Wrong Side of the Law

Chapter 1-3

Dan left New Orleans the same night he’d packed up his things, driving out of the city—and then the state—in his old Volvo hatchback. When he pulled away from the apartment building he thought morosely, This car has been more loyal than any man I’ve ever met, up to and definitely including Paul.

While he drove north, staying on I-55, he began thinking about what his future had in store for him. He was dead certain it didn’t include law enforcement anymore. Paul had been right about one thing; Dan used every dirty trick in the book to bring down the people he went after. ‘What’s good for the goose…’ had been his motto and he stuck by it until the end.

Then Pichot turned the tables on me. I suppose it was inevitable it would happen sometime, but Lieutenant Barker could have had my back. He could have turned it over to IA and let them make the call. He smiled grimly. Maybe he would have, if I’d kept my damned mouth shut.

He pulled into Jackson, Mississippi three hours after leaving New Orleans and decided to find dinner and a motel. Not that he was hungry but he was smart enough to know he’d better eat something, since breakfast was a distant memory and lunch hadn’t happened.

He found a cheap motel on the north side of the city, checked in, then went in search of the restaurant the desk clerk had recommended. It turned out to be a combo bar and family diner but at least it was fairly empty. That suited Dan just fine. He wasn’t in the mood for noisy kids or rowdy drunks. After ordering meatloaf, which he figured was safe, and a beer, he leaned back, staring out of the window at the passing traffic.

So where to? Keep heading north? Taking out his phone, intending on bringing up Google Maps, he noticed he had two messages, both of them from Paul. Without listening to them, he pressed ‘delete’. Once he had the map site open, he traced I-55 to see where it went. Memphis? St. Louis? Chicago? Chicago might not be bad. Easy enough to get lost there and start a new life. Then again, I might be better off going west. He checked the map again. Dallas? No f*****g way. Albuquerque? Maybe. Or…head to the mountains. Buy me a little cabin. He laughed at that idea. Still, heading toward Colorado or Wyoming maybe wouldn’t be such a bad idea at that.

“And then what?” he muttered.

“Sir?”

He looked up to find the waitress standing there with his dinner.

“Sorry. Just trying to figure out my life,” he told her, flashing her a smile as he closed his phone and stuck it back in his jacket pocket.

“Sometimes you just have to take what comes along and deal with it.” She rested a hip against the back of the bench opposite him. “And hope it works out.”

“Yeah. That’s what I’m trying to do. I just have to decide where. I was thinking out west.” Dan wasn’t certain why he was talking to her other than that she had a kind face.

“If you’re partial to big cities, try Phoenix or Denver.”

“You’ve been there I take it?” he asked before taking a bite of the meatloaf. “Hey, this isn’t half bad.”

She chuckled. “As the joke says, it’s not half good either. But it’s edible. And yeah. I have a cousin who lives in Denver. Definitely big but still not like back east or up north. Chicago…” She gave a mock shudder. “My brother went up there to live. Left a month later. Said it was too dirty and dangerous. I visited Phoenix once. Talk about hot! Dayum.”

Dan laughed, but as far as he was concerned, her comments only cemented his decision to head west in the morning. All he had to do was stop at the local branch of the bank he’d used in New Orleans and clean out his account. Not that there’s all that much in it, but with luck it should last me for a couple of months.