Dixie City Jam (Dave Robicheaux 7)

'What's going to make you happy, Max?'

He smiled. I felt my pulse swelling in my throat; I rubbed the top of my knuckles with my palm. I kept my eyes flat and looked at the curtain of trumpet vine that puffed in the breeze.

'I want the two hundred large Tommy Lonighan owes me and Bobo,' he said. 'That fucking mick is gonna die and take the debt to the grave. You twist him right, we get our money, then I don't have no memory about troubles with Clete Purcel.'

'Big order, Max.'

'You know anything easy? Like they say, life's a bitch, then you get to be dead for a long time.'

The ash from his cigar blew on my slacks. I brushed it off, then put on my sunglasses and looked out into the sunlight.

'What, you sentimental about Lonighan or something?' he said.

'No.'

'That's good. Because he's been jobbing you. Him and Hippo Bimstine, both.'

'Oh?'

'That's a surprise? People like you rip me up, Robicheaux. You think Jews are martyrs, the Irish are fun guys singing "Rosie O'Grady" on the corner, and Italians are colostomy bags. Tell me I'm wrong.'

'You were going to say something about Tommy Blue Eyes?'

'Yeah, he got his fat mick mush full of booze and was laughing about how you trust Hippo Bimstine and think he's big shit because he's got all these liberal causes.'

'I see.'

'You see? I don't think you see shit. Lonighan says Hippo stole some stuff out of the public library about that Nazi sub so you wouldn't find out what's inside it.'

'No kidding?'

'Yeah, no fucking kidding.'

I leaned forward and picked at the calluses on my palm. The breeze was drowsy with the smell of chrysanthemums and dead birthday candles.

'You and I have something in common,' I said.

'I don't think so.'

'I went down on a murder beef once. Did you know that?'

'I'm supposed to be impressed?'

'Here's the trade, Max. Take the contract off Clete and I stay out of your life.'

'You ain't in my life.'

'Here's the rest of it.'

'I ain't interested,' he said. 'I tell you what. It's my nephew's birthday, you came out to my mother's house and showed respect, you didn't act like the drunk fuck everybody says you are. That means I'm letting all this stuff slide, and that includes what you done to me out at Lonighan's place. So you can tell dick-brain the score's even, he's getting a free pass he don't deserve, I got businesses to run and I don't have time for this shit. Are we clear on this now?'

'I hope you're a man of your word, Max.'

'Fuck you and get outta here.'

When I opened the gate and let myself out, I noticed a tangle of ornamental iron roses tack-welded in the center of the pikes. The cluster was uneven where one rose had been snapped loose from its base. I rubbed the ball of my thumb over the sharp edges of the broken stem and looked back at Max. His eyes had never left me. He rotated an unlit cigar in the center of his mouth.

The AA meeting is held on the second floor of a brick church that was used as a field hospital for Confederate wounded in 1863, then later as a horse stable by General Banks's Union cavalry. Outside, the streets are wet and cool and empty, the storefronts shuttered under the wood colonnades, the trees still dripping with rain against a sky that looks like a red-tinged ink wash.