What drove the engines of a man like Will Buchalter?
The conclusion I came to wasn't a pleasant one. He was a sadist, pure and simple, and, like all sadists, he developed erotic fixations about the people and animals he planned to hurt in a methodical way. The pain he imposed upon his victim was intended to humiliate and degrade and was always administered personally, by his hand, only a breath away from the victim's face. As with all of his kind he had found an ideological purpose that justified his perversity, but in reality the cries with which he could fill a room made his back teeth grind softly together while his loins tingled like a swarm of bees.
The phone on my desk rang. It was Lucinda Bergeron.
'Your friend over here is becoming a pain in the ass to a lot of people,' she said.
'Who?'
'Cletus Purcel.'
'What's wrong with Clete?'
'What's right with him?'
'Give it a break, Lucinda.'
'He tried to turn somebody into a human bell clapper. Do you know a character by the name of Dogshit Dolowitz?'
'No Duh Dolowitz, the merry prankster?'
'Yeah, I guess he's called that, too. Your friend crammed a garbage can over his head, then pounded the can all over an alley with a baseball bat.'
'What for?'
'Ask him… Wait a minute.' She set the phone down and closed a door. 'Listen, Detective, Nate Baxter would like to put your buddy's ham hocks in a skillet. I'd have a serious talk with him.'
'Is Zoot back home yet?'
'I don't believe you. I think you must come from outer space.'
'You're telling me he should be living over at Tommy Lonighan's?'
'I thought I was doing a favor for your friend.'
'I appreciate it.'
I heard her make a sound like she was digesting a thumbtack.
'Take it easy,' I said.
'God, I hate talking to you!' Then she caught her breath and started again. 'Listen, your buddy hasn't been arraigned yet, but my guess is his bond will be around two thousand dollars. You want me to give him a message?'
'No Duh pressed charges?'
'No, Nate Baxter did. Disturbing the peace and resisting arrest. Good-bye, Detective Robicheaux. In all honesty I don't think I'm up to many more conversations with you.'
She hung up the phone.
I called her back.
'Look, I can't take off work just to bail a friend out of the slam. Why'd Clete knock Dolowitz around?'
'It has something to do with the Calucci brothers.'
'What about them?'
'I don't know,' she said, the exasperation rising in her voice. 'Nate Baxter's handling it. What's that tell you, Robicheaux, besides the fact he's got a major hard-on for Purcel?'