBI. Savannah’s mom was a witness I was trying to keep safe. I need to ask baby girl here a few questions.”

  Margherita moved her hand to Savannah’s head, stroked her hair. “Can’t make her answer, but you can try, I guess. Think before you ask, understand?”

  “I’ve done this before.”

  She shrugged. “All right. Guess I was just saying, that’s all.”

  Woman would make a fine social worker, Rome thought. One question over the line, and she would shut him down, absolutely. Tread lightly, then. He knelt down, his knees cracking. He smiled at Savannah, still hiding, gripping Margherita’s leg tighter.

  “You remember me, sweetie, don’t you?”

  Savannah nodded.

  “Can you tell me who I am?”

  She shook her head.

  Margherita patted Savannah’s head. “You can talk to the man. It’s okay, baby.”

  Savannah mumbled into her protector’s leg, but Rome still made it out: “You’re the man who makes Mommy cry.”

  The woman turned her face to Rome, narrowed her eyes. “Mm hm.”

  “I’ve been trying to help your mommy, sweetie. Did she tell you about Daddy?”

  Another nod.

  “What did she say?”

  “Said Daddy is mad at her. I want to see Daddy.”

  “Your daddy’s not here.”

  “Mommy said Daddy misses me but can’t see us because she did a bad thing.”

  “Aw, sweetie, no. Your mommy didn’t do anything. It was your daddy—” He caught himself. Thought, You can’t tell a kid her dad’s a nasty guy. He was surprised at how easy it had started out of his mouth, even.

  Margherita said, “Mr. FBI means that Daddy had to go far away for now. You know how you’re far away from home right now?”

  The girl nodded. She had buried her face fully into Margherita’s leg now. Rome was afraid she would start to cry. She mumbled into the leg again.

  “What was that, sweetie?”

  She lifted her face just enough to say, “Is Mommy still bleeding?”

  “No, Mommy’s just fine. You can see her real soon, okay?”

  Rome rose to his feet again and said to Margherita, “Thank you.” He stepped out of the office, back into the lobby. A couple stood at the desk. Tourists, early-thirties, white. The man wore a visor, a joke T-shirt making fun of the mayor. His wife, overtanned, in a stretchy tank-top, skirt, and flip-flops.

  The man said, “Excuse me, we’ve been standing here for, like, five minutes now.”

  Rome stopped. “So?”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “So, five minutes. Is that really a long time?”

  The man did a slow-burn staredown. “I don’t think that was necessary. Can I speak to your manager?”

  Rome pulled his ID and flashed it. “Sorry about that. FBI. It’s been a long night, and I didn’t mean to take it out on you guys. Maybe you’d like to find another hotel tonight?”

  The man blinked a lot. His wife gripped his arm tighter. He stumbled, finally got out, “Gee, wow, I didn’t know. What’s going on?”

  That was when the EMTs wheeled Ginny’s stretcher out into the lobby. The manager was going on and on as they ignored him, rolled her right outside.

  Rome said, “Excuse me.” He met the
manager halfway.

  “They say she has to go now. She’s been taking pills, I think, and they say it’s urgent.”

  Rome crossed his arms, uncrossed them, covered his mouth with his palm.

  “I couldn’t make them wait, not even one minute, to come get you. They said you can meet them at the hospital.”

  Rome sighed. “Okay, you did okay. Handle your guests here. Can you sacrifice Margherita for the rest of the night?”

  The manager nodded, and Rome sent him to get her and Savannah. He watched as the ambulance lights flared and then moved off quickly. It wasn’t even a matter of moving on to Plan B any more. He was shaken to the bone.

  Using the woman to lure Lafitte onto Rome’s playing field, wow, that just struck him all the sudden as really fucking cowardly. Or how about putting together a covert team in order to help get some revenge on one guy? Some people abused their power by simply using the company jet for golf trips, but Rome wrote himself into an opera.

  He took out his phone, dialed one of his local team members, sounded like he woke her up.

  “We need a couple of people at the hospital to guard Mrs. Lafitte. I’m going to take her daughter up there, then call her parents, but let’s get someone there to make sure no one can get to her.”

  It took a moment for the answer to come back, raw throated. “Which hospital?”

  Rome gave her the details, told her to keep it quiet. “If someone asks, you say she came to me with info. I did not go to her, understand? We were conducting a private inquiry out of respect.”

  “Sir?”

  “Oh, come on, that’s reasonable, isn’t it? She just tried to kill herself, like, again. Our new priority right now is to get her healthy and happy.”

  “Fine, sure.”

  “Meet me there. You’ve got a half hour.”

  Rome hung up, turned to see that Margherita and Savannah were waiting for him, the child limp on the housekeeper’s shoulder. Yes, he would take them to the hospital. And then he would call Mrs. Hoeck and explain. And then he would…yeah, that was the hard part. Instead of letting Lafitte cruise on down here at the boiling point, Rome would have to meet him on the road, somewhere the fucker wouldn’t expect him. As soon as the FBI suits McKeown had out there on watch got Lafitte located, Rome would call off the dogs and do the rest of this on his own. But first, Ginny.