The Chef Read online

  It also proves my hunch that David was lying to me. He was secretly funneling money to a shady Islamist extremist front after all. And no wonder I ended up dodging shotgun blasts when I tried to learn more.

  But damnit, I’m still short on details though I’m more sure than ever that David, Farzat, and el-Sharif’s group are all involved in the Mardi Gras attack in a major way.

  At least that’s what I think. Until…I start to have some doubts.

  And with thickening traffic up ahead, I slow the car, and my rapid thoughts ease as well.

  All right, then.

  If David really is bankrolling the group’s attack, why the hell would he let himself be seen at one of their charity events? He used multiple shell companies to hide his tracks. He lied to my face when I confronted him. But after all that, he posed for a group photo?

  That doesn’t make sense.

  The back of my head starts throbbing. All the stress from the past week—including the lack of sleep from last night’s stimulating activities—is finally getting to me.

  Coming to a stop at a traffic light, I shut my eyes and rub my temples. All I want to do is head home, take a hot shower, change my clothes. But with so many lives hanging in the balance, I feel guilty for even thinking about myself at all.

  And furious when I remember that black SUV waiting for me.

  What arrogance by the FBI to box out local law enforcement like this! Especially on a case this serious. It’s reckless. It’s foolish. It’s downright disgusting.

  I know Cunningham ordered me to lay low and steer clear of the NOPD while I was consulting on this one. Plausible deniability and all that. But screw it. There’s way too much on the line now. I’m done playing politics. I’m done playing nice.

  I take out my phone, intending to give my old chief a ring. I see I have a new text from Vanessa. Sent about twenty minutes ago. Which means that while el-Sharif was firing a gun at me, Cupid was shooting an arrow.

  LAST NIGHT WAS DELICIOUS, it says. DINNER WASN’T BAD EITHER ;) HAVE TIME 4 A PICNIC LUNCH IN JACKSON SQUARE? U BRING THE SANDWICHES, I’LL BRING…DESSERT.

  Reading her words makes my face flush. Her offer is wildly tempting. But as always, our timing is terrible. I hate to put off a second date after our first went so well. But after this is all over, she’ll understand. At least, I hope she will.

  I fire off a reply—pleading for a rain check—then dial Cunningham’s cell.

  He picks up on the third ring. “Rooney?” he growls.

  Great. I haven’t spoken a word and already he’s pissed at me.

  “I know what you’re going to say, Chief,” I cut in. “But just listen. I’m getting close. Really close. I followed the money. Found the source and the means. But I’ve hit another dead end. And time really isn’t on our side here. Is there anything more you can give me? Got any new leads at all?”

  Silence. Then, I hear rustling on the other end. Followed by a long sigh. I can picture him perfectly right now. Shaking his head. Drumming his stubby fingers on his round belly. Wiping away the spit bubble forming in the corner of his mouth. It used to happen every time he got irritated by my past “antics,” as he called them.

  But he’d always come around, because he knew my antics worked.

  Lowering his voice, he says, “They’re getting really close, too. Word is, the sleeper cell is squatting in abandoned buildings all around town. But the bastards keep moving before the feds can get there. Changing addresses all the time.”

  “Wait, Agent Morgan actually told you this?” I ask. “The FBI’s sharing intel now?”

  “Please,” he says. “They wouldn’t tell me the time if I asked. But the rumor checks out. In the last seventy-two hours, there’s been a surge in 311 complaints about middle-of-the-night ‘police raids’ all over the city. Except, we’re not the ones doing them. I even got an angry call the other day from the Grant family.”

  “That Grant family?”

  As in…the relatives of Larry Grant.

  The gang member I shot in the line of duty and quit my job over.

  “The one and only,” Cunningham says. “So there you have it. Everything new I know. It’s all the help I can give you, Rooney. Wish I had more, but—”

  “Chief? Thanks. You just gave me plenty.”

  Immediately I pull a screeching U-turn and head to my new destination: St. Roch. It’s the rough neighborhood where the Grants live. From all the surveillance I did there, I know it like the back of my food truck.

