I was already on my phone. Eamon picked up on the second ring, and I reported the situation in under a minute, including Dominic’s route and the destination address. He had a local contact, a former NOPD detective, who had done work for The Guardians before. She’d be at Celeste’s within twenty minutes, plainclothes.
“Unnecessary,” Dominic said from the doorway, having heard all of it.
“Non-negotiable.”
A pause. Then he opened the door and left without further comment.
Luca watched me finish the call. “That went smoothly.”
“He’s at Celeste’s with coverage that won’t be disruptive. That’s the best available outcome.”
“And we’re expected to be productive in his absence. Figure out why he’s in danger.”
“That’s not the primary danger.”
Luca raised an eyebrow. “It’s not?”
“It’s a distraction. Show me where it happened—in 2006,” I said.
“Now?”
We left through the front gate, stepping into the August humidity pressing against our skin. My shirt was damp before we reached the sidewalk. The canopy formed by the live oaks gave nothing in the way of relief; the canopy trapped the day’s heat instead of blocking it. The number 12 streetcar passed as we reached the curb, its windows fogged at the edges with the temperature differential.
I suggested walking, and Luca set the pace. He didn’t fight the heat. He moved with it.
“You went to Chicago,” I said. “After Tulane.”
“Graduate certificate in arts administration, Columbia College.” He stepped around a section of buckled sidewalk without looking down. “Two years.”
“And came back.”
“On purpose.”
We crossed into the CBD, where the tree canopy disappeared and the heat intensified. The sidewalk radiated it upward through my shoes while glass towers deflected the evening light without mercy. Luca’s shirt had darkened between his shoulder blades. I understood why the city dressed in linen and air conditioning here was infrastructure, not indulgence.
The smell of fried dough and powdered sugar reached us from a food truck half a block down.
Canal Street opened ahead of us, and on the far side the city changed. The buildings crowded in. Iron balconies brought the sky down toward the earth.
A bar door swung open ahead, releasing a blast of air conditioning and the first four bars of something on a jukebox, then swung shut again. A man on an upper balcony watered his plants, and the runoff threaded down along a rail in a thin silver line.
Luca moved through the French Quarter at a steady pace, dark hair pasted to his temples by sweat. He was entirely at home in his heat-dampened skin.
“You do that everywhere,” he said.
“Do what.”
“The scan. Both balconies on that last block.”
“Occupational.”
“I know, but I do it differently. I look at who’s been standing in the same doorway since we turned off Canal.”
I looked back. A man in a Saints jersey stood outside a bar, phone in hand, with a sweating beer dripping condensation onto the sidewalk. “That one.”
“He’s waiting for someone. He keeps checking the door instead of the street.”
“Solid observational skills.”
