I knew that Anna and Richards would be over soon and I made myself busy while I waited. I went into my office, booted up my computer and started another internet search. This time instead of looking for people, I searched for The Siebenkäs Group. My feeling that this was bigger than I knew was growing stronger and I needed a place to start digging.
My search yielded a few thousand results but the first one was what I was looking for: The official website for The Siebenkäs Group. The site had the address, or more specifically the former address, listed as 740 O’Keefe Avenue. That was in the Central Business District, in the shadow of the Superdome.
After scanning the homepage I discovered that Siebenkäs didn’t exist anymore. There was a short statement that told me nothing specific regarding the circumstances of the closing. Below that was a message to current customers, saying that the company would contact them personally in order to settle their outstanding accounts.
I wrote down the address anyway and returned to the search results. By the time my doorbell rang, I hadn’t found any other relevant information. I opened the door and Anna and Richards were standing there. Anna took the lead.
“Can we come in and ask you a few questions?”
“No. If you want a statement from me I’ll be happy to write one, but I’m not going to be interrogated like I’m a suspect.”
Richards made the mistake of speaking up, “Sir, no one said…”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me, you self-righteous prick. I don’t know you and I already know I can’t stand the sight of your face.”
I wasn’t truly angry at either of them but it felt good to get a word in to Richards. He didn’t know it but he and I had a history. Of course, his pride injured now, he felt the need to get in a word, too. He leaned in close, presumably so he would appear more menacing. Fuck him though, this was my house.
“Listen, you dumb shit, we just spent too much of our time trying to figure out who killed your old-ass girlfriend…”
That was all he had time to get out. I reached forward and grabbed him by his tie which, as I had noticed earlier in the day, was not a department regulation clip-on, and pulled down sharply. He stumbled forward and I stuck out my foot, tripped him and pulled him inside the house. I held on to his tie as he fell toward the ground and slammed the door closed with my free hand.
Anna, on the other side of the door and realizing that her partner had crossed the line, didn’t bother yelling or breaking down the door. She knew I wasn’t a killer but she still knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t finish with her partner until I felt I was finished.
Richards, his face slowly turning red, was trying to claw my hand off of his tie and talk at the same time. I jerked his tie again and made him touch his forehead on the floor.
I got down on one knee beside him and whispered into his ear, “Mike. Can I call you Mike? Good. Don’t try to talk Mike, just listen. My ‘old-ass girlfriend’ was a better person than you will ever be and I will kill you before I let you disrespect her, you good-for-nothing son of a whore.”
I needed him to understand me and I had a hunch that what I would tell him next would do the trick. “By the way, does your partner know that you used to be called the King of Calliope?”
Richards’ eyes got big and he tried to turn his head toward me.
“Don’t you look at me, you punk ass. Just listen. Listen real close, Mike. You see, when I was on the job I knew folks who lived in Calliope. And one day, before Katrina closed that shit-hole down, I was checking up on a kid that I knew who was trying to get out. I saw a zone car pull up outside of her building and this tall, stupid-looking motherfucker stepped out. It was you, Mike. I watched you get your payoffs from the brothers and I just so happened to have a camera cell phone with me. I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when I saw you at South Broad but that’s over with. Soon as you get back to HQ you quit. Not the detectives, the force, Mike. This city is too good for a punk like you.
I grabbed the back of his head and turned it so he could see me, “And if I ever see you again, whether it’s in a uniform or on the street, Anna gets those pictures. Do you understand?”
His face was beet red and I don’t know how he was still conscious but he nodded at me. That was all I could hope for and I called out loudly for Anna to come in. As she opened the door I let go of Richards’ tie and pushed him away from me. He rolled over onto his back, loosened his tie and lay there gaping like a fish.
Anna looked at Richards, then at me, “Are you boys finished?”
Richards stood up and shouldered his way out the door without a word, so I answered for both of us, “We’re done.”
“I’d still like a statement from you.”
“I’ve got department forms here; I’ll fax it to you.”
Anna looked at me like she wanted to say something and I just stared back at her. Finally, her shoulders slumped and she turned to go.
“Anna, just give me some time. Please?”
She stopped with one hand on the doorknob but didn’t turn around, “That’s what you said the last time.”
And she walked out and quietly closed the door.
I wanted to follow her. I wanted to grab her and spin her around and kiss her like an actor from an old black-and-white movie and tell her I was a fool. But I couldn’t. Not yet anyway. This case needed my attention and I was going to give it everything I had until I figured out the who’s and the whys.
