Chapter Three
Three hours later, Rick was trying on one of the black logo T-shirts he’d been issued at Beauregard’s. It was at least two sizes too small. Earl, the middle-aged manager of the bar and restaurant, had told him that was the right size. “Boss wants those who got it to show it off.”
The other thing Earl told Rick was that he was on the edge of being too old. “Work on your hair,” he’d advised him. Rick had almost laughed, but Earl’s serious expression made him think twice.
He ran a finger under the short tight sleeve and wondered if it was going to cut off his circulation before the night was over. He tucked the shirttail into his new black jeans. At least they fit. He pushed his fingers through his hair. For himself, he’d leave it that way. It was long enough so he didn’t look like a skinhead, but short enough to stay out of his eyes.
He pulled the copy of a men’s magazine and a can of hair stuff for men from a bag of drug store items he’d picked up. Following the directions on the can, he sprayed a little on his hair. Spray the hair lightly, then finger-comb, the directions said. Rolling his eyes, he pushed his fingers through it again and squinted at the result. Wet, furrowed and a little spiky. Ridiculous, in his opinion.
He glanced at the magazine cover. A pouty male model, who couldn’t have been a day over eighteen, was posing shirtless with his hand tucked into the waistband of his very very low-slung jeans. Rick’s hair looked a little like his.
Rick turned sideways, then looked at the mirror and pursed his lips. Close. In fact, not too bad for the ripe old age of twenty-seven. He felt heat rising up the back of his neck to his ears. He wiped the pout off his face with a scowl. He didn’t like tight clothes, specifically not T-shirts that strained over his biceps and fit snugly over his torso.
Truthfully, he’d almost rather be shot than have to work as a bartender in a place like Beauregard’s. But he’d do what he had to do for a chance to get closer to whoever was putting the laced heroin on the street, because when he found that person, he’d have the man who murdered his brother. He didn’t know what his next step would be, but he knew that whatever he decided, nobody would stop him.
He retrieved a few twenties from his duffel bag and stuffed them into an old wallet he’d picked up in a thrift store. He’d learned from a veteran cop never to use his own wallet. It didn’t take long for the leather to take on the unmistakable shape of the badge. It would give him away in a heartbeat.
Before pocketing the wallet, Rick glanced at the fake driver’s license he’d been given. Richard Easton, Chicago, Illinois. As he slid the wallet into the back pocket of his pants, there was a brisk knock on his door.
“Not you again, Sin Stone,” he muttered. He thought about not answering it, but the knock came again, louder. That didn’t sound like her. Hmph. What does a tired, desperate cocktail waitress’s knock sound like?
He opened the door and rolled his eyes when he saw Montoya there. “I thought you were gone.”
Montoya nodded past him, so he let him in rather than taking a chance they’d be overheard. Slamming the door, he turned, straightening to his full height of six feet, prepared to let Montoya know that he didn’t want to talk to him.
Then he saw what the other man was holding. All the starch went out of him. “What are you doing with that?” he growled.
Montoya didn’t say a word. He just held out the worn leather jacket.
Rick reached for it, but his hand froze. He couldn’t make himself touch the soft, scarred leather. He stared at Montoya, hating the thread that bound them both to the jacket and its owner. “He kept it,” he whispered. It wasn’t a surprise.
Montoya smiled sadly. “Of course he did.”
Of course. His brother had never cast things away casually. Not clothes and not loyalty. It hadn’t been Johnny who’d refused to be a family, it had been Rick.
“He never wore it,” Montoya said, his voice harsh with emotion.
Rick swallowed. His brain filled in the words Montoya didn’t say. He never wore it after he left. After you refused to accept either of his two gifts to you—his jacket or his exit from your life.
Rick shook his head, working hard to stop the stinging behind his eyes.
“It’s yours,” Montoya said.
“I don’t want it,” Rick responded, his voice tight and harsh.