  It’s also teeming with Franklin Avenue gangbangers, who want me dead.

  I swore I’d never step foot there again. But if that’s where a secret FBI raid recently went down, I might be able to find the spot they hit. Learn more about the cell they’re looking for. Who’s in it. Where the bad guys went next. How to catch them.

  I know it’s a long shot. But right now, it’s the only one I’ve got.

  I take a deep breath and say a little prayer.

  “Dear God, please let me make it the hell out of there alive.”

  And then, remembering a documentary I saw last year about America’s first flight into space, I remember the astronaut’s prayer, supposedly uttered by Alan Shepard:

  “And, dear God, please don’t let me screw up.”

  Chapter 52

  I EXIT the I-10 onto the western border of St. Roch: Elysian Fields Avenue.

  Elysian. A synonym for “heaven.” Yeah, right. This place is far from heavenly.

  Other parts of the city, just a few miles away, are packed with tourists and partygoers. Booze is bubbling. Business is booming. Life is good. Really good.

  Here, not so much.

  The streets are quiet. Eerie. Grim. Colorful but ramshackle shotgun houses line every block. Some lawns are trimmed. Most are choked by weeds and cast-off children’s toys, rusting bicycles, and car tires.

  In front of one overgrown yard, I see two men lounging on a filthy leather sofa. They’re passing around a glass pipe in broad daylight.

  I turn onto North Derbigny Street and see a bold, purple mural painted on a wooden fence proclaiming BAPTIZED WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE. In front of it, two homeless men are screaming at each other over a shopping cart full of soda cans.

  Driving deeper into the neighborhood, I see clusters of people loitering on street corners. Playing dice. Staking territory. Dealing dope. More than a few are wearing yellow T-shirts, yellow shorts, yellow bandanas.

  Franklin Avenue gang colors.

  I tilt the brim of the Pelicans cap I’ve got on a little lower over my sunglasses, and sink down into my seat. I grip the steering wheel tighter with my left hand, resting my right on the Smith & Wesson tucked in the waist of my jeans.

  I’m not looking for trouble. But I’m ready if trouble finds me.

  I make a left onto Spain Street—and feel my chest tighten. This is where Larry Grant used to live. He shared a little gray bungalow down the road with his wife. His mom and grandmother still live in the light-blue house on the corner.

  If one of them phoned Cunningham to complain about a disruptive late-night “police” raid nearby, the abandoned building the FBI hit must be close.

  I slow down as I cruise along their block. I keep my eyes peeled for a home or garage roped off by yellow crime-scene tape.

  Nothing.

  I make a turn. Then another. I drive up and down a few other streets.

  Still nothing.

  Damn. Maybe coming here was both dangerous and a waste of time.

  Then it dawns on me. If the FBI has been hitting a bunch of suspected addresses all over the city, they’ve been acting on tips and hunches, like a manhunt team going door to door to find an escaped fugitive. With their resources already stretched so thin, I bet they don’t have search warrants and aren’t processing every building they raid, sealing the scenes with tape.

  Which means I won’t be able to spot their target here in St. Roch from the comfort and safety of a moving car. I’m going to have to
look a little closer.

  On foot.

  Great. I’m about to take a stroll through a warzone.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  Chapter 53

  CIRCLING BACK around, I see plenty of open spots on Spain Street.

  But no way am I going to park on the block of the man I killed.

  That’s not just disrespectful. It’s suicidal.

  So I hook a right onto Prieur Street and pull over at the edge of St. Roch Park, a small oasis of green space in this concrete desert. I notice a group of guys playing a rough game of pickup basketball. Many are dressed in yellow. Wonderful.

  Before I exit my car, I check to make sure my pistol is fully loaded, even though I know it is. Just one of those last-minute reassuring good luck charms, and I’m going to need all of the good luck I can scrape together.

  Carefully sliding it into the back of my jeans, I take a deep breath and step out. Keeping my back to the basketball players, I turn and casually walk toward Spain Street.

  So far, so good.

