The Lowdown (Dale Conley Action Thrillers Series Book 3) Read online

  “I prefer the term ‘government stooge,’” Dale said.

  Percy ignored Dale’s very clever, ice-breaking gag and stared a hole into Ervin. “Watch your tone, son.”

  “Don’t talk to me like a kid. Are we done here? May I be excused, Daddy?”

  Percy waved him off. “Go. Go sulk. Go on.”

  Ervin turned and left.

  Percy watched him leave then looked at Dale. “See what I mean?”

  Dale and Bonita walked along the sidewalk beside the river, headed back toward the restaurant. A riverboat rolled past, blasting its loud horns. When the horns were through, jazz music came from the top deck, “When the Saints Go Marching In.” The song faded away as the boat continued in the opposite direction.

  “You bring out a certain quality in Percy that no one else can, Dale.”

  “What quality is that?”

  “Let me put it this way: I’ve never known my husband to laugh at a fart joke before he met you.”

  Dale put his hands up, playing innocent. “I take no responsibility. I can’t help if my presence brings out his inner dipwad.”

  She smacked him playfully across the chest. “It always takes him a few days after he’s seen you to return to normal. But he likes you, ya know? You’ve been a good friend to him. And to all of us.”

  Dale looked ahead of them. Further up the sidewalk, Percy was sitting on the bench with Ervin, having a serious conversation. Jeanne was a few feet in front of them, scampering, playing by the fence.

  “It’s easy to do,” Dale said. “You’re good people.”

  Bonita smiled at him. “So sweet. I know that at your core you’re a big softy.”

  “A softy? I’m not sure how you heard about that, Bonita, but the doctor assures me it was a one-time thing. Just stress.”

  “You see? There you go. Hiding with your jokes. You can’t fool me, Dale.” She smiled at him and took his arm. “Listen, I’m going to ask you for a favor.”

  “Shoot.”

  “When Jeanne and I leave tomorrow morning, I want to leave Ervin here with you and Percy.”

  Dale looked at her.

  It had been fine when Percy’s whole family was in New Orleans because they only met up like this at night, but if Ervin were to stay there by himself, that meant that Dale and Percy would have to make a whole lot of accommodations. That could get old really quickly. And besides, it sure didn’t seem like Ervin would want to spend time with either Percy or Dale.

  “Percy hasn’t said anything to me about this.”

  “He thought I’d have better luck convincing you than him.”

  Dale chuckled. Percy was clever. Conniving bastard. “Are you sure this is something Ervin wants to do?

  “Oh, he won’t want to do it. I’m certain of that. But he needs it. He needs some time with his father. They need to work out this rift between them.”

  Inwardly, Dale sighed. This would complicate an already complicated situation. But Bonita and the whole Gordon family had been amazing to him, and he was about to say goodbye to them forever. So there was really no choice in the matter. He had to accept it.

  “Alright, Bonita. Whatever you need.”

  She smiled, squeezed his arm. “Thank you, Dale.”

  Dale looked ahead again. Percy and Erv were still having their deep conversation. Percy gestured passionately, earnestly with his hands.

  “Doesn’t look like Percy is having much luck winning him over.”

  “Probably not,” Bonita said. “He’s a headstrong young man. But you’re forgetting one thing. He may not listen to his daddy, but he will listen to his momma.”

  Chapter 11

  There was that smell again. The smell of piss.

  Jesse walked down Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Seven p.m. The sun had only gone down half an hour ago, and while it wasn’t terribly crowded, there were still plenty of people out already, going into the shops and bars, plenty some with drinks in their hands. Jesse looked at the people surrounding him and wished them all gone. Far gone. As far away from him as possible.

  He stepped into a small store with a sign with large purple letters announcing itself as Voodoo for You. It was a typical New Orleans tourist voodoo shop. Odd trinkets on the walls: candles, voodoo dolls, books. There was a black woman in the back behind a counter. She wore a satiny red ensemble, something flamboyant, made to trick the tourists into thinking that she was a legitimate voodoo queen.