He heard Montoya move, heard the quiet swish of leather against leather, then listened as Montoya walked over to the door.
“I could help you. I could give you information about Beauregard’s,” he said. “About the bar, the back rooms, Beau.”
Rick still didn’t say anything.
“Okay, then. Well, my phone number’s on a piece of paper in the pocket.”
Rick heard the latch turn on the door. He clenched his jaw, but the two words came out anyway. “Why you?” he asked.
Montoya turned. “Why me what?”
Rick took a long breath and shook his head as if to clear it. “Why are you my CI? Does Lieutenant Larsen know about Johnny?”
“About Johnny and me? Sure.”
“About Johnny and me.”
Montoya’s jaw tensed and he lifted his head. “Don’t worry, Richard. All this time, Johnny kept your awful little secret. Wouldn’t want anyone to know that you had a brother who was a fag, would we?”
“That’s not what I meant. I don’t—”
“I know what you meant. You pushed for this case, didn’t you? You want to find out who killed your brother, but if your bosses knew you were related to one of the victims of the Bad Dope Murders, you’d be assigned to crossing guard duty in Lake Providence at the northern tip of Louisiana, as far away from here as they could get you.”
“He was my brother,” Rick growled.
“Whom you hadn’t seen since you were eleven years old. That’s sixteen years.”
“That’s right. I was eleven. I didn’t understand why he had to leave. Now I do.” Rick did his best to ignore the hollow ache in his chest. “You still haven’t told me how you got assigned to this case, or why.”
Montoya chuckled wryly. “Larsen thought I’d be an asset. I’ve done work for Beau for years, since I was a kid. I haven’t been working as a CI as long, but it’s been long enough that Larsen trusts me. I’m valuable now because Larsen knows how much I want to find out who poisoned that heroin and who murdered Johnny with it. Also, I’m hardly one of the blue brotherhood. I’m replaceable.”
“Replaceable?”
“If something happens to me, they just send in another CI. Not that they have another one who’s got an in with Beau.” Montoya waved his hand.
It surprised Rick how cavalier Montoya was about the chance he could be killed working this case. But then again, maybe it wasn’t that much of a surprise. When Rick had first found out Johnny had been killed, he’d felt like dying.
“How—how was he?” he asked haltingly.
The sardonic twist to Montoya’s lips faded into a sad and gentle smile. “Johnny was good. Happy. He was doing what he’d always wanted to do. He was a child-advocate attorney, and he did pro bono work for people in and around the Quarter.”
Rick nodded. He’d kept up with Johnny’s career. Montoya paused, then said, “And he always kept up with you.”
“I know,” Rick said tightly. He did know. Johnny had sent him notes in the mail. Little sticky notes or scraps of paper, always in his neat printing, always signed with a looping J. Happy Birthday, Kid. Congrats on making detective. Heard about your commendation. Good job, Kid. I’m proud of you. That was his brother. That was Johnny.
Johnny’s full name was John Kevin Adams. Ever since he’d passed the Bar he’d called himself Jack Adams. He’d left his childhood name behind. “You call him Johnny,” he said to Montoya.
Montoya’s smile widened. “That was who he was, to me.”
The two of them stood there for a moment, each lost in his own memories of the man they had both loved, then Rick cleared his throat. “You said you had some information for me about Beauregard’s?”
“Right.” Montoya straightened, taking Rick’s cue that it was time to get back to business. “You got the job, I see.” He looked pointedly at the Beauregard’s T-shirt.
“Yeah,” Rick said, running his hands down the front of the tight shirt. “I was a little surprised. The guy didn’t seem to be happy with anything about me—my age, my looks, my clothes—nothing, but he hired me anyway.”
Montoya nodded. “That was my job, to make sure you got hired. Earl’s a pushover. You just have to catch him at the right time. I mentioned to him that his job would be a lot easier if he had a bartender who could handle the customers and the other employees. Told him I’d met you and that you’d been a bartender up north—Chicago.”
