Dixie City Jam (Dave Robicheaux 7)

I lifted my eyes to his and felt my lips part dryly.

'What is it, Dave? Say it,' Buchalter said.

My lips felt like bruised rubber; the words were clotted with membrane in my throat.

'It's all right, take your time,' Buchalter said. 'You've had a hard night… Get him a drink of water.'

A moment later Buchalter held a tin cup gingerly to my lips. The water sluiced over my chin and down my throat; I gagged on my chest.

'Dave, I understand your pain. It's the pain of a soldier and a brave man. Just whisper to me. That's all it takes,' Buchalter said.

Hatch was bent down toward me, too, his hands on his knees, his face elfish and merry. Buchalter leaned his ear toward my mouth, waiting. I could see the oil and grain in his skin, the glistening convolutions inside his ear.

I pushed the words out of my chest, felt my lips moving, my eyes blinking with each syllable.

A paleness like the color of bone came into Buchalter's face. One hobnailed boot scratched against the cement as he rose to his feet.

'What'd 'e say?' Freddy asked.

'He said Will was a cunt,' Hatch answered, his grin scissoring through his beard. He and Freddy rocked on the balls of their feet, hardly able to keep their mirth down inside themselves.

Then Hatch said, 'Sorry, Will. We're just laughing at the guy. He hasn't figured out yet who's on his side.'

'That's right, Will,' Freddy said. ''E's a stupid fouk for sure. Go have breakfast. Me and Hatch'll finish it up here.'

But the insult had passed out of Buchalter's face now. He began pulling on a pair of abbreviated gray leather gloves, the kind a race driver might wear, with holes that allowed the ends of the fingers to extend above the webbing. He dried each of his armpits with a towel, then positioned himself in front of me.

'Stand him up,' he said.

'Maybe that's not a good idea, Will,' Freddy said. 'Unless you've given up. Remember what happened out in Idaho. Like an egg breaking, it was.'

'I say tear up his ticket, Will,' Hatch said. 'He's in with Hippo Bimstine. You're gonna trust what he tells you? Rip his ass.'

Then, as though he had given permission for his own anger to feed and stoke and fan itself, Hatch's hands began to shake, his teeth glittered inside his beard, and he wrenched me under one arm and tried to tug me upward against the wood post, his breath whistling in his nostrils.

'You know what's lower than a Jew?' he said. 'An Aryan who works for one. You think you're stand-up, motherfucker? A punk like you couldn't cut a week on Camp J. See how you like the way Will swings.'

Freddy grabbed my other arm, and they raked me upward against the post like a sack of feed. I could feel splinters biting into my forearms, my ankles twisting sideways with my weight.

'Get your fouking head up,' Freddy said.

'Strap his belt around his neck,' Hatch said.

'Step back, both of you,' Buchalter said.

Strands of hair were glued in my eyes, and a foul odor rose from my lap. I heard Buchalter's boots scrape on the cement as he set himself.

'I'm going to hit you only three times, Dave, then we'll talk again,' Buchalter said. 'If you want to stop before then, you just have to tell me.'

'Your juices are about to fly, Mr. Robicheaux,' Freddy said.

Then the three men froze. The Nazi flag rippled along the cinder blocks with pockets of air from the floor fan.

'It's glass breaking,' Freddy said.

'I thought you said the Negro was tucked away,' Buchalter said.

'E was, Will. I locked 'im in the paint closet,' Freddy said.