In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead (Dave Robicheaux 6)

"Mr. Twinky do everyt'ing, suh."

I walked inside the warehouse to a cluttered, windowed office whose door was already open. The walls and cork boards were papered with invoices, old church calendars, unframed photographs of employees and fishermen with thick-bellied large-mouth bass draped across their hands. Lemoyne's face was pink and well-shaped, his eyebrows sandy, his gray hair still streaked in places with gold. He sat erect in his chair, his eyes behind his rimless glasses concentrated on the papers in his hands. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and a loose burnt-orange tie (a seersucker coat hung on the back of the chair) and a plastic pen holder in his pocket; his brown shoes were shined; his fingernails were trimmed and clean. But he had the large shoulders and hands of a workingman, and he radiated the kind of quiet, hard-earned physical power that in some men neither age nor extra weight seems to diminish.

There was no air conditioning in his offi

ce, and he had weighted all the papers on his desk to keep them from blowing away in the breeze from the oscillating fan.

After I had introduced myself, he gazed out at the loading dock a moment, then lifted his hands from the desk blotter and put them down again as though somehow we had already reached a point in our conversation where there was nothing left to be said.

"Can I sit down?" I said.

"Go ahead. But I think you're wasting your time here."

"It's been a slow day." I smiled at him.

"Mr. Robicheaux, I don't have any idea in the world why either you or that Mexican woman is interested in me. Could you be a little bit more forthcoming?"

"Actually, until yesterday I don't believe I ever heard your name."

"What should I make of that?"

"The problem is you and a few others tried to stick a couple of thumbtacks in my boss's head." I smiled again.

"Listen, that woman came into my office yesterday and accused me of working with the Mafia."

"Why would she do that?"

"You tell me, please."

"You own half of a security service with Murphy Doucet?"

"That's right, I surely do. Can you tell me what y'all are looking for, why y'all are in my place of business?"

"When you do business with a man like Julie Balboni, you create a certain degree of curiosity about yourself."

"I don't do business with this man, and I don't know anything about him. I bought stock in this motion picture they're making. A lot of business people around here have. I've never met Julie Balboni and I don't plan to. Are we clear on this, sir?"

"My boss says you're a respected man. It looks like you have a good business, too. I'd be careful who I messed with, Mr. Lemoyne."

"I'm not interested in pursuing the subject." He fixed his glasses, squared his shoulders slightly, and picked up several sheets of paper in his hands.

I drummed my fingers on the arms of my chair. Outside I could hear truck doors slamming and gears grinding.

"I guess I didn't explain myself very well," I said.

"You don't need to," he said, and looked up at the clock on the wall.

"You're a solid businessman. There's nothing wrong with buying stock in a movie company. There's nothing wrong with providing a security service for it, either. But a lady who's not much taller than a fireplug asks you a couple of questions and you try to drop the dime on her. That doesn't seem to fit, Mr. Lemoyne."

"There're people out there committing rapes, armed robberies, selling crack to children, God only knows what else, but you and that woman have the nerve to come in here and question me because I have a vague business relationship with a movie production. You don't think that's reason to make someone angry? What's wrong with you people?"

"Are your employees union?"

"No, they're not."

"But your partner in your security service is a Teamster steward. I think you're involved in some strange contradictions, Mr. Lemoyne."

He rose from his chair and lifted a set of keys out of his desk drawer.