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

"All right, we can try it for a couple of days," Bootsie said. "But, Dave, I don't want this man talking anymore about his visions or whatever it is he thinks he sees out on the lake."

"You think that's where I got it from, huh?" I smiled.

"In a word, yes."

"He's a pretty good guy when he's not wired. He just sees the world a little differently than some."

"Oh, wonderful."

Alafair got up from her chair and peered at an angle through the screen into the backyard.

"Oooops," she said, and put her hand over her mouth.

"What is it?" Bootsie said.

"Mr. Sykes just did the rainbow yawn."

"What?" I said.

"He vomited on the picnic table," Alafair said.

I waited until Bootsie and Alafair had driven off to the grocery store in town, then I went out into the backyard. Elrod's slacks and shirt were pasted to his skin with water from the bayou and grimed with mud and grass stains. He had washed down the top of the picnic table with the garden hose, and he now sat slack-jawed on the bench with his knees splayed, his shoulders stooped, his hands hanging between his thighs. His unshaved face had the gray color of spoiled pork.

I handed him a cup of coffee.

"Thanks," he said.

I winced at his breath.

"If you stay on at our house, do you think you can keep the cork in the jug?" I said.

"I can't promise it. No, sir, I surely can't promise it."

"Can you try?"

He lifted his eyes up to mine. The iris of his right eye had a clot of blood in it as big as my fingernail.

"Nothing I ever tried did any good," he said. "Antabuse, psychiatrists, a dry-out at the navy hospital, two weeks hoeing vegetables on a county P-farm. Sooner or later I always went back to it, Mr. Robicheaux."

"Well, here's the house rules, partner," I said, and I went through them one at a time with him. He kept rubbing his whiskers with the flat of his hand and spitting between his knees.

"I guess I look downright pathetic to you, don't I?" he said.

"Forget what other people think. Don't drink, don't think, and go to meetings. If you do that, and you do it for yourself, you'll get out of all this bullshit."

"I got that kid beat up real bad. It was awful. Balboni kept jumping up in the air, spinning around, and cracking the sole of his foot across the kid's head. You could hear the skin split against the bone."

He placed his palms over his ears, then removed them.

"You stay away from Balboni," I said. "He's not your problem. Let the law deal with him."

"Are you kidding? The guy does whatever he wants. He's even getting his porno dirt bag into the film."

"What porno dirt bag?"

"He brought up some guy of his from New Orleans, some character who thinks he's the new Johnny Wadd. He's worked the guy into a half dozen scenes in the picture. Look, Mr. Robicheaux, I'm getting the shakes. How about cutting me a little slack? Two raw eggs in a beer with a shot on the side. That's all I'll need. Then I won't touch it."

"I'm afraid not, partner."