  Jesse felt disgusted. Talking to a black person. A black woman at that. He reminded himself that this was all in the course of the mission, but he nonetheless fantasized about giving the woman a heaping helping of Dylan’s special chemical.

  “Welcome to Voodoo for You,” the woman said. She spoke with a thick Jamaican accent. “I’m Madame Gertrude. What brings you here today, my dear?”

  Jesse slowly walked up to her. He kept a respectable distance. “I was told I could talk to you about the Saint Louis Cemeteries.”

  “Ooooh, so you’ve come to see our famous crypts,” she said in a sickeningly rich profusion of fake enthusiasm. “Or perhaps you’re looking for for Marie Laveau.” She reached for a brochure among a display to the side of her register. “There are three Saint Louis Cemeteries and—”

  “I’m not looking to tour. I’m looking for symbols.”

  She stopped flipping through the brochures. Her eyes narrowed. “Symbols?”

  “That’s right. I was told you were the authority on such matters.”

  She looked at him for a long moment, and when she spoke again, her Jamaican accent had completely disappeared. “I can’t say that I know of any symbols in the cemeteries.”

  There was something strange about her reaction. Why had she dropped the act so suddenly? And why was there something like fear in her eyes? More importantly, she had no reason to deny that there were symbols in the Saint Louis Cemeteries. Every cemetery was crawling with symbols, especially the ones in New Orleans.

  Jesse felt his heart rate quicken. Had he done it again? Was he being careless? He thought of Dylan’s ominous words when he had last seen him outside his trailer in Florida.

  He composed himself and chose a new course of action. If he had messed up, then he had to get the most out of this encounter.

  And then decide how to cut his losses.

  “A moon,” he said “A symbol of a moon.”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “I don’ know.” She paused. “But I heard something else about symbols.”

  Again, something odd. Something about her tone. Quieter. A bit shaky.

  “What have you heard?” he said.

  Her eyes lingered on him. “That there’s a man. Been going around town asking about symbols. And that this same man is the one behind the bad drugs all those folks are dying from.”

  Jesse’s concerned turned to pure panic. But he kept his tone and his composure icy cold. “And have you heard what this man looks like?”

  “White … blonde … brown eyes.” There was no mistaking it now. Her voice was shaking. Barely more than a whisper. Fear.

  “Interesting. And who would you tell this to?”

  “… No one.”

  Jesse looked around the shop. “Nice shop here. Real nice shop.” He turned back to her with a sinister grin then left. He reentered the early-evening revelry on the street. The piss smell.

  This was troubling. Extremely troubling.

  She recognized him, which meant she’d already heard what Jesse James looked like. Jesse had been careful, but somehow the details of his appearance had already become known around town, even outside of the slums. And now this woman who recognized him had conversed with him at length. Face to face.

  And could make a positive identification.

  Jesse had already messed things up so bad. He couldn’t imagine how Dylan would react if he knew that Jesse had been IDed.

  Jesse thought back to the fright he’d tried to give the woman before he left the shop, his attempt to scare away any futur
e troubles he might get from her. But he wasn’t satisfied. It wasn’t enough.

  He was going to have to take care of this problem.

  Chapter 12

  Percy rushed to keep up with the young uniformed cop who led him and Dale down a dim, dreary high school hallway—green-hued fluorescent lighting, banged-up lockers, cracked flooring. The place was bustling with activity, exploding with noise. They’d had to push through a mob of media to get through the doors, and the corridor was teaming with paramedics, school officials, and police.

  Yellow tape crisscrossed one of the classroom doors toward the end of the hall. Nearby stood a disconsolate woman—middle-aged, robust. A cop and a man in a suit stood by, each speaking kindly to her. The woman sobbed loudly.

  “Two more deaths,” the cop shouted over the chaos. He stepped out of the way of an oncoming firefighter. “Kids. Same symptoms as the others. Bought the shit from another student. They got him here at the school.”

