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

"He may be just a pimp, Lou."

"Yeah, but she got nailed on a prostitution charge when she was sixteen, right? That means the court gave somebody a lot of control over her life. What if a probation or parole officer had her selling out of her pants?"

"I saw the body. I think the guy who mutilated her has a furnace instead of a brain. I think he'd have a hard time hiding inside a white-collar environment."

"It was the pencil pushers who gave the world Auschwitz, Dave. Anyway, her prostitution bust was in Lafayette. I'll find out if her P.O. or social worker is still around."

"Okay, but I still believe we're after a pimp of some kind."

"Dave, if this guy's just a pimp, particularly if he's mobbed-up, he would have been in custody a long time ago. These are dumb guys. That's why they do what they do. Most of them couldn't get jobs cleaning gum off movie seats."

"So maybe Balboni's got a smart pimp working for him."

"No, this guy knows how things work from the inside. He sucked us both in on that deal at Red's Bar."

Lou had never gotten along with white-collar authority, in fact, was almost obsessed about it, and I wasn't going to argue with him.

"Let me know what you come up with," I said.

But he wasn't going to let it drop that easily.

"I've been in law enforcement for thirty-seven years," he said. "I've lost count of the lowlifes I've helped send up the road. Is Louisiana any better for it? You know the answer to that one. Face it. The real sonsofbitches are the ones we don't get to touch."

"Don't be too down, Lou." I told him about Julie line-driving a ball off the side of my head. Then I told him the rest of it. "I asked the paramedics who called in the report. They said it was anonymous. So I went down later and listened to the 911 tapes. It was a guy named Cholo Manelli. He's a—"

"Yeah, I know who he is. Cholo did that?"

"There's no mistaking that broken-nose Irish Channel accent."

"He owes you or something?"

"Not really. But he's an old-time mob soldier. He knows you don't antagonize cops unnecessarily. Maybe Julie's starting to lose control of his people."

"It's a thought. But stay away from Balboni till you get your shield back. Stay off baseball diamonds, too. For a sober guy you sure have a way of spitting in the lion's mouth."

After I hung up the phone I showered, dressed in a pair of seersucker slacks, brown loafers, a charcoal shirt with a gray and red striped tie, and got a haircut and a shoe shine in town. My scalp twitched when the barber's scissors clipped across the lump behind my ear. Through the front window I saw Julie Balboni's purple limo drive down Main Street. The barber stopped clipping. The shop was empty except for the shoe-shine man.

"Dave, how come that man's still around here?" the barber said. His round stomach touched lightly against my elbow.

"He hasn't made the right people mad at him."

"He ain't no good, that one. He don't have no bidness here."

"I think you're right, Sid."

He started clipping again. Then, almost as a casual afterthought, he said, "Y'all gonna get him out of town?"

"There're some business people making a lot of money off of Julie. I think they'd like to keep him around awhile."

His hands paused again, and he stepped around the side of the chair so I could see his face.

"That ain't the rest of us, no," he said. "We don't like having that man in New Iberia. We don't like his dope, we don't like his criminals he bring up here from New Orleans. You tell that man you work for we gonna 'member him when we vote, too."

"Could I buy you a cup of coffee and a doughnut this morning, Sid?"

A little later, with my hair still wet and combed, I walked out of the heat into the air-conditioned coolness of the sheriff's department and headed toward the sheriff's office. I glanced inside my office door as I passed it. Rosie was not inside but Rufus Arceneaux was, out of uniform now, dressed in a blue suit and tie and a silk shirt that had the bright sheen of tin. He was sitting behind my desk.

I leaned against the door jamb.