Charlie Hustmyre - House of the Rising Sun

He put his Mustang in a pay lot on Poydras, just down from the federal building. The bag with the money and the Smith amp; Wesson were in the trunk. Like always, the meeting with his parole officer was short, less than half an hour.

“You still working, Raymond?”

“I go by Ray.”

“Well, Ray, are you still working?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any contact with the police since our last meeting?”

“No, sir.”

“Been associating with any known felons?”

“No, sir.”

After the meeting, in the lobby downstairs, Ray nodded to the guard as he passed through the security checkpoint. There was a covered breezeway between the federal office complex and the federal courthouse. The break area set up in the middle of the breezeway had a couple of cement benches, some concrete planters, and a decorative cigarette butt can half-filled with sand.

Ray stepped out of the office building and was cutting through the breezeway when he came face-to-face with Detective Carl Landry. Aside from Tony Zello, Landry was probably the last person on earth Ray wanted to see.

“What are you doing here?” Landry asked.

“It’s a public building,” Ray said. “I’m sightseeing.”

The cop smiled. “Yeah, I guess it is.” He jerked his thumb toward the courthouse. “I just booked a fugitive, wanted for two counts of bank robbery. He’s a scumbag thief, maybe you know him?”

“I got nothing to say to you, Carl.” Ray tried to shoulder past the detective, but Landry’s elbow bumped him in the solar plexus. Not very hard, nothing anyone would notice, but Ray wasn’t ready for it, and it knocked the wind out of him.

While Ray took a couple of deep breaths, Landry said, “You know how I caught him? The bank robber, I mean. A snitch gave him up for fifty bucks.”

“I’m happy for you.”

“Got me thinking…”

“Don’t hurt yourself.” Ray tried to walk away again, but the detective grabbed his arm.

“All that time you spent in prison,” Landry said, “did you ever wonder who it was who gave you up?”

“The feds used a wiretap.”

The detective nodded. “But who put them onto you? They had to have something to base the affidavit on.”

“Are you trying to make a point, or do you just like hearing yourself talk?”

“I heard you’ve been hanging around with your old running buddy.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“I heard you and Jimmy LaGrange kissed and made up.” Landry grinned. “Let me give you a tip. You want to have a covert meeting, don’t have it in the police garage.”

Ray shrugged and walked away.

This time the detective didn’t interfere, but when Ray was a good twenty feet away, Landry called out to him, “If you’re going to kill him, do it in my district. I want to work the case.”

Ray just kept walking.

“You’d be doing me a favor by getting rid of him,” Landry shouted.

This time Ray turned around. “You hate him that much?”

Landry nodded. “He’s a dirty cop and a snitch.”

A snitch.

“How’s it feel,” Landry yelled, “knowing your partner gave you up and sent you to prison?”

Ray shook his head, thinking, not Jimmy. He might be a stuffy little prick now, but back then, back in the day, he was solid. He broke his hand and was off for two months. That’s the only reason he didn’t get caught up in the FBI wiretap. Injury leave for two months. .. the time coinciding almost perfectly with the sixty-day wiretap. .. just a coincidence… but Ray didn’t believe…

He felt his guts twist so hard it staggered him.

Landry motioned him over and pointed to one of the cement benches. “Have a seat, Ray.”

Ray sat down and listened to the cop’s story. A whore had called PIB, claiming LaGrange beat her up in a motel on Tulane Avenue.

“She was beat up,” Landry said. “But that’s not why she called. Turns out Landry wouldn’t pay her. She said she didn’t mind giving him a couple of freebies not to hassle her, but after a while it got to be every day, and it was cutting into her work time.”

So she decided to set him up for PIB.

“We wired her room at the Rose Motel,” Landry said, “and got him on video fucking her, then threatening her when she asked him to pay for it.”

According to Landry, LaGrange had been eager to make a deal. He promised to give up the Vice Squad in exchange for his job and total immunity. Carl Landry Sr. was on the Vice Squad. Because of the conflict of interest, Landry Jr. called in the FBI. The U.S. Attorney inked a deal with LaGrange’s lawyer. Then LaGrange started talking. Based on what he said, the feds got a court-ordered wiretap. Sixty days was all it took, sixty days to wrap up everyone on the squad, everyone except Detective Jimmy LaGrange.

“And you let him stay on the job?” Ray said.

Landry shrugged. “That wasn’t my decision.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

The detective shrugged. “I just thought you should know.”

That wasn’t the reason. Landry wouldn’t piss on Ray’s head if his hair were on fire. Something else was driving the man. Ray thought about something Landry had said that night at the House. “Why did you leave PIB?”

Landry’s face tightened. “I wanted a change.”

Ray shook his head. “Tell me the real reason.”

The detective stared at Ray for several long seconds before he answered. “If your father is a crooked cop doing federal time, they don’t need you in PIB.”

Still not the whole story. Ray said, “It bother you that Jimmy LaGrange is still on the job?”

Landry looked down at his tie. He used both hands to tighten the knot, then smoothed it out with his fingertips. When he looked up at Ray, he had a death’s-head grin on his face. “It doesn’t bother me at all.” Then he stood and walked away, leaving Ray sitting alone on the bench.

Now Ray understood. Landry couldn’t stand the idea that Jimmy LaGrange was still a cop. By telling him that LaGrange had been the government’s snitch, Landry was turning up the heat, trying to bring things to a boil and hoping Ray would strike back at LaGrange. Ray knew the game, and he wasn’t going to play.

At least not by Landry’s rules.

Ray drove his Mustang east on Chef Menteur Highway. Past the strip bars, the Asian sex spas, the Vietnamese village, then out into the swamp where Chef Menteur lost its name and became just U.S. Highway 90. He drove all the way to Sawmill Pass, on the north side of Lake Catherine. Still inside the city limits of New Orleans but so different from the densely packed urban decay of the rest of the city that it might as well be on the dark side of the moon.

Out here there was nothing but rednecks with shotguns, pickup trucks, and shrimp boats. The year Ray had spent in the Seventh District, he had answered maybe three calls out here. These people took care of their own problems.

The only reason he knew where he was going was because on slow nights some of the cops would drive by the Messina camp. The older Seventh District hands were like teenagers, spinning tales to younger kids about a haunted house in the neighborhood. According to police legend, the secluded camp had been the site of at least a dozen mob murders and more than a few torture sessions. The walls were painted red to hide the bloodstains. Ray’s old sergeant said the swamp around Carlos’s place was a watery grave, hiding the bones of dozens of people who had crossed the Don, and that alligators nested there, waiting for their next meal. But Ray didn’t believe that stuff, at least not all of it.

After his accidental meeting with Carl Landry, Ray had gone back to his motel. For the next several hours he had thought about Jimmy LaGrange, about the whores on Tulane Avenue, about the Rose Motel, and about one teenage whore in particular, one he knew was dead. Thinking how the whole Vice Squad went to prison except for Jimmy LaGrange. Thinking about Jimmy the Rat.