  Dale turned to Percy, his eyes twinkling with that joy he got when he was stringing together the pieces of a case. “A dealer, Percy! If the kid has bags on him with the same markings as the ones on the bag from the Grizzly, then that means they are symbols. And that we have a system for identifying Jesse James’ drugs.”

  “Even if we do find the same markings,” Percy said, “you don’t know what symbols they are. And we can’t have you in the library, Dale. We need you in the field. When are you going to admit that you need Al’s help?”

  Dale shook his head. “I got a guy who can look into it. I called him up before we left. A real bloodhound. A fellow BEI agent. He’ll crack it.”

  Percy resisted lashing out at Dale. To this point, it had been fun teasing him about his troubled connection with Al, but now Percy was starting to get annoyed. Dale needed to bring Al in as a consultant, but he was avoiding it. And it was starting to piss Percy off.

  They pushed past several more people, ducked under the tape, and entered the classroom.

  The neat lines of evenly spaced desks were disrupted twice—one desk turned to the side, another lying on the floor. Beside each of the two misplaced desks, on the grimy linoleum, was a body. Teenage boys. About ten feet apart from each other. Older students, maybe seventeen or eighteen years of age. Black.

  Percy steeled himself.

  Each of the boys’ eyes were open. Their limbs were pulled back in awkward positions. Rigor mortis. As he and Dale walked up to the first boy, Percy saw the now standard bloody froth coming from the corner of the boy’s mouth. They continued on to the second boy. The same grimace. The same bloody froth.

  Percy glanced at Dale. His expression had changed dramatically from the excited grin he’d been wearing in the hallway about the prospect of finding more symbols. Now his face was grim as he looked down at the boys, his lips pulled tight into a thin line.

  “Goddamn nightmare,” the cop said. He took his cap off and wiped his brow. “That’s the local media outside, but within a couple hours every national outlet will be here. They’re already calling. Everyone listens when it’s kids who are dying.”

  “What happened?” Dale said, looking down at the nearest body.

  The cop stepped closer. “After-school program. The kids came back from a twenty-minute break. Class starts back up. The teacher said it wasn’t ten minutes after they all got back into the room that one of them started shaking, fell out of his seat.” He looked at his notes. “Darrell Coleman. Then it happened with the other kid, Lewis Ball. Kids started screaming, running out. The kid who sold it to them was one of their best friends. It’s a damn tragedy.”

  “Where’s the friend?” Percy said.

  “They got him in a classroom.”

  Percy and Dale stepped into the room and shut the door behind them. It was a science lab—desks in the center and lab stations lining the walls. In one of the desks was a teenage boy. Thin, wearing a blue-and-white ringer T-shirt and green pants. He was slouched in his seat, his head hung down to his chest, and his hands were shoved into his pockets. But there was one thing about the boy that took Percy completely by surprise.

  He was black.

  Immediately Percy’s mind struggled with a paradox—if this kid was black and he was one of the people selling the rotten drugs, that completely shot his and Dale’s theory that the drug deaths were race-related poisonings.

  Percy looked at Dale. His expression was stunned.

  Standing behind the boy was Detective Snyder, one of the principle NOPD narcotics officers on the task force. Snyder was in his late thirties with feathery, sandy-colored hair and deep-set eyes. He always looked a little bit stressed. He walked over to them.

  “Agent Conley. Agent Gordon.”

  “Snyder.”

  “He’s not talking. I didn’t press him too much. I figured I’d leave that to the feds,” he said with a bit of a mischievous look. “It’s your task force, after all.” Snyder was the type of local cop who liked to give feds grief. But it was mostly goodnatured. Mostly.

  “Name?” Percy said, flicking his eyes toward the kid.

  “Byron Mitchell.”

  “Find anything on him?” Dale said.

  Snyder nodded and walked off.

  Percy and Dale stepped over to the boy, turned a couple desks around to face him, and sat down.

  “Bryon,” Percy said, “may we have a word?”

  He shrugged and didn’t look up. They saw just the top of his head.

  “Tell us about the drugs,” Dale said.