Rick eyed Montoya. Maybe he could be an asset.
“Don’t blow it, Richard. Try not to let how you feel about me affect your job. We both want the same thing. I think together we can make Johnny’s death count for something.”
After Montoya left, Rick stood for a moment, looking at the leather jacket. Montoya had hung it on the rickety coat rack in the corner. He walked toward it, feeling as though he were trying to walk under water. He forced his fingers to touch the sleeve. The worn leather was as soft as he remembered it. Soft and supple as kid. The last time he’d seen the jacket was the last time he’d seen his brother.
You think I like dodging Dad’s fist every time he looks at me? Think I like being called disgusting names and ridiculed and knocked around at school? Ask any guy if he’d choose to be gay.
That’s a stupid word, Rick had responded. Why don’t you just say queer or fag? That’s whatcha are ain’t it?
Rick grimaced when he remembered what he’d said. At eleven years old, he hadn’t been mature enough to comprehend what Johnny was trying to tell him. He’d spent a long time stubbornly refusing to understand. Eventually, he’d realized how awful it must have been for Johnny, living with a stepfather who hated him and what he was. They shared their mother, but Rick’s dad was not Johnny’s dad.
Although Rick now understood why Johnny had left, his hurt at his brother’s abandonment was still there, too deep to excavate. Rick had wanted so badly to see him, to talk to him. He had no idea why he’d said no. Now it was too late.
“Damn it, Johnny,” he muttered. “What the hell? What are you doing to me?” A knot formed in his throat. Johnny must have told Montoya all about the day he’d left, as well as Rick’s refusal to accept the jacket, although Johnny and Rick, and now Montoya, knew exactly how much Rick had wanted it back then. He’d wanted it more than anything, except for Johnny to stay. But Johnny couldn’t stay and endure his stepdad’s abuse. Rick had thought it was about selfishness. Now he knew it had been about survival.
“Montoya, you son of a bitch. You knew exactly what you were doing, didn’t you?” Of all the things that had belonged to his brother, the jacket was the one thing he couldn’t refuse. Through the jacket, Johnny was sending him a message. Find my murderer before he kills again. Find him, put him away and then move on.
Rick took the jacket off the rack and pressed his face into the soft leather. It smelled like tannin, like sweat and cigarette smoke—like his brother. He clenched his teeth. There was no time for sentimentality. He pinched the corners of his eyes where dampness had gathered, and checked his watch. If he didn’t hurry, he’d be late for his first night at Beauregard’s. He hung the jacket up and started to turn away, then remembered that Montoya had said he’d put his phone number in the pocket.
In the right-hand pocket, he found a folded slip of paper with Montoya’s phone number on it, and entered it into his phone. He stuck the paper back into the pocket and hung the jacket back on the rack. As he locked the apartment door behind him, he forced another lock closed, the one that locked away memories of his brother. He needed all his wits about him to be sure he was accepted as a bartender at Beauregard’s and wasn’t made as a cop. He’d learned the habits and tells that criminals can spot so easily in career police officers. He’d earned the title of The Man of a Thousand Faces at the Eighth Precinct, not because he could change his face, but because he could change his demeanor enough that it seemed to affect his appearance.
He’d spent time preparing to become a bartender. Not acting like a bartender—becoming one. Larsen had given him a driver’s license for Richard Easton from Chicago. Rick had invented a persona to go along with the ID. He was a drifter and a troublemaker. He’d tried to settle down in Chicago, but he’d gotten in trouble and so he’d headed down south, back to New Orleans, where his parents had lived when he was small, to try and start over one more time.
It had been obvious that Earl, the manager of the restaurant and bar, hadn’t liked him. Lucky for Rick he knew all too well how to be a troublemaker, and Earl had picked up on that. But Montoya had obviously done his job well. From what Rick could see, at least seventy percent of the wait staff in Beauregard’s were under twenty-one. Most of them looked wasted or hung over. All of them looked hungry.