I walked back to my office and pulled out my cell phone. Using an application on the phone I was able to cut and paste the message Masterson had sent me about Siebenkäs and email it to myself. Once it showed up in my inbox I printed it out and added it to the stack of papers I already had. From a desk drawer I pulled out a manila envelope and put in all the papers I had that related to this case. Then I walked over to an army footlocker that I kept in the room and entered the combination on the lock. I took out another SIG Sauer, which was another one of the P239s I refer to as my Sisters, a couple of extra ammo magazines and a shoulder holster.
After getting the holster on and secure I pulled a small waterproof Pelican case out of the locker and opened it. Inside, snuggled into foam cutouts, were several sets of lock picking tools in leather pouches and a snap gun (I told you I loved breaking into places). I picked out two small pick sets that contained four pieces each, combined them into one pouch and dropped it into a pocket. I was closing the case when I decided to take the snap gun along with me. It had a nylon holster and this I clipped to my belt. Lastly, I placed the manila envelope in the bottom of the footlocker for safekeeping. After closing everything back up and re-securing the lock I grabbed my keys and a leather jacket and headed outside.
I went to a small shed at the back of the courtyard and used a key to open the padlock that was on the door. Inside was my baby.
Because I have so many public transportation options in New Orleans, including my own two feet, I don’t drive much. But when I do, I drive fast. Throwing a leg over my Triumph Daytona 675 I patted the gas tank and asked her how she was doing. Yes, I talk to my bike. Call me lonely. My helmet was hanging from the handlebar and I put it on. Once the helmet buckle was secure I grabbed the handlebars and pressed the bike’s starter button. Instantly, the bike growled into life with the unique purr of it’s three cylinder engine.
I took my time walking the Daytona out to the street to give it time to warm up and when I reached the carriageway gate I stopped and looked both ways along the street. Anna was to the right, speaking with the owner of the corner store. Richards was nowhere in sight. To my left was a pair of low ranking flatfoots who were guarding the perimeter and taking the names of the officials that were walking in and out. Because I wasn’t a suspect I figured I didn’t need to get permission to leave so I headed that way. I started out slowly and as I rolled down the street I gunned the Daytona’s engine so the cops could lift the cordon and let me out. The pair turned as one, looked me up and down and turned back around.
I was pissed now and didn’t need this. “Hell with it,” I mumbled to myself.
I again gunned the engine but this time I let the clutch out and took my fingers off the brake. The Daytona shot forward but the cops didn’t turn. Luckily, for everyone involved, the cops were standing far enough apart that when I passed between them no one was hit. I broke through the thin plastic cordon and checked my mirrors. I could see that the two cops were scrambling around trying to figure out what to do and then I turned the corner and they were gone from sight.
The ride to the former address of The Siebenkäs Group took about fifteen minutes through lunchtime traffic. When I got there I was impressed; the facility was huge. I’m not much on estimating area but when a four story building takes up a whole city block, I know it’s big. The front of the building faced O’Keefe Avenue, the rear faced Baronne Street and the two sides were on Julia and Girod Streets. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about searching any basement levels since buildings in New Orleans don’t have them due to the high water table. The company’s sign was still up on the front but it now shared space with a realtor’s sign that told me the property was available and the price had been reduced.
I found a parking space big enough for the Daytona about halfway down the next block on Julia, south toward Carondelet. After parking, I walked back to O’Keefe and looked in the front doors of the building. There was some random office furniture scattered about but the lights were off and the door was locked. I kept walking around the building and looked in the occasional window but everything I saw told me The Siebenkäs Group was out of business; or they were faking it really well.
Around the back of the building there was a fenced in employee lot that had a loading dock on one end. I noticed a recessed area adjacent to the large loading bay door and I headed that way. After walking up a short set of concrete steps I saw that the recessed area contained a smaller man-size door. I stepped into the recess and tried the knob. It was locked but it appeared that someone had tried to gain entry by using a crow-bar to pry the door jamb off. The damage made the door loose in it’s frame and I finished the original perpetrators attempt by giving the door a good solid kick just below the knob. The door sprung open under the influence of my size ten motorcycle boot and I leaned my head out of the recess to be sure no one was coming. Satisfied I was alone, I stepped inside the building, closed the door and made sure it stayed closed.
What followed was the dustiest look around that I have ever been involved in. Thankfully, the electricity was still on since I had forgotten to bring a flashlight. It took me two hours but I went through the whole building. I checked old offices, broom closets and more bathrooms than I ever want to see again. And I found nothing. Even when I located a door that still had Andrej Hasslin’s name on it and searched the large suite of rooms behind it I didn’t find anything.