  I scan each abandoned building I pass, looking for recent signs of police entry. Like a doorframe splintered by a battering ram. A discarded pin from a stun grenade on a walkway. A tactical glove dropped on the lawn or something similar.

  But it’s tough to tell which homes even are abandoned, and which are occupied. One house might look run-down, but will have lights on inside, or a child’s tricycle in the driveway. Another might be in okay shape, but its windows are covered by rotting two-by-fours, or its front door is spray-painted with a big red X.

  Soon I reach Spain Street—and feel my skin tingle.

  This isn’t where Grant and I exchanged gunfire. But it’s where I staked him out and started chasing him on the night that changed my life—and ended his.

  Pushing my unease aside, I continue walking down the sidewalk, inspecting every structure I pass for telltale signs.

  Nothing.

  I’m almost at the end of the block when I do finally notice something.

  With my nose.

  The sweet, musky aroma of creole-style barbecued shrimp. Mmmm.

  Someone must be grilling nearby. Someone who really knows what they’re doing, too. The mix of spices smells pretty unusual.

  The cop in me wants to move on, but the chef in me wants to know more, especially if the home cook lives nearby and saw the FBI raid. If I can bond with this potential witness over food, maybe I can walk away with a new recipe and some new intelligence.

  Sniffing the air like a human bloodhound, I follow the scent onto Galvez Street, and spot tufts of gray smoke coming from a backyard three homes down. I make my way over. I quietly and carefully walk down the driveway and behind the house.

  An old African-American woman is working the grill. She’s flipping skewers of shrimp, peppers, and onions while humming what sounds like a church hymn. A boy, maybe three or four, is playing with blocks on the brown grass behind her.

  “Hi there, good morning,” I say, as friendly as possible.

  The woman stops humming and eyes me with suspicion. “You lost, child?”

  “No, ma’am. I was just walking by when I smelled your amazing creole-style prawns. I’m dying to know what’s in your spice rub. Is that cardamom? Allspice?”

  The woman glares at me, even more skeptical.

  “I smell somethin’ too,” she says. “Somethin’ fishy. I’m gonna give you to the count of three to remove yourself from my property, before I call the damn pol—”

  “Ma’am, you’ve certainly got a good sense of smell and an even sharper pair of eyes,” I interrupt. “I used to be police, but not anymore. I’m in private business now, trying to find out if the police recently raided an abandoned house nearby.”

  The barbecue sizzles and spits. She just stares at me with the well-deserved suspicion that this and many other neighborhoods have of a white stranger coming onto their property.

  “Please,” I say. “Do you remember seeing anything like that? Probably late at night? It’s really, really important.”

  The woman scrunches her lips. “The police are always up in here. Botherin’ us. Or worse. One of my neighbors? Lost her son to a cop’s bullet not long ago. Shame.”

  I freeze—and try to maintain my poker face as best I can. Am I caught?

  “But now that you mention it,” she continues, “the police were here on Thursday. Around two o’clock in the morning. Their sirens and shoutin’ woke me up. I was mad as hell…until I saw they were finally takin’ care of that crack house on Johnson Street.”

  “‘Finally’?” I ask.

  “I called ’em about it a few times. Damn thing seemed to pop up out of nowhere. One day it’s an empty old shack. The next, mean-lookin’ folks are comin’ and goin’ like it’s a Winn-Dixie the day before Thanksgivin’.”

  Jackpot! If what Cunningham told me is true—that the sleeper cell keeps setting up new locations at the drop of a hat—this woman’s story makes sense.

  “What do you mean by ‘mean-looking’?” I ask. “Were they Arab?”

  The woman cracks a sassy smile. “Child,” she says, “they looked like you. A couple were talkin’ in Spanish. But most? They were white folks.”

  White? All right, so much for a jackpot. Maybe it’s a bust. Damnit.

  “The leader was this blond man,” she goes on. “With a tattoo on his arm. Circle with a cross in it. My nephew told me what it means. Not somethin’ you see around here too often.”

