Dupree stood on the balcony for a long time, watching them advance to the next building while a crew member called through a megaphone. He was again struck by the bizarre way sound traveled along the water.
Bull waved the walkie-talkie to bring him out of his trance. “Several shots, rapid succession, Ninth Ward. Can’t identify the address, but it’s somewhere near North Galvez Street.”
Dupree responded instantly. “If we cut through between Claiborne and I-10, we can get there right away. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
Charbou looked at Bull as if astonished to hear the boss raving. “Right! And why don’t we go by Simon Bolivar with our Zodiac full of white faces while we’re at it and get our damn asses shot off?”
Dupree started to reply, but Bull got there first. “The agreement was that we’re in charge of security, that was the condition for our cooperation. We can cross Mid-City instead and then maybe Saint Bernard Avenue, if it’s passable, and that goes to North Galvez. If not, we’ll find some other secure route.”
Johnson and Dupree looked at Amaia. She nodded. “Lots of work ahead.”
39
OCEANETTA
New Orleans, Louisiana
The sky remained heavily overcast. The persistent gusts of the morning had died away, and the dark, heavy clouds moved almost imperceptibly. Off on the horizon, there was a suggestion of clear skies. The temperature was rising.
The Ninth Ward, the most extensive of the city’s seventeen wards, comprised the easternmost part of the city. It was bordered by the Mississippi on one side and the lake on the other. To the southeast it was contiguous with Saint Bernard Parish and the canal. It was a scene of utter devastation. Water was chest deep along North Galvez. Automobiles were floating with only their roofs visible, and along more than one street they had to skirt downed electrical wires and uprooted trees. They didn’t have a specific address, but soon they heard shots in the distance and steered toward them. The weapon sounded like a rifle, and it was being fired every couple of minutes, obviously outside a building.
They saw quite a few people looking down at them from the rooftops and upper balconies of apartment buildings. Most were young. As they advanced in the Zodiac, people would call out and wave improvised banners. Dupree was a reluctant witness to the increasing distress in the faces of his New Orleans colleagues as the team passed their citizens without being able to help. A couple of times, Charbou took up the megaphone to say help was on the way, but after a while he gave up. He knew full well he was lying. He had no idea if help was coming, and he had no way of finding out.
At the top of Clouet Street they came across three African American teens distributing supplies from a rowboat. One was down in the water, his red T-shirt so soaked he looked like he was covered in blood. He was wading toward a house and holding a bundle high to keep it out of the water. He grinned when he saw them.
“Hey, y’all! We ain’t up to nothing bad!”
“What you sellin’ those folks?” Bill Charbou called out.
“Sellin’? Hey, man, we ain’t sellin’ nothing, we givin’ it away! Bud Light and cigarettes.” He struck an attitude. “Robin Hood of the ghetto, man!” Two men in the window responded with cheers, but his friends in the rowboat just eyed the FBI team. “Robin Hood of the damn ghetto, folks! Red Cross got nothing for you, brothers, but we sure enough do!”
Charbou grinned. “You’re a prince, buddy!”
The boy beamed.
One of his friends was surly. “If we had to wait for help from y’all . . .”
Charbou responded cheerfully. “Hey, shithead, I’m blacker than you are!”
The boy nodded, reluctantly acknowledging that. “Yeah, man. That make you our brother cop, huh?”
Bull took charge of the exchange. “Listen, y’all, they told us someone round here been firing a gun. We heard shots a long way off, but we don’t know where he’s at. Y’all seen anything?”
“Oh, man, I can’t fucking believe it! Check it out: water keeps rising round here and y’all don’t give a shit, but that crazy ass old man up on the roof shoots at the sky a couple times and you turn up with the Feds before a brother can say, ‘Bless me!’”
“Listen, smart-ass, he could kill somebody by mistake.” Charbou jerked his thumb at the boy in the red T-shirt. “Robin Hood here, for example. And then who you gonna call?”
Bull interrupted. “You say he’s on a roof?”
“That’s Jim Leger,” the third boy spoke up.
“Why you tellin’ them?” his buddy complained.
“I don’t like it none neither. That crazy motherfucker always coming out and wavin’ that rifle soon as you step on the sidewalk. Lives close by, right over there.” The boy waved toward the main street.
Charbou gave him a little salute of thanks. Before setting a course toward the intersection, he called out, “Y’all know if lots of people still down there?”
The boy who’d named the shooter was the only one to reply. “We don’t know. Things ain’t so bad right here, but they sayin’ the lower part of the Ninth disappeared. Storm knocked the houses right off they foundations. Most of the folks living down there is old as hell, so I hope they holed up ahead of time in the Superdome.”
Dupree felt a sharp pang at the mention of the Superdome.
“Nobody thought anything like this could ever happen,” Charbou said unhappily.
“Bullshit!” the second youngster in the rowboat answered. “For sure we thought it could, ’cause what happened is the white folks opened up the floodgates.”
Bull couldn’t let that pass. “What kind of crap you talkin’?”
“What I said: those sons of bitches up north, they be high and dry, but our city underwater now; those white folks opened up the gates to save they nice houses, never mind worrying about us down here. Everybody here saying that!”
“That’s not true,” Dupree intervened. “Water is rising everywhere, in the north too; they still don’t know why.”
“They don’t know? Well, I sure do!” the boy insisted. “That’s how things always been here in this town. Soon as the water rises, they blow up the levees to save the goddamn French Quarter.”
Charbou shook his head as they moved away. “Y’all take care.”
“You folks is the ones that needs to take care,” the boy replied. His words might have been parting advice, but they could just as easily have been a threat.
Charbou kept shaking his head. He looked at Amaia, his lips grimly pursed. She smiled, admiring his patience. Bull steered them toward a cross street, and after a while they again emerged onto North Galvez.
Charbou got to his feet and steadied himself against Bull’s shoulder as he scanned the distance. He burst into laughter and pointed to a rooftop where an African American woman was sitting at ease beneath a yellow-and-white-striped umbrella, patiently awaiting assistance.
He cupped his hands into a megaphone. “Oceanetta! You awright?”
She waved both hands. “Awright, baby!” She raised a can of beer. Maybe Robin Hood of the ghetto had already passed her way.
Bull explained. “That’s Oceanetta Charbou, Bill’s aunt. We couldn’t get her to leave the city, no matter how hard we tried.”