Rick had never tended bar before, but he’d downloaded and studied a mixology app. That should be all he’d need to make just about any drink that was ordered. Would Richard Easton, bartender and troublemaker, be accepted at Beauregard’s? Tonight would tell the tale.
*
Lusinda had decided on her first day of work at Beauregard’s Restaurant and Bar, on the far edge of the French Quarter, that she didn’t like the place. It seemed upscale, but Deputy Chief O’Reilly had told her that the back rooms held sleazy secrets, including quite a few very important and well-known people who were frequent visitors. As she prepared to go to work, she adopted a smirk and a half-confident, half-hopeful swagger that characterized Sin Stone, cocktail waitress. She grabbed her apron and her dupe pad from her locker, set her handbag inside and locked it. After washing her hands, she clocked in and headed into the restaurant.
Before she’d been detailed to New Orleans for this job, she’d had less than a dozen hours working undercover and all of them had been under Vic’s tutelage. Now she had six days under her belt at Beauregard’s, and while she’d been accepted by the staff in the semi-suspicious way that the new kid was always treated, she still started each shift in a near panic, afraid she would do something that would telegraph to the world—and to Rick—that she was a cop.
She surveyed the room, recognizing a group of obviously underage kids who showed up most nights cruising, waiting for an invitation into one of the secret, enticing back rooms, or, failing that, a hookup. They sat or stood at the bar, the guys trying to look relevant in their cuffed jeans and hiking boots, and the girls hoping in vain that their cut-rate knockoffs made them look rich and with-it rather than cheap and desperate.
Watching them made Lusinda sad. Although they giggled and flirted with any customer who might buy them a beer, when one of them happened to cross gazes with her, their eyes held a flat look that made her want to grab them and shake sense into them. Most were not even old enough to drink.
A large percentage of the kids probably wouldn’t be around for long. They lived on the edge, crashing with strangers or huddling in alleys. They’d follow anyone home who promised them a warm bed, drugs or food. And so they sank deeper and deeper into the quicksand underbelly of the city that care forgot—the Big Easy—New Orleans. Several of them had already fallen victim to the bad dope on the streets.
“Hey, Sin-city, let’s go,” Nina, one of the waitresses, called out as she picked up a huge tray laden with drinks and deftly moved among the tables in her platform heels, never spilling a drop.
“Relax, Nina, I’m here.” Lusinda signed in on the computer.
“Hey, Bobby,” she called out to the painfully shy boy who was stacking glasses on a shelf. “Could you put my bag under the counter? They’re groceries. I couldn’t make them fit into my locker.”
Bobby nodded without speaking.
“Thanks, hon,” she said, which made him blush as he went back to stacking glasses. The first day she’d met Bobby, Lusinda had asked Darla about him.
“Oh, honey,” Darla had cooed. “Of course he’s underage. But if you think about it, all he’s doing is handling glasses and boxes. He’s just working. He’s not drinking.” Darla’s tone told Lusinda that what Bobby did or didn’t do was not her problem.
As Lusinda finished signing in, she took a look at Rick, who was working the bar. His black hair was carelessly slicked back and a bored frown marred his face as he strained a strawberry margarita into a glass for a guy who seemed to have a few too many sweat glands. A woman in a sleeveless dress that emphasized the crepey flesh on her arms was waving a vapor cigarette and flirting with him as he swiped condensation off the bar.
Nina twirled her empty tray as she sidled up to Lusinda. “Hey, girl, check out the new guy.” She took Lusinda’s place at the computer and entered an order.
“Yep,” Lusinda said, trying to sound uninterested.
“What? You don’t go for the lean and hungry type?” Nina asked. “Good, ’cause I do. Look at those abs and the biceps—whoa.”
