'Stay behind the tape, Robicheaux,' he said.
'I can talk him out of there.'
'You're out of your jurisdiction.'
Even in the rain his breath was heated and stale.
'Nobody needs to get hurt here, Nate,' I said.
'Purcel dealt the play, not me. You know what? I think he's been looking for this moment all his life.'
'Have you called him on the phone?'
'That's a good idea, isn't it? I'd really like to do that. Except he tore it out of the wall and wrapped it around a guy's throat. Then he rammed the guy through the front window.'
'The Calucci brothers are mobbed up. It's some kind of personal beef between them and Clete, you know it is. You don't call out a SWAT team on barroom bullshit.'
'We've got a vigilante loose in New Orleans, too. I think Purcel's a perfect suspect.'
I could feel my palms open and close at my sides.
Baxter was talking again to the cop in the vest, pointing at a high area on the levee.
'You're not going to get away with this,' I said.
'End of conversation, Robicheaux.'
'Clete stuck your head in a toilet bowl in a bar on Decatur,' I said. 'You didn't report it because he knew you were taking freebies from street hookers in the Quarter. That's what all this is about, Nate.'
Four white cops, as well as the black woman, were staring at us now. The skin around Nate Baxter's right eye was pinched like a marksman's when he sights along a rifle barrel. He started to speak, but I didn't give him the chance.
I held my Iberia Parish Sheriff's Department badge high above my head and walked toward the front door of the bar.
Clete had dropped the Venetian blinds over all the windows and was leaning on the bar counter, one foot on the rail, drinking Mexican rum from a shot glass and sucking on a salted lime. He wore his powder blue porkpie hat slanted on the front of his head, his pants hanging two inches below his navel. His round, pink face was smiling and happy, his green eyes lighted with an alcoholic shine. Through one eyebrow and across the bridge of his nose was a scar, as thick as a bicycle patch, perforated with stitch holes, where he had been bashed with a pipe when he was a kid in the Irish Channel. As always, his tropical print shirt looked like it was about to split on his massive shoulders.
The bar was empty. Rain was blowing through the broken front window and dripping off the Venetian blinds.
'What's happenin', Streak?' he said.
'Are you losing your mind?'
'Harsh words, noble mon. Lighten up.'
'That's Nate Baxter out there. He'd like to paint the woodwork with both of us.'
'That's why I didn't go out there. Some of those other guys don't like PI's, either.' He looked at his watch and tapped on the crystal with his fingernail. 'You want a Dr Pepper?'
'I want us both to walk out of here. We're going to throw your piece in front of us, too.'
'What's the hurry? Have a Dr Pepper. I'll put some cherries and ice in it.'
'Clete—'
'I told you, everything's copacetic. Now, disengage, noble mon. Nobody rattles the old Bobbsey Twins from Homicide.' He took a hit from the shot glass, sucked on his sliced lime, and smiled at me.
'It's time to boogie, partner,' I said.
He looked again at his watch.