Crescent City Connection

is a very strange, very wonderful man. He’s been terrific to me, and I’m not going to violate his privacy.”
    “Lovelace, a man got killed today, but he fired at me first. Do you realize what that means? He’d just as easily have fired at you.”
    “He would not. My dad wouldn’t let him.”
    “Do you think your dad would shoot your uncle—to try to get to you, maybe? How close are they?”
    Lovelace felt her heart leap to her throat, closing it. She tried to take in air, and couldn’t for a moment. She truly hadn’t thought of that. But she knew as well as she knew how to make carrot juice that the best thing she could do for her uncle was keep quiet.
    She said, “I really can’t tell you where he lives.”
    “If your grandfather finds out, he might kill him just for revenge—for harboring you.”
    “Kill his own son? Listen, my family’s nuts, but we don’t kill each other.”
Not yet
, she thought.
At least not yet.
    Langdon said it. “Not yet, you mean. I’m telling you, Lovelace, we need to get your uncle some protection.”
    “If you can’t find him, how’s my grandfather going to?”
    “They found you, didn’t they?”
    For no reason, Lovelace felt her eyes fill. “They’re not going to find him!” She couldn’t believe the sound of her own voice, which seemed suddenly about eleven years old.
    Langdon glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go for a few minutes. Will you be okay?”
    Lovelace nodded, thinking,
She’s leaving me to stew. How dumb does she think I am
?
    It seemed hours before the cop came back, though it was probably only about forty-five minutes. In that time, Lovelace had gone back and forth a hundred times—should she tell her or not? In the end, she felt she had to respect Isaac’s wishes.
    Whatever way the cops had found her was probably the way her dad had—and if the cops couldn’t find Isaac, then neither could her grandfather.
    When Langdon came back, she had a list with her—of all the crimes her grandfather was wanted for. She also told the story of a body she had found; when she got to the part about the cigarette burns, Lovelace put her hands over her ears and screamed Isaac’s address.
    * * *
    By the time Daniel got back to Magazine Street, he had begun to hate the Langdon cop almost as much as his father did.
    He had gone through the kitchen of the juice bar, barged through the back door, and found himself in a small courtyard. There was a brick fence that he managed to scale with the help of a garbage can for a boost, and again he found himself in a courtyard, a pleasant one with a green metal table, on which someone had left a newspaper and a mug of coffee or tea.
    There was a side entrance to the courtyard, at the end of which there might be a locked gate—or it might be unlocked. This fence could be scaled as well, or he might simply be able to walk out the gate—but then again he might not, and cops would be coming over the brick wall in a minute.
    There was also the back door of a house.
    He grabbed the paper and the mug, tried the door, and to his relief found it open. He went in, closed it, turned the key, which had been conveniently left in the lock, and listened. Behind him, he heard men scrambling into the courtyard. Inside the house, he heard a kind of dull roar, as if plumbing was in use.
    Reasoning that the cops would do as he had, assess the situation and pick the easiest exit, he listened. Someone tried the door and then he heard running.
    He crept upstairs, where there were two bedrooms facing each other, saw that both were empty, and noticed a third door, which was closed. The sound of running water came from behind it—apparently a bathroom. Silently, he opened the door, and saw a closed shower curtain. Whoever was behind it was going to scream when they realized they weren’t alone. Man or woman, they’d remember Psycho and wail their lungs out. If there was a window on the other side of the curtain, Daniel was dead.
    He thought of jerking the curtain back and commanding silence, but the person would almost certainly scream anyway. He had to prolong the silence as long as he could. This door, too, had a key in it. He closed and locked it.
    Then he took off his cap, shades, and shirt, exposing a black T-shirt. He was unzipping the legs of his old safari pants, the kind that could be turned into shorts in thirty seconds, when the person in the shower startled him by bursting into song. It was a sadly off-key version of