Lusinda felt heat climbing up from her neck to her face. She couldn’t tell Nina that she had not only seen the abs and biceps, she’d felt them, thanks to her overeager descent down the stairs that had resulted in her tripping and falling on him. She’d felt them and—more. Her mouth went dry and a shiver slid through her.
“Whassup?” Nina asked. “Are you getting sick?”
“No. Just got a lot on my mind. He really is a—a hunk.” She gave Nina a small smile, which earned her an odd look.
“Okay, whatever,” Nina said. “Hurry up. I’m swamped. You’ve got tables seventeen through thirty-two.”
“Half the house? You mean there’s only two of us?” Lusinda asked, but Nina’s attention was on Rick. He was filling her order and Nina had eyes for no one but him. The whole time he was mixing drinks, Nina leaned forward so her arms pushed the tops of her breasts together, and she whispered to him. He nodded and shrugged and, it seemed to Lusinda, finished the order as fast as he could.
As Lusinda headed to the table filled with the most impatient customers, she laughed to herself. With his face and body, and his attitude, Rick was doomed. Before another hour passed, he’d have people fawning over him as though he was the Pied Piper. She wondered if he knew how irresistible his bored, detached scowl and his dark, hooded eyes were.
Of course he did. As she took drink and dinner orders and served them, doing her best to dodge languid dancers and people milling about talking to each other, she reminded herself of who he was, why she was here and how much she was not fooled by his too-cool attitude.
People kept coming in and eventually, she and Nina were forced to squeeze in between customers to get to the computer to place their orders. Lusinda inserted herself between a rough man with sweat stains on his shirt and a boy with dreadlocks. The man ignored her. The boy leaned away, frowning. He had cheek tattoos and large ear gauges. She nudged his ribcage with her tray, a trick Nina had taught her. With a mumbled curse, he stepped backward.
“Thanks,” she called with false cheeriness as she set her tray down with a clatter and entered the drink order into the computer. Rick had barely acknowledged her all evening, but she’d been watching him. He moved with a confident ease that surprised her, considering that he was a cop, not a bartender. She noticed that he kept his phone on the counter behind him and consulted it often. He was looking up how to make the drinks.
“Rick,” she called out. He glanced up at her with the same small frown he’d had for her all evening, then looked back at the drink he was mixing. He stabbed a slice of lime and a cherry with a toothpick and slammed the drink down in front of a fat man, spilling another two drops onto the counter. He swiped at them with his cloth the same way she swiped at roaches with her broom.
“What do you need?” he said, stepping over to her. His expression when he dealt with Nina and his customers hovered between neutral and slightly bored, but it wasn’t bored now. The frown deepened. Someone called to him from the other end of the bar. He nodded in their direction, then turned back to her, brows raised.
“Can you hand me a can of juice from that bag?” She pointed to the shelf below the computer.
“What is all this?” he asked.
“Nothing you need to be concerned about.”
He fished in her grocery bag and pulled out a small can of orange juice. “Seriously?” he asked, making a face. “You drink this stuff? It sucks. Why didn’t you get fresh?”
“The cans are cheaper and less waste,” she muttered, reaching for it. He held it out of her reach, then dropped it back into the bag.
“At least you bought fresh eggs.” He grabbed a dispenser, flipped the switch with his thumb, then filled a glass with orange juice. Fresh, cold orange juice. He set it in front of her.
“I didn’t order that. Please give me the can.”
“You’re allowed non-alcoholic drinks during your shift. Didn’t anybody tell you that?” His dark gaze slid down her neck to her breasts and back up. “You look like you could use the calories.”
Her face burned at his scrutiny. She lifted her chin. “I don’t need the calories or the charity,” she said, trying for dignity, but her mouth was watering for the fresh, sweet juice.
He ignored her and pushed the glass toward her. “Want something in it?”
“What? No. I know we’re not supposed to drink on the job.” She bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to say it like that. On the job was off-duty cop code. To another officer, it meant I’m a police officer too. Had she just outed herself as an undercover cop?