Page 107 of The Fourth Option
Stanton nodded.
“We have someone on the inside, so high even I don’t know their identity.”
“A CI in the cartel?” Stanton asked, using the acronym for “confidential informant.”
“I don’t know, but I have my suspicions. My point is, I can file a query through HQ. With moms, kids, and cops dying in New Orleans, they just might tap him for information. We would at least know if what is happening here has a Mexican cartel connection. No promises but I can give it a shot.”
“Thanks, buddy.”
“Can I keep this?” Mendez asked, holding up the cyclops sketch.
“Yeah.”
“And Jarrett, be careful. I know I don’t need to tell you this, but these people don’t fuck around.”
Stanton stood and dropped three twenties on the table.
“Get that second burger and do me a favor; you hear anything about that van, give me a call.”
“Because you want to talk to your man before NOPD?”
“I have a feeling that if NOPD finds him first, we’ll never get the chance.”
Stanton buttoned his jacket and stepped back into the rain, his mind cycling through data as the jazz band continued to play, their notes rising above the gurgling gutters and the applause of tourists.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
FIFTEEN MILES AWAYas the crow flies, twenty-two by riverboat, Detective Howard Gormley felt the vibration of his burner phone against his hip. He shifted on the slick aluminum bench of the airboat, rain pelting his poncho like buckshot, the wind clawing at his soaked gray hair. The flat-bottom boat was propelled through the night by a large, caged propeller at the stern that looked like it belonged on a vintage aircraft, allowing the boat to navigate the shallow marshes and swamps of the bayou. The Hamilton Standard propeller screamed like a B-17 over Berlin.
Otis Dupuis sat behind Gormley on the elevated helm, in waterproof Helly Hansen rain gear and Xtratuf fishing boots.
Gormley’s rubber muck boots rested on the backs of two corpses. One was shirtless, muscles still taut in death. The other was a wiry man in a Pelicans T-shirt and sagging gym shorts, his face blue, tongue swollen, eyes bulging. Gormley pulled the phone from his poncho pocket.
“Kill it!” he barked over the roar of the Lycoming O-540 engine behind him, slicing the air with his hand.
Officer Dupuis eased off the foot throttle and flipped the kill switch. The propeller spun down with a metallic whine. The rudders behind it shifted as the airboat coasted into a slow drift across the marsh, gliding over sawgrass and shallow water, the sound of the engine replaced by the hiss of rain and the distant croak of bullfrogs.
Gormley pressed the phone to his ear. “Okay. I can hear you now. What’s up?”
“Jesus, Hound,”came Bates’s voice.“You sound like you just drove through a hurricane.”
“Feels that way.”
Gormley could picture Bates sitting dry in his corner office on Royal Street, probably sipping chicory coffee while the Quarter buzzed outsidehis window. Meanwhile, he and Dupuis were out here on an airboat, doing the wet work.
“How’s the boat?”Bates asked.
“Solid. This rig is a beast. Got a six-cylinder Lycoming, fast as fuck.”
They had launched out of Jean Lafitte and taken the long way through the Barataria. They were looking for a suitable location to dispose of their cargo.
“I had to listen to Army boy go on and on about his weapons collection,” Gormley said, looking back at the younger man.
Dupuis laughed as he scanned the waters ahead.
“Listen,”Bates said.“You sure there were no witnesses at that house in the Ninth where Rayne and Hendrick bought it?”
“Took us fifteen minutes to get there, so I can’t be one hundred percent, but I don’t think so.”
