Dixie City Jam (Dave Robicheaux 7)

'All right, thanks a lot,' I heard him say. 'Just set it on the gallery. I'll carry it in later.'

'I'll bring it around. It's no trouble.'

'No, man. You don't need to do that.'

'It's going to rain. We're responsible for water damage.'

Chuck came back into the kitchen, the skin around one eye twitching with anxiety.

'Calm down,' Buchalter said. 'Go out front and help the man. Just keep him away from the back.'

'I'm cool, I'm cool.'

'I can see that, all right.'

'I don't need you on my case, Will. This one gets fucked up, I'm going down on a habitual.'

'It's better you not talk anymore, Chuck.'

'You don't get it. I been down four times. I don't need this kind of shit in my life. Now there's this fucking weird guy for UPS. I'm telling you, I don't need this kind of shit, man. I ain't up for it.'

'You're under a strain, Chuck. Wait a minute, what do you mean "weird guy"?'

'He looks like an ape with a UPS cap on its head. Wearing fucking Budweiser shorts. You don't call that weird?'

Buchalter's hand pinched at his mouth. I could feel the heat from his body, smell the mixture of sweat and deodorant secreting under his arms.

'Go out the front door, Chuck,' he said. 'You talk to the man out front. You keep him there. That's your assignment. You understand me?'

'Why me? I don't like this, Will. You want to 'front the guy, you 'front the fucking guy.' Then the skin of Chuck's face drew tight against the bone, stretching his eyebrows like penciled grease marks.

'The sonofabitch is coming around the side again,' he said.

'I'll handle it. You keep these two quiet,' Buchalter said.

'You wouldn't listen to me, man. Now it's turning to shit. I can feel it.'

'Shut up, Chuck. If it goes sour, you make sure Mr. and Mrs. Robicheaux catch the bus,' Buchalter said. 'If he doesn't work for us, he doesn't work for the Jews, either.'

'You want to clip a cop? With our prints all over the place? Are you out of your goddamn mind?'

Buchalter raised his ringers for the cross-eyed man to be silent, then dropped the Beretta into his pants pocket and walked out onto the back porch, with a smile at the corner of his mouth that looked like an elongated keyhole.

Chuck picked up his crossbow and leveled it at my throat. His hands looked round and white and small against the bow's dark metal surfaces. He breathed loudly through his nose and shook a fly out of his face. Large, solitary drops of rain began hitting in the trees outside.

I heard Buchalter open the screen door out on the porch.

'Okay? Is that everything now?' he said.

'I need you to sign.'

'All right.'

'You got a pen? Mine must have fallen off my clipboard.'

'No, I don't. And I'm rather busy right now.'

'Maybe it's in my pocket—'