  No kidding. It sounds like she’s describing a Celtic cross. A common symbol among white supremacists.

  “You said this place was on Johnson Street, right?”

  She nods.

  I thank the woman and start to head off.

  “One more thing,” she calls to me. “I put ground nutmeg on my shrimp. Some curry powder for heat. And for sweetness, a splash of 7 Up. You surprised?”

  “Ma’am?” I say. “You have no idea how surprised I am.”

  Chapter 54

  I’VE NEVER been so jazzed to check out a former crack house.

  I walk back along Galvez Street the same way I came, then turn right at the next corner. I wouldn’t say there’s an actual spring in my step, but I’m feeling a little bounce.

  When I reach Johnson Street, I slow down and keep my eyes open.

  Which isn’t so easy to do right now. Even though it’s February, the Louisiana sun has me sweating. By habit, I start to remove my cap and sunglasses to mop my brow—but I catch myself.

  I forgot. I’m in “disguise.” Showing my face around here could be a death sentence.

  At the next intersection, I spot a derelict, single-story house with a detached garage. Both are the color of rotted eggshell, the paint flaking off in big chunks. All the doors and windows are boarded up. The foundation is crumbling. The front yard looks as lush and wild as a bayou swamp.

  This has got to be the place the woman was talking about.

  But was it really a terrorist safe house raided by the FBI?

  I step over a sagging section of the rusty chain-link fence surrounding the property. Then I go to the front door. More accurately, I go to the giant piece of plywood covering the front door.

  Getting closer, I realize this wood is much newer than the rotting two-by-fours covering the windows—like it was recently installed. The nails holding it in place are also shiny. And the doorframe is badly cracked on one side, as if the lock had been bashed in with a tactical battering ram.

  Yep. The BBQ chef back there definitely got it right.

  Earlier I put an eight-inch metal pry bar into my pocket and now I take it out, get to work, jamming one end into the tight crevice between the plywood and doorframe, jimmying them apart.

  By the time I get the goddamn board off my pants and shirt are soaked through with sweat. I set the plywood aside and peer into the house.

  It’s dark and dusty, like the entrance to an abandoned mineshaft.

  Double-checking that my pistol is
still tucked in my waistband, I switch on my pocket flashlight and enter.

  I’ve searched many a drug den in my day, yet they never cease to make my skin crawl. This one is no exception.

  As soon as I cross the threshold, I’m hit with a stale, musty smell. Wrinkling my nose, I step farther inside and slowly start moving from room to room.

  In the den, I see a few pieces of stained, mismatched furniture. Littering the floor are old newspapers and some Popeyes fried chicken wrappers. Books, too. Including some in Spanish, others in Arabic.

  In the kitchen, dirty plates and glasses are stacked on the counters. The fridge is open, the inside speckled with mold.

  I enter the bedroom and see two queen-sized mattresses squatting on the grungy carpet. Some lumpy pillows and sleeping bags are draped over them.

  My light falls on a tiny human form lying in the corner and I step back with a lurch.

  Holy shit! With dread, I look closer, and then relax.

  It’s just a plastic doll. How did that get in here? And why?

  But I’ve got much bigger questions. Who all was crashing here? And why? What the hell is the sleeper cell planning and where did they go next?

  I kick a brittle wall in anger and frustration, denting it with my foot.

  After I prowled around this disgusting—and dangerous—neighborhood, located this safe house, and searched every room, it looks like all I’m leaving with is a new barbecue shrimp recipe.

  Damnit!

  Wait. Something comes to me.

  The garage. I forgot about the garage.

  Chapter 55

  I EXIT the house and stride across the overgrown lawn.

  The garage’s side entrance is boarded up with another new piece of plywood. But the main door is only secured at the bottom, with a single rusty padlock.

  I lean down and position the short end of my pry bar underneath the latch. I stomp down on the long end—hard—and the old lock pops right off.

  I yank the door open. The garage floods with sunlight, exposing a space crammed with all kinds of junk. Shelves are lined with paint cans, cardboard boxes, scrap metal, spools of wire, tools.