Cutter's Hope (18 page)

It was a short ride, fifteen minutes or so, to the central precinct. I left my helmet with my bike and marched up the wide front step and into the building’s interior. We were only an hour or two past sunset and normal business hours were just drawing to a close. I smiled at the officer behind the front desk, no glass partition here, and took a deep breath.

“Hi, is Detective Thibault in?” I asked. The officer eyed me carefully for a moment and nodded slowly.

“Tell ‘im who’s asking, Honey?” he asked, but I didn’t take offense. The man behind the desk wrap looked like he was a week from retirement and the use of the word ‘honey’ came out natural, not condescending in the slightest. Kind, watery blue eyes looked me over from underneath a trim cut of silvery gray. He looked like he’d been partaking of too much of the good food the Quarter had to offer in the last couple of years, but looks could be deceiving. I bet dollars to doughnuts it would task him some, but that he would pass the physical requirements to keep his badge should they pop him with a random physical.

“Hope, Hope Andrews,” I told him. He nodded carefully and picked up his desk phone, punching in an extension.

“Got a Hope Andrews at the desk here for you, Boy. What you want I should do?” he looked me over one more time and I gave him a slight, polite little smile all the while telling myself on the inside not to fucking blow it, to keep cooler than I had at the last station.

“Uh huh, whatever you say, Boss,” he said and hung up the phone.

“Can you fill this out for me, Darlin’?” he asked, “And have you got a copy of your ID?” I nodded and smiled genuinely relieved when he passed me the visitor’s form. I dug out my California driver’s license and handed it to him and whisked through the form. He handed me a visitor’s badge which I clipped to my jacket and he buzzed me through the heavy reinforced door, by his desk.

“Take the elevator, third floor, robbery is down and to the left,” he said. Robbery, so they’d moved Thibault out of missing persons. I wondered when that’d happened and how he’d heard about Faith to tell Plaquemines to call me.

I followed the desk sergeant’s directions and stepped out of an archway onto a cubicle farm. Thibault, a big, good ‘ol boy Cajun with the accent to match stood up and waved me in his direction, his expression a little grim. Good. I didn’t have to pretend anymore. I went and shook his hand before spilling myself into the seat by his desk.

“Girl, you sure know how t’ piss them motherfuckers in Plaquemines off. What’re you doin’ runnin’ with the Voodoo Bastards and the likes of Luis ‘Baby Ruth’ Caballero?” he said by way of greeting.

“I’m not. Technically, I’m running with The Kraken out of Ft. Royal, FL,” I told him.

“Tomato, Tam-ah-to,” he said. I smiled at him.

“I need your help,” I said tiredly.

“Figured you might, surprised it took you this long to get here; I called them bastards over at Plaquemines as soon as I saw your sister’s name come across the wire.”

“They called me about seventeen hundred yesterday, Florida time,” I said. Thibault swore, which told me all I needed to know about that.

“They wouldn’t tell me anything Joe,” I said in a harsh whisper, “Just that my sister’s boyfriend and her lawyer bailed her out and took her home something like two hours before I got there and that she’d been picked up for prostitution.”

Thibault was already clacking at the keys on his computer, he sniffed and cleared his throat and said kindly, “Girl, I’m sorry, I can’t tell you anything either. Wait here, I need to take a piss… be back before you know it.” He got up with a meaningful look in my direction and slid out of the cubicle, walking away. He cleared his throat loudly and I slid into his vacated seat.

I snapped several pictures of what he had up on his laptop’s monitor before it could go dark, and read everything I could read before it did too.
Thank you Joe Thibault.
I sent up in silent prayer, hoping some power that be somewhere gave the man some much deserved Brownie Points for what he’d just given me.

My sister had been arrested as some part of a large scale prostitution ring out in St. Bernard’s Parish, but that wasn’t what it was… My stomach twisted as my eyes flew over her mugshot. Her hair was dark, but I don’t think it was her hair, I think it was some kind of a wig. Her eyes were sunken and her cheeks hollow and her pupils were as big as saucers and she was painfully thin.

I slipped back into my seat when I heard Joe clear his throat up the aisle. He sat down and looked me over. I looked back and knew my expression was grim, haunted somehow.

“What the fuck, Joe?” I asked in a harsh whisper.