I had purposely saved Hasslin’s office for last so I could take the longest time in it but the suite was empty. I stood in the middle of what could have been a conference room and slowly turned around in a circle.
There was nothing here, nothing at all. Aside from a large population of dead flies, three desiccated anoles and a ball cap that had the words Mystery Train embroidered in red across the front, the building held nothing useful.
As I stood there and rotated, my eye happened upon an intercom set into the wall by the door. I had seen them throughout the building and after a cursory examination when I first started I had ignored them. With nothing else to look at and my search seemingly at an end I made my way over to this one and re-examined the score of buttons on covering its face.
All of the buttons were identical: Small plastic rectangles that I assumed, when pushed, would activate a microphone or speaker in the associated room and would allow people to talk and listen to one another. Each button was labeled: there were buttons for a commissary, building maintenance, and various individuals who had probably held some high rank in the company, although I didn’t recognize any of the names I saw. The bottom row of buttons was different though.
In all of the rooms where I had previously noticed the intercoms all of the buttons had been a cream colored plastic. The bottom row of buttons on this unit were red. Peering closer at the labels set below them I didn’t notice any names. These buttons only had numbers. On a whim I reached out and pressed button number seven. There was no sound. Slightly peeved that I hadn’t found anything in the building and totally consumed by my inner child I again reached out. Only, this time I pushed all of the buttons, so that every line was open. I never expected to hear anything so when I did I almost fell over backwards.
From the speaker set into the wall I could hear the sound of two men talking and footsteps echoing down a hall. I quickly pressed my back to the wall and drew my pistol out of it’s holster. Inching closer to the door I leaned out and looked down the short hall which led to the conference room. Empty.
I stood still and listened to the speaker again and I could still hear the voices, although the footsteps had stopped. There were two distinct individuals talking about the New Orleans Hornets basketball team. I thought to myself how crappy the security force for the company must be if they were doing a building check and running their mouths when a realization came to me.
With my pistol still out and pointed toward the floor I jogged back to the suite’s entrance. The suite was at the end of a long hallway and by looking through the door I could see down the length of the building. Again, there was no one there but by now I didn’t expect to see anyone. By this time I knew for sure something was weird and I sprinted to the first hallway junction that I came to. I was moving pretty fast when I got to it but I was able to find purchase on the floor and stop myself before I ran into a wall. Because the floor was carpeted!
That was what I had realized just a few seconds ago: Every hallway in the building had carpeted floors. Not only that, every office had a carpeted floor, every janitor’s closet had a carpeted floor and, aside from small tiled areas under the urinals and the toilets, every damn bathroom had a carpeted floor.
I turned and ran back to the conference room. As I got closer I could still hear the voices; now the two men were laughing about something. I ran up to the speaker and stood there as I caught my breath. Just as I was about to say hello, one of the men I could hear spoke to the other, the voice sounding tinny through the small speaker.
“Shhh! Do you hear that?”
“Hear what? I hear fluorescents humming and your nose whistle.”
“That isn’t me.”
I could almost picture the two men standing there, just shooting the breeze but within spitting distance of a wall mounted intercom. My suspicions were confirmed as I continued to listen.
“Check inside Harry’s office, maybe he’s having another heart attack.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“I didn’t say it was, just check his damn office.”
I could hear footsteps grow slightly louder and suddenly I could hear them breathing. They must have been within inches of the intercom now. The next words that were spoken were clearer than any others.
“Brad, I think the intercom is on.”
This seemed like as a good a time as any to introduce myself so I leaned in close to the speaker, opened my mouth, and spoke. “Hello?”
The reaction was immediate. I must have broken some kind of protocol about intercom use; maybe I was supposed to first say a code word or maybe I should have offered to buy the guys drinks and flowers first. Whatever it was, the next thing I heard was a loud whooping sound coming from the speaker and one of the men on the other end yelling about a breach in sector A-G.
My mom didn’t raise any dummies so I decided to high tail it out of the building. I again sprinted through the door and down the hall but this time I kept going, toward the exit.
Back outside, I kept running down the street until I got to my bike. As I threw my leg over I heard tires squealing behind me. Looking back, I saw a black Chevy Tahoe come around the corner a block and a half away. I put my helmet on, pressed the starter and took off. As I neared the end of the block I checked my mirrors. The Tahoe was now half a block away and quickly gaining ground. I made a deductive leap as I accelerated down the road and around a corner and reasoned that the people in that truck might not have wanted me in the Siebenkäs building and.
