By the time the boys got back with two cops, she was nowhere to be seen.
“They were raping a woman,” Nana cried. “Three men, but now they gone!”
The officers looked at one another and went into the restroom. They came out almost immediately. “Nobody there,” declared one, his hand resting on his nightstick.
“I told you already, they gone!” Nana said. “Three of them, I couldn’t do nothing.”
One officer noticed the stain on her skirt. “Ma’am, are you here with someone? You better stay somewhere safe. And please stay out of the restrooms. They’re dangerous.”
Two of the girls retrieved her cane and helped her back to her seat. And that was that. No one did anything, because there was nothing to be done. Nana, Bobby, and Seletha had stayed in place all night. Nana said nothing, but she brooded on those shitty goings-on until the Superdome roof flew off and they had to seek shelter elsewhere in the stadium.
She stared down unhappily at the spreading brown puddle approaching her. Because the hurricane tide and rising waters had backed up the toilets, watery human waste was flowing out of the restrooms. Superdome toilets and sinks had begun to vomit forth warm geysers of turbid water contaminated with human feces. She was so exhausted, she hadn’t even noticed the nasty flow was about to soak the cushion she was sitting on. Bobby helped her get up, apologizing profusely as if he were somehow to blame for the shit erupting from the toilets. He grabbed Nana’s pillow, pulled off the stained cover, and gave back the pillow, which now had only a little yellow-brownish stain at one corner.
Bobby put his palm across his mother’s damp forehead. “I think she got fever.”
“Really hot in here,” Nana commented, resolved to minimize the seriousness of their plight.
“Mama, wake up! Mama? Mama!” Bobby put his ear to her mouth, trying to detect breathing. He lifted her eyelids to check her pupils; they were of different sizes and didn’t respond to the light. He took her hand and entreated her. “Mama, wake up, Mama, please wake up!” He was desperate.
Bobby grabbed one of her fingers and pressed the base of the nail. He applied so much force he broke the skin and a trickle of blood appeared. Seletha did not react.
Bobby turned, terrified, to Nana. “Nana, I think my mama is dying!”
32
ANCHOVIES AND OLIVES
Tampa, Florida
Through the tinted windows of the surveillance van, Agent Tucker made out a couple of billowing clouds sailing across Tampa’s blue sky. Her view of the door to Brad Nelson’s rental was partly blocked by the townhouse next door.
They’d been watching the place for almost an hour in the eighty-five-degree heat. The air-conditioning wasn’t on, so the interior of the van was stifling. Tucker was doing her best to concentrate on the briefing memo Amaia had sent. She sighed and glanced behind her into the body of the van. The body heat and reek of sweat from the three men back there was just about more than she could stand. They’d tapped into Brad Nelson’s phone line as one of their officers, pretending to be an operator, rang his number until the answering machine came on. That didn’t prove he wasn’t home; he might have checked caller ID and decided not to pick up. They masked their number to match that of Nelson’s cell phone service provider and tried to reach him via his mobile.
“The number you have called is not responding or is out of coverage at this time.”
She was relieved when she saw the scooter with the pizza carrier on the rear. She rolled up the report she’d been reading and signaled to the tech to check the radio frequency and verify that the agent outside could hear them clearly. Her man gave her a thumbs-up, and the operation commenced. The young officer parked his scooter at the curb, crossed the graveled space past the untended plants in Nelson’s small front yard, and approached the door.
“Go!” Tucker told him by radio.
He pressed the doorbell. Nothing. A second time. Still nothing.
“Ring again,” Tucker insisted.
No response.
Tucker let a few more seconds pass as she studied the tableau from her vantage point in the van. “Try one more time to be sure, then you can snake the camera under the door.”
The officer rang a couple of times. The next-door neighbor, a man in his seventies wearing pajamas with an unbuttoned top, opened his front door. He leaned on the railing of his front steps and stared at the pizza man. “Son, I don’t much think my neighbor ordered your pizza.”
“Don’t break character,” Tucker radioed. She knew from experience that neighbors could be a rich source of information.
The officer pretended to consult his notebook. “Well, sir, I have an order for a family-size pizza with double olives, double anchovies, and double capers for a Brad Nelson, 556B Tivoli Avenue. Did I get anything wrong?”
“Yeah, that’s here, and Brad Nelson is my neighbor, but it looks like someone’s playing a practical joke on you. I saw Nelson putting luggage in his SUV, and he told me he was taking a trip.”
The pizza man sighed in disgust. “Yeah, I guess that’s it. There’s a bunch of kids making phony orders. We should have known. Not many people want anchovies for breakfast.” He went down the steps as if returning to his scooter, then stopped. “Maybe you know when Mr. Nelson’s coming back? He’s a good customer. I got the pizza here, if he’s coming back soon, maybe I could just leave it on the porch.”
“Don’t bet on it, son. He said he’d be away for a couple of days, maybe more. But if you want to leave the pizza with me . . .”
Snickers filled the van. The agents exchanged exaggerated grimaces of disgust.
Tucker got out of the van and walked to her rental car, her sweat-soaked shirt plastered to her back. She tapped her hip with the rolled-up report from Salazar. Fuck, don’t those jerks know they need to wear deodorant? She urgently wanted a shower to get rid of the stench, but first she had to do something more important. She opened the car door and settled into the passenger seat.
“Okay,” Emerson said as he pulled into the street, “we’ve confirmed Nelson’s not in town, so he’s probably on his way to New Orleans. Or he’s already there. You going to call Agent Dupree?”
“Phone lines and cell service have been down since this morning, and they evacuated the FBI office. It’s going to be complicated to get back in touch. And impossible once they leave the ops center.”
Emerson lapsed into a pensive silence. For a moment, Tucker thought he was reflecting on what she’d just said, but to her surprise he volunteered an opinion. “Salazar is wrong. Nelson is the Composer.”
Tucker’s head swiveled. She regarded him with interest. “Oh, yeah? Just what did she get wrong?”
Emerson looked at Tucker until she gestured, warning him to keep his eyes on the road. He stammered a bit as he presented his thesis. “Well, uh, she’s just wrong . . . there in her analysis.” He pointed to the report in Tucker’s hand. “She thinks Martin Lenx is the Composer, but she doesn’t agree Lenx could have assumed Nelson’s identity.”
“You think she’s off base?”
He glanced at her again, confused. He was trying to insinuate himself, to show that he was on her side, but she was being particularly unreceptive. “Well, I just think we’re right and she’s wrong.”