“Took police from the city and three different Parishes to deal with that mess, some dumb-assed frat boys from Seattle got theyself’s mixed up with a drug runner’s riverboat party. Their friend decided to get mixed up with a Quarter lap dancer. He was the smart one,” Joe shook his head.

“Anyways, his dumb assed friends text the kid or some such, and he and the lap dancer decide it’s time to go git ‘em. They stumble on this prostitution deal, but it’s not, it’s much worse than that. A lot of these girls they got chained up like animals in storage lockers. Some of ‘em was just
kids,
Hope. I ain’t seen nothin’ like it…”

I stared at Joe, just stared at him, “Joe, what happened to my sister?” I asked.

“Here’s the thing Cheri, the foreign ones, they get the help. Sent back to family or wherever they come from, the local ones? From here? They usually get brought up on charges ‘cause they say just about anything to keep theyself outta trouble. I’m sorry, Baby. I called as soon as I saw her name but Plaquemines got they own ideas and think they know it all.”

Joe
looked
sorry too. I took a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. I was going to kill someone. A lot of someones… and I didn’t feel one iota of guilt for it.

“I’ve got to find her,” I heard myself say. Joe nodded and put a hand on my shoulder.

“Be careful, Girl; they arrested some Russians involved in this shit and everyone ‘round these parts knows, they is not to be messed with.” I gave Thibault a hard look and he put up his hands. I nodded.

“Warning received loud and clear, Detective Thibault.”

“Yeah, I just bet it is, you go do what you gotta do, Cherie; you just keep it on the down low. You got it?”

“I got it, thanks.”

I pushed to my feet and said quietly, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, Baby Girl. I know what I just done.”

“And what is it you think you’ve done?” I asked.

“I just signed some men’s death warrants, but Darlin’… I was there. I was there, Baby Girl, and I hope you find your sister, I hope you get her out and get ‘em good. I ain’t never gonna be able to close my eyes again and
not
see what I saw. I’m gettin’ too old for this.”

“You and me both,” I murmured and we gave each other a crooked grin. Joe Thibault was entering into his fifties, he had about twenty years on me and I honestly didn’t want to think too hard about what I would be like when I got to his age if I got much further into this. I was terrified of what I would find when I got to Faith, at the same time, after seeing her mugshot, I was terrified I wasn’t going to make it in time.

I gave my visitor’s badge back to the desk sergeant and took my unhappy ass outside where I took deep, cleansing breaths of river air. I straddled my bike and shot a text to Cutter and tried to call my littlest sister, Charity again. She answered.

“Hope?”

“Yeah, Blossom.”

“Where are you?”

“New Orleans, listen Blossom, I’ve got a hard line on Bubbles but it isn’t pretty…” I told Charity. I told her everything, it was our deal since Mom had died. We didn’t keep shit from each other. No matter how ugly or fucked up.

“Find her, sis. Find her and bring her home no matter what shape she’s in, and you call me. I’m packing a bag and having it ready. I’ll be waiting,” she said and I could hear the tears. Tears I refused to let fall. I held onto my rage with everything I had until it turned my heart into a pit of ice in my chest surrounded by fire in my veins.

“I love you, Charity,” I said, well aware that what I was about to do was beyond dangerous. That my littlest sister might lose both me and Faith when the smoke had cleared. I swallowed hard.

“I love you too, you come back, the both of you.”

“Do my best, I’ve got to go. I don’t have any time to waste.”

“Kay, be careful.”

“As I ever am,” I said and started up my bike. Charity laughed and I ended the call just as one from Cutter rang through.

“Where you at?” he asked before I could say hello.

“Headed back to you. Be there in fifteen.”

“Make it ten.”

“Copy that,” I said and ended the call shoving my helmet on. I rode out and made it back in seven. We had work to do.

Chapter 20

Cutter

Ruth finished dealing with his man Rusty and the one that put Rusty up to it before Hex took Rusty to have his hand looked at and put in a cast. Fucking tool. I charged Pyro with getting us set up in a cheap motel down the road. My boys and me, we took a quick vote and they agreed, we could do without the Voodoo Bastard’s hospitality. They were quickly coming around to Hope bein’ one of us and I think they could tell, I wasn’t about to let the wild cat go any time soon.