  Byron didn’t answer, still didn’t look up. His hands remained shoved in his pockets, shoulders slumped forward. His headstrong demeanor reminded Percy of Ervin.

  “Whatever you’re a part of, Byron,” Dale said, “whatever all these poisonings are about, the more you cooperate with us, the better things are going to turn out for you.”

  The boy finally looked at them. His expression was impudent, but his proud eyes were full of tears. “Man, I didn’t know.” His eyes darted around the classroom. His breaths were short and choppy. “I didn’t think this was the same pot that’s been killing people. It’s been bums so far that died. Not high school kids.”

  “You got the drugs from someone else?” Dale said.

  Byron nodded. “A few days ago I met this guy through my dealer. Supposed to have some real good stuff. He gave me a bag with a little in it. A sample, you know? Good shit. Yesterday I go to this guy to get some more. He says he wants me to start selling at the school. Said he’d pay me. The money was good, man. So …” He stopped and looked away. A tear fell down his cheek. He wiped it away violently, embarrassed. “So I sold some to Darrel and Louie tonight. They lit up, and … immediately they both said they didn’t feel right.”

  “Did you smoke any?” Percy said.

  “I smoked the first bag the guy gave me. But I didn’t smoke any tonight. I was about to. But when they said they felt weird, I thought about all those people dying. And I realized I’d sold them some of the killer stuff. I’m telling you, I didn’t know.” He wiped away more tears.

  “The man who gave you the drugs,” Dale said. “What did he look like?”

  “White dude. Blonde, parted hair.”

  Percy and Dale exchanged another glance.

  “Did he give you a name?”

  “No.”

  There was a noise from the back. Snyder came in. He had two evidence bags in his hand. Percy and Dale stood up. Snyder stepped over and handed the evidence bags to Dale. Inside of each was a clear plastic bag of the same size and shape of the bag they’d gotten from the Grizzly. One was filled with pot; the other was empty, just residue.

  Percy put his hand on Byron’s shoulder. “Good luck, Byron.”

  He was being genuine. No matter what happened, no matter how the law sorted things out, Byron now had to go through life knowing he’d accidentally killed two of his best friends.

  “And don’t worry,” Percy added. “We’re going to catch this guy.”

  Back in the
hallway, Dale stopped beneath one of the ceiling lights and held up the bags. He grinned and handed them to Percy. “What did I tell you, Percy? They’re the same markings.”

  Dale was right. There were the markings again, one set in the upper and lower corners of each bag. They were of the same style as those on the bag from the Grizzly—small dots and lines, scored into the plastic, clearly written by hand. None of the four sets of markings matched.

  The empty bag had dots and lines both on the top …

  … and bottom.

  The other bag had a corner shape, possibly an L, along with a dot on the top …

  … and a slash and a backwards 6 on the bottom.

  Percy nodded reluctantly. Sometimes he hated when Dale was right. His ego was large enough as it was. Still, he’d cracked the case. They had a method of identifying Jesse James’ drugs.

  So Percy couldn’t help but smile.

  Dale pumped a fist. “I knew it. Symbols. This is our confirmation, Percy. We let people know that any pot in baggies with these markings are from Jesse James. And now,” he said, pointing toward the front of the school, “we have a national media at our disposal to get that message out. I hope you’re ready to hold a press conference, handsome.”

  Chapter 13

  Dylan looked at the beautiful scene before him—a bright moon hanging in a partially clouded sky, shining down on the gentle waves of Pensacola Bay—interrupted by a decrepit stretch of green, rusted metal. The hood of his piece of shit car.

  It was a 1960 Chevy Corvair. He’d gotten it not long after he moved to Florida, twelve years earlier, from Indiana. It became his a couple months after he met Luanne. It had been sitting in her uncle’s barn, not running. The rebuilt transmission had gotten it working again, and it had been clinging to life ever since. The interior—with its cracked seats and stained dashboard—still smelled musty. The light green paint was riddled with decay. The driver’s side door was almost entirely rust-covered, and, unlike the rest of the car, this replacement door had been red at one point.