Traffic in New Orleans is heavy even when it isn’t rush hour and today was no exception. It was bad enough that people in the city drove like they were the only people on the road but then add in the traffic lights – which were in no way synchronized – and a maze of one way streets and I had my hands full trying to shake the Tahoe. I only needed to hold on for a little while longer; just long enough to cut over to Oretha C. Haley Boulevard and hop on the Pontchartrain Expressway. Once there I could open the Daytona up and lose the Tahoe in faster moving freeway traffic but right now I was struggling.
Over the scream of the Triumph’s Triple engine I could hear cars honking and, if I held my breath, the roar of the Tahoe’s V-8. I should have known by the way it had gained on me back at the Siebenkäs building that it had engine work done and now I was paying for my inattention.
I was passing through a light industrial area and the traffic had thinned a bit so I risked a glance back over my shoulder and, in doing so, nearly shit myself. Somehow, the yahoo in the Tahoe had been able to keep pace with me through all of the traffic and was no more than fifty feet behind me. As I looked back, stunned, I saw the front end of the Chevy lift slightly and heard a loud, high-pitched whine as the driver pressed on the accelerator.
“Perfect,” I muttered to myself. I was in full blown worry mode now. Not only had the Tahoe’s engine been tuned, the whine told me it was a turbo. I guess when you’re trying to protect secrets at any cost you don’t worry about miles per gallon and the cost of crude.
I shifted my attention back to the road and took note of my location. I was on Howard Avenue quickly approaching Haley Blvd, adjacent to the part of town that all of the travel guides said to avoid after dark. Luckily for me, this had also been my beat and I quickly changed my plans. As I bumped over Haley Blvd I gunned the bike’s throttle and downshifted. Swinging out wide to my right I leaned the Daytona left, stuck out my left knee and then, a moment later, mirrored the move as I turned right; taking the left-right sweeper superbike style. On my right I heard the mournful sound of a train whistle as the Amtrak terminal and then a long train blurred past. After rounding the last part of the curve I straightened up, leaned down even further over the handlebars and twisted my right wrist as far as it would go. I was on Calliope Street now and thinking it was time to lose the Chevy.
The bike’s front tire left the ground and the back tire gave a wiggle as I straightened up and went faster. To keep from killing myself I stood up slightly and pushed my weight forward, until the top of my helmet was pushing on the windshield, while at the same time easing off the throttle. The bike responded by putting the front tire back down and I silently thanked her and opened up the throttle even more. This was why I talked to my bike, because sometimes I needed her to listen.
Calliope St. took me under the Pontchartrain Expressway and in that enclosed space I could hear the sound of the Daytona’s engine mixing with the sound of the Chevy. The noise reverberated off of bridge pilings and abandoned cars and I imagined two crazed lovers, one intent on killing the other, dancing the Tango.
After emerging from under the expressway I hung a left onto South Claiborne avenue, narrowly avoiding an elderly Black woman driving a way too big Buick way too slow. She honked and as I went past her she stuck her arm out her window and gave me the finger. Nothing like that Southern hospitality t o make a man feel at home.
While leaning left onto S. Claiborne I could see the Tahoe out the side of my visor. I had gained a little breathing room turning onto Calliope but the driver had closed that gap on the long straight under the expressway. In the quick look I took at the side of the truck I tried to make out the driver’s features but the window tint was too dark. I put my eyes forward and a quick two blocks later made a right onto Erato Street and entered a section of the city I was painfully familiar with.
Looming in the distance on both sides of the street stood rows and rows of empty apartment buildings. Surrounded by dirt lots and becoming overgrown with weeds, the remains of the B.W. Cooper apartments looked just as sinister now as they did when they were functioning, housing some of the worst members of New Orleans society.
Better known as the Calliope Projects, this complex, along with the Magnolia and Melpomene projects, directly contributed to New Orleans being known as the Murder Capital of the U.S. Together, these three neighborhoods boasted a murder rate that was higher than some U.S cities. Right now, as the Daytona tickled the belly of the tonne, I was in the middle of the former front lines. And I was seeking sanctuary.
I had been back to this neighborhood since Katrina but my last visit had been a month ago. Chain-link fence had been installed since then and through it I could see construction equipment prepped for demolition. I hoped I would find what I was looking for because if I didn’t, and judging by the way the Tahoe was being driven, this could very well be my last day on earth.
In a misguided attempt to protect the residents of Calliope from drive-by shooters that would actually drive between the buildings, the city had put up concrete barriers along South Rocheblave Street, in the northern reaches of the complex. These barriers, with enough room for people to walk through, encircled a whole block of the complex and would give me an escape route.
