Dixie City Jam (Dave Robicheaux 7)

'It's Clete Purcel,' she said. 'He looks half frozen.'

'With a sunk boat,' I said. 'Clete's no sailor, either. Which means he probably went out with somebody who didn't make it to that ladder.'

'Who?'

'I don't like to think about it.'

'Who?'

'The elderly preacher comes to mind.' I went back inside the cabin. 'Zoot, take us on into the rig. But try to keep it between us and that salvage ship so whoever's onboard doesn't get a good look at us.'

'It's Buchalter and them Nazis?' he said. I saw his long, ebony hands tighten involuntarily on the wheel.

'Maybe it's just an ordinary salvage group trying to raise some drilling equipment.'

'There's some oil field junk down out here, but not yonder, Mr. Dave.'

'Okay, podna.'

'I know what you got in that canvas bag. If the time come, is one of them for me?'

'You have any experience with firearms?'

'A lot.'

'With what kind?'

'The kind you shoot things wit'… Me and my cousin, we gone under the Huey Long Bridge and shot bottles all over the place.'

'Look, Zoot, we want the people on that salvage boat to think we're a fishing party. Can you set the outriggers and put some trolling rods in the sockets while I take the wheel?'

'Sure,' he said, but his eyes were still on the canvas bag.

'Just keep your hood tied on your head, too, in case they put binoculars on us.'

'You ain't gonna let me have one of them guns?'

'If that's Buchalter out there, we'll call the Coast Guard.'

'Then why you bring all them guns?'

I'd never guess you were Lucinda's son, I thought to myself.

I kept the bow pointed in a straight line at the rig and the salvage ship. The sun had broken through a bank of lavender and black clouds, and you could see flying fish and the stringlike tentacles and swollen pink air sacs of Portuguese man-o'-wars in the swell. The day should have warmed, but the wind had risen again and the tidal current looked green and cold flowing under the oil platform, rolling the capsized boat against the pilings and the steel ladder.

To the south there was a frothy white line along the horizon where the waves were starting to cap.

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Zoot worked his way forward onto the bow, and I cut the gas and let the cabin cruiser drift into the ladder that extended out of the water, upward to the platform where Clete Purcel was leaning over the rail, staring down at us, the sandy curls of hair on his shoulders and chest blowing dryly in the wind.

He came down the ladder fast, his face pointed downward, his love handles flexing, his huge buttocks working as he clanged onto each rung. When he dropped onto the bow, he kept his face pointed in the opposite direction from the salvage ship and made his way aft along the side of the cabin.

His teeth were chattering when he came through the hatchway.

'Streak, I love you,' he said. 'I knew my old podjo wouldn't let me down. I ain't kidding you, I was turning to an ice cube up there. I tried to wrap myself up in a piece of canvas, but it blew away.'

'What happened?'