Dixie City Jam (Dave Robicheaux 7)

She leaned forward with her face in her hands, sobbing. There were white places the size of nickels with raw cuts inside them all over her scalp.

'I'll be right back,' I said.

The man in cuffs on the floor was trembling.

'I took her to the bathroom, I give her food when I wasn't supposed to,' he said.

'Where's your phone?'

'On the desk,' he said, exhaling the words like a man who knows the fury and intensity of the world is about to move past him.

I called 911 and asked for an ambulance and a sheriffs car.

'Here's how it shakes out, partner,' I said to the man on the floor. 'You're probably going down as an accessory to assault and battery, kidnapping, and anything else the locals can dream up. But no matter how you cut it, it's a serious bounce. You want to tell me where he is, I'll see what I can do for you later.'

'He knows how to get to people. Anywhere. Lock-down, isolation, Witness Protection Program. There's white guys even paid the Black Guerrillas to protect them. It didn't work.'

'Last chance.'

'Him and Marie, this morning, they got excited about something in a newspaper. Then they took off.'

'Where's the newspaper?'

'I burned it in the trash barrel. With her hair I swept up. I was trying to keep the place clean, and I go down on a kidnapping beef. You tell me that's fair, man.'

I heard sirens in the distance, outside the window, a black man was looking up the street.

'I don't want to be rough on you, but I'd reconsider my attitude about cooperating,' I said to the man in handcuffs. 'When we nail Buchalter, he's going to find out we talked to you first. Who do you think he's going to blame his problems on?'

His face turned ashen.

I rode in the ambulance with Martina to the hospital, then used the phone at the Harrison County Sheriff's Department to call home and Clete's office. I recorded a long message on his machine, assured him Martina was going to be all right, and left him the number of the hospital.

But I would soon discover that I wasn't thinking clearly. I called Ben Motley.

'It's Saturday afternoon. Believe it or not, Robicheaux, I'd like forty-eight hours without thinking about pus bags.'

'Buchalter doesn't take weekends off,' I said.

'You got the woman back. You traced Buchalter to his nest. Count your blessings. Ease up.'

'Now's the time to staple him to the wall, Ben. Call Fart, Barf, and Itch in New Orleans for me.'

'What else?'

'Nothing.' Then I happened to glance at a deputy across the room who was eating a sandwich with his feet on the desk and reading the sports page in the newspaper.

'Wait a minute. Do you have this morning's Times-Picayune?'

'What do you want?'

'Look in the personals for me.'

'That's what they do when they're bored over in Vice.'

'Come on, Ben.'

He put down the phone, then I heard newspaper pages rattling.