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

"Good. Tell him that. I'm on my way to work. Dump him in a cab."

"What?"

"He's down there in your bait shop. Drunk. I think you have a serious hearing problem. Get some help."

He stuck a peppermint candy cane in the corner of his mouth and walked back down the slope to his automobile, his shoulders rolling under his polo shirt, his jaws cracking the candy between his teeth, his profile turned into the freshening breeze like a gladiator's.

Chapter 14

"You did what?" Bootsie said. She stared at me open-mouthed across the kitchen table.

I told her again.

"You threw him in the bayou? I don't believe it," she said.

"He's used to it. Don't worry about him."

"Mr. Sykes started fighting with Dave on the dock, Bootsie," Alafair said. "He was drunk and making a lot of noise in front of the customers. He wouldn't come up to the house like Dave told him."

Way to go, Alf, I thought.

"Where is he now?" Bootsie said, wiping her mouth with her napkin and starting to rise from her chair.

"Throwing up on the rose bushes, the last I saw him."

"Dave, that's disgusting," she said, and sat back down.

"Tell Elrod."

"Batist said he drank five beers without paying for them," Alafair said.

"What are you going to do about him?" Bootsie said. Then she turned her head and looked out the back screen. "Dave, he just went across the backyard."

"I think El has pulled his suction cups loose for a while, Boots."

"Suction cups?" Alafair said, her cereal spoon poised in front of her mouth.

"He's crawling around on his hands and knees. Do something," Bootsie said.

"That brings up a question I was going to ask you."

I saw the recognition grow in her eyes.

"The guy went up against Julie Balboni because of me," I said. "Or at least partly because of me."

"You want him to stay here? Dave, this is our home," she said.

"The guy's in bad shape."

"It's still our home. We can't open it up to every person who has a problem."

"The guy needs an AA friend or he's not going to make it. Look at him. He's pitiful. Should I take him down to the jail?"

Bootsie rested her fingers on her temples and stared at the sugar container.

"I'll make him a deal," I said. "The first time he takes a drink, he gets eighty-sixed back to Spanish Lake. He pays his share of the food, he doesn't tie up the telephone, he doesn't come in late."

"Why's he squirting the hose in his mouth?" Alafair said.