I say the attempt was misguided because the same barriers that protected people from drive-bys gave gang-bangers something to crouch behind while they took shots at passing police cars. In the last year I was on the department three cops had died that way in two separate ambushes. The last time I was here, the city workers who were going to demolish the buildings hadn’t bothered wasting fence where the barriers stood. And that was going to be my play.
From S. Rocheblave I would be able to exit the north side of the projects, cross South Dorgenois St. and cut across the ball fields of the Boy’s and Girl’s Club. That would spit me out onto S. Broad and from there I could pick up the Pontchartrain Expressway again and lose my pursuers. Hopefully.
As I scanned ahead I heard a loud honk close behind me and checked my side view mirror. It was vibrating too badly to make out details but I didn’t need details to see the huge amount of chrome that was on the grill of the Tahoe; just about five feet off my rear tire! I didn’t think the driver was honking so he could sell me life insurance so I ignored him and concentrated on the road. Looking ahead I could see that I was approaching S. Rocheblave and that was a good thing.
What was not a good thing was the second Tahoe that I could see approaching from the north, turning off of S. Broad. Judging from the way the smoke was pouring off of this second truck’s rear tires, it too was packing a turbo-charged V-8 under the hood. I only had a few hundred feet to go until S. Rocheblave and I urged the Daytona faster; still it would be close. And then God smiled on me after pissing on New Orleans.
Ever since the city had been re-opened after Katrina, a peculiarly morbid business had arisen. Tour companies would take tourists out into the city and show them the devastation of the city and it’s more infamous locations. For fifty bucks, while you sat in air-conditioned comfort, a tour guide would point out to you where levees broke and where black-on-black crime had been most rampant. And it was one of those tour buses that saved my life.
As I turned right onto S. Rocheblave, the bus pulled out into the road in front of me. I had enough time to see Gray Line Tours written in very large, very close letters and then I was rocketing down the length of the behemoth. I was close enough that my left handgrip scraped the side of the bus and I saw sparks fly before I could adjust my course. A moment later the rear of the bus jumped sideways into my path and I had to quickly lean right so I wouldn’t hit a rear tire that was as big as me. As I shot past the end of the bus I risked a glance behind. The first thing I saw was a Tahoe with half of its hood buried in the side of the tour bus. The second thing I saw was the second, newly arriving Tahoe coming around the bus, smoke again pouring from its tires as it took up the lead position in the chase.
Thankfully, it was too little too late. In a matter of seconds I shot between two concrete barriers and in between apartment buildings that, aside from more broken windows, hadn’t really changed that much from when they had people living in them. Faintly, behind me, I could hear the driver of the second Tahoe honking his horn in frustration.
After cutting through the ball fields and briefly interrupting a baseball game I turned right onto S. Broad and from there got on the expressway. I made it home without needing to break too many more traffic laws and without having to run from any other mysterious black vehicles, which I truly appreciated.
As I pulled onto my block I saw that the NOPD had left from Ms Alston’s house, so I wouldn’t have to answer any of their questions. But I knew that I would need to talk to at least one member of the force before the night was through.
After I secured my bike in the shed (and yes, I patted her and told her “that’ll do”), I went inside and got my heart rate under control which mainly involved cracking open a cold Abita Restoration Pale Ale. While I drank half of the bottle at a draught I pressed play on my answering machine and checked my messages. I had four.
The first was from Sheila Dobbs wondering if I could give her an update. Um, no. The second was from Anna wanting me to give her a call, and the third was Mr. Bellestone thanking me for finding Amber. The fourth message was from Ray and Nicholas. Somehow, through one of their many contacts, they had heard about Ms. Rachel, as they called her, and were offering their condolences.
I wasn’t about to call Sheila because I was still clueless, and still too close to almost having lost my life trying to find her brother. And because Ray and Nick were always up late, a call to them could wait until later. I figured that the Bellestones probably needed a little privacy right now, so that left Anna. I needed to speak with her anyway but had already decided to wait until I knew she was done for the day so I could let her know about my escapade.
Checking my watch and seeing that it was a little after three I decided I had time for a shower and would still be able to catch Anna at work before she ended her shift at four.
When I got out of the bathroom twenty minutes later I instantly knew someone was inside the house. There was a stillness as if someone was trying to be quiet.
I stepped back into the bathroom and was reaching for a sister I kept under the sink when I heard footsteps on the stairs. My heart leapt into my throat as I recognized the rhythm of the footfalls. I walked out onto the landing and there she was, with a hand on the banister and one foot raised to take another step: Anna.
“Hello again, Hiawatha. I told my Lieutenant that I needed some personal time to be with a friend.”
Lord, I loved when she called me by my middle name. “I’m glad to hear that.”
And those were the only words we spoke to each other for the next hour.