Still, I was afraid of runnin’ out of loyalty before this was through. When I got the text from Hope and told the guys what was up, we’d all gone still. Marlin had been the one to speak first and when he did, it was sense; which is why he was my VP.

“Let’s get the full story when she gets back and we’ll go from there,” he’d said and was met by nods of agreement from everyone including me. Hope pulled up inside ten minutes and I felt something akin to pride bloom in the center of my chest.

She marched into the place like she owned it, and there she was, my woman on fire again. Her eyes fell on me and she softened marginally.

“Who has my gun?” she asked and Radar handed it over, she tucked it into the back of her pants and came over to the table. Ruth wandered over.

“What’re we looking at?” Marlin asked while she scrolled through her phone. She raised a finger.

“Where’s my backpack?” she asked me. I went over to the pile of gear and brought it to her. She pulled out her tablet and brought up some pictures of a laptop screen.

“That’s your sister?” Lightning asked.

“Not the way I remember her,” Hope said and sounded resigned. I glanced at Marlin who was studying the picture thoughtfully. He had some history with druggies and one glance told me that
now
this was hitting close to home for him.

“She’s a junkie?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said and launched into her findings. Told us everything she’d learned from her detective friend.

“Sounds like baby sister landed smack dab in the middle of the Big Easy’s underbelly and it swallowed her whole…” Ruth commented. He looked over the girl’s picture, Faith’s picture and sucked his teeth, “Damn shame,” he muttered.

“She didn’t get there by herself,” Hope said with conviction and her dark eyes met mine, pleading. She didn’t have to, I was committed.

“Okay, so how do we find her?” Atlas asked, “You get a name?”

“I did,” Hope whisked her finger across the screen and the next picture was of some form up on the monitor. Under the heading of ‘lawyer’ there was a name.

“Walter Baines,” I read aloud.

“I know that name,” one of the Voodoo Bastards piped up.

Ruth waved him over, “Spit it out then, Saint. Damn, we ain’t got all night, Man.”

“Sorry, Ruthie. Back in the day he was a city defense guy. Then all of a sudden, he’s private practice and shit. Word on the street says he went to work for the Russians.” Saint and Ruth exchanged a meaningful look and Ruth got a slow, lazy grin. The smile of a predatory man onto a scent.

“That so? The Russian’s mixed up in this?” he asked Hope and she met him with a somber and level gaze.

“Well, Ivan is a Russian name and that
is
who Tonya was talking about, and my source at the N.O. P. D. told me to watch my six; that the Russians were all over the bust in St. Bernard’s Parish.”

Ruth’s expression turned calculating, “That wouldn’t be Ivan Vassili, now would it, Darlin’?”

“Never got a last name,” she said honestly.

“I’ll be dipped in shit, your sister got mixed up with the wrong fucking people, Girl.” It was La Croix who spoke this time. The most we’d heard out of him since we’d gotten here. Hope frowned as La Croix rubbed a hand back and forth over his tattooed scalp.

“What do you know that you aren’t telling us?” I asked, steady.

“Crash course in local underworld politics…” Ruth said and poured himself a shot. He tossed it back and set the glass down with a clack on the table we were standing around.

“Few years back the Russians moved in, took over the skin trade. No one really had a corner on the market and no one really wanted to fuck with them, I mean, these was some nasty sons of bitches. Brutal fucks, and I can appreciate me some brutal bastards, just not when they start movin’ out of skin and start poaching on our trades. You feel me?” I nodded, picking up what he was putting down… we had an ally in this. Maybe more than one if we played our cards right.

“Look, all I want is my sister, you can have whatever is left over after I put these rabid bastards down. I don’t care.” Hope looked at each of us in turn, defiant.

“Calm your tits, Sugar. I’m on your side,” Ruth said with an easy smile, “You got yourself a solid lead with ol’ Walter there. He’s the bottom of the food chain, but he knows who and where to find someone higher up. Why don’t we pay ‘im a visit and see what he knows?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Hope said and I exchanged looks with my guys, most of whom were nodding slowly.

“We don’t all need to go,” I said, “Radar, Nothing, you’re with me and Hope,” I said. They nodded. Nothing put a cigarette between his lips and lit up.