City of Night

Chapter 46

Cindi and Benny Lovewell, one a believer in the science of voodoo and one not, reestablished contact with Detectives O’Connor and Maddison through the signal emitted by the transponder under the hood of their police-department sedan. They caught up with their targets — but remained out of visual contact — in the Garden District.

For long minutes, the cops cruised the same few blocks, around and around, and then changed directions, cruising the identical territory in the opposite direction, making one circuit and then another.

“Like a blind rat in a maze,” Cindi said solemnly, identifying as before with O’Connor’s childlessness.

“No,” Benny disagreed. “This is different.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“I have the same capacity for understanding that you do.”

“Not about this, you don’t. You aren’t female.”

“Well, if it’s necessary to have ever had a womb in order to be female, then you aren’t female, either. You don’t have a womb. You were not designed to produce a baby, and you cannot possibly become pregnant.”

“We’ll see what Ibo has to say about that,” she replied smugly. “Je suis rouge.”

Studying the blinking blip as it moved on the screen, Benny said, “They’re cruising so slow…”

“You want to make contact, block them to the curb, knock ‘em cold, and take them?”

“Not here. This is the kind of neighborhood where people call the police. We’ll end up in a pursuit.” After watching the screen for another minute, he said, “They’re looking for something.”

“For what?”

“How would I know?”

“Too bad Zozo Deslisle isn’t here,” Cindi said. “She has voodoo vision. Give her one look at that screen, and she’d know what they’re up to.”

“I’m wrong,” Benny said. “They aren’t searching. They’ve found what they want, and now they’re casing it.”

“Casing what? Thieves case banks. There aren’t any banks in this neighborhood, only houses.”

As Benny squinted at the screen, feeling an answer teasing along the edge of his mind, the target abruptly accelerated. The red blip hung a U-turn on the screen and started moving fast.

“What’re they doing now?” Cindi asked.

“They’re cops. Maybe they got an emergency call. Stay with them. Don’t let them see us, but try to close to within a block. Maybe we’ll get an opportunity.”

A minute later, Cindi said, “They’re heading for the Quarter. That’s too public for us.”

“Stay with them anyway.”

The detectives didn’t stop in the Quarter. They followed the curve of the river through Faubourg Marigny into the neighborhood known as Bywater.

The blip on the screen stopped moving, and by the time the Lovewells caught up with the plainwrap sedan, in the first orange flush of twilight, it was parked near a church, in front of a two-story brick house. O’Connor and Maddison were nowhere to be seen.