Dixie City Jam (Dave Robicheaux 7)

'I thought you knew.' His eyes were close-set, like BB's. Blotches of color broke in his face. 'You guys don't use telephones, you don't talk to each other?'

'What is it?' I said.

'Late yesterday, I spilled my guts, everything,' he said. 'I haven't been charged yet, but they'll do that Monday.'

I waited. The room was ablaze with sunlight and color—the deep blue tile floor, the cane deck furniture and canary yellow cushions—but in its midst Tommy looked stricken, like a man who had mistakenly thought the source of his abiding shame had at least become known and accepted if not forgiven.

'Max and Bobo wanted to scare the coloreds out of the trade in the projects,' he said. 'They used Manny to do three guys. They told him these coloreds were evil spirits and had to be killed 'cause they were selling dope and corrupting little kids. He comes from a bunch of headhunters or cannibals that's got a flower and death cult or something. Or maybe Max made him think he did after he got ahold of this documentary on these prehistoric people that's running around in South America. I don't know about that stuff.'

He scowled into space. White clouds were tumbling in the sky, leaves blowing across the freshly clipped lawn.

'You think I'm toe jam, don't you?' he said.

I kept my face empty and brushed at the crystal on my watch with my thumb.

'A couple of button guys did the other hits, I heard Jamaicans out of Miami,' he said. 'It's been putting boards in my head. I feel miserable. It's like nothing's any good anymore. There's some kind of smell won't wash out of my clothes. Here, you smell it?'

He extended his shirt cuff under my nose.

'Where you going?' he said.

'I've got to find Clete.'

'Stay. I'll fix some chicken sandwiches.'

'Sorry.'

He blew his nose in a Kleenex and dropped the Kleenex in a paper bag full of crumpled tissue, many of them flecked with blood.

'You seen Hippo?' he said.

'We're not on good terms, I'm afraid.'

'He ain't such a bad guy.' He stared disjointedly at the leaves blowing against the windows. 'You see him again, tell him I said that.'

'Sure.'

'You want to take some movie cassettes? I get them for two bucks from a guy sells dubs in Algiers.'

'Dubs?'

'What world you hang out in, Dave? Anything that's electronically recorded today gets dubbed and resold. Those music tapes you see in truck stops, you think Kenny Rogers sells his tapes for three-ninety-five? What, I'm saying the wrong thing again?'

'No, I just haven't been thinking clearly about something, Tommy. See you around.'

I went by Clete's office on St. Ann in the Quarter. It was locked, the blinds drawn, the mailbox inside the brick archway stuffed with letters. I used a pay phone in Jackson Square to call Ben Motley at his home.

'Why didn't you tell me Lonighan made a statement yesterday?' I said.

'It happened late. I don't know how it's going to go down, anyway… Look, the bottom line is Lonighan implicated himself and the Indian. Lonighan's already a dead man, and the Indian's a retard. The interpreter says he'll testify he works for Spiderman if you want him to. The prosecutor's office isn't calling news conferences.'

'What's the status on the Caluccis?'

'That's what I'm trying to tell you, Robicheaux. There isn't any. We'll see what happens Monday. But we got an old problem, too. The Caluccis go down, Nate Baxter goes down. He's going to screw up the investigation any way he can.'

I felt my hand squeeze tightly around the receiver. The sunlight through the restaurant window was like a splinter of glass in the eye.

'Cheer up,' he said. 'We're getting there.'