He wore dark jeans, running shoes, a green pullover smock from the hospital. His black hair was thick and curly, his jaws unshaved, his nails bitten to the quick; a sour smell rose from his armpits. We stared at him without speaking.
The room was windowless and bare except for a wood table and three chairs. He opened and closed his hands on top of the table and kept scuffing his shoes under the chair. I took his left wrist and turned up his forearm. “How often do you fix, Roland?” I asked. “I've been selling at the blood bank.”
“I see.”
“You got an aspirin?” He glanced at Helen Soileau. She had a broad face whose expression you never wanted to misread. Her blonde hair looked like a lacquered wig, her figure a sack of potatoes. She wore a pair of blue slacks and a starched short-sleeve white shirt, her badge above her left breast; her handcuffs were stuck through the back of her gunbelt.
“Where's your shirt?” I said.
“It had blood all over it. Mine.”
“The report says you tried to run,” Helen said.
“Look, I asked for a lawyer. I don't have to say anything else, right?”
“That's right,” I said. “But you already told us you boosted the car.
So we can ask you about that, can't we?”
“Yeah, I boosted it. So what else you want? Big nicking deal.”
“Would you watch your language, please?” I said.
“What is this, a crazy house? You got a clown making fun of me out on the road, then beating the shit out of me, and I'm supposed to worry about my fucking language.”
“Did the owner of the car load all her possessions in it and give you the keys so you wouldn't have to wire it? That's a strange story, Roland,” I said.
“It was parked like that in the driveway. I know what you're trying to do … Why's she keep staring at me?”
“I don't know.”
“I took the car. I was smoking dope in it, too. I ain't saying anything else .. . Hey, look, she's got some kind of problem?” He held his finger close to his chest when he pointed at Helen, as though she couldn't see it.
“You want some slack, Roland? Now's the time,” I said. Before he could answer, Helen Soileau picked up the wastebasket by the rim and swung it with both hands across the side of his face. He crashed sideways to the floor, his mouth open, his eyes out of focus. Then she hit him again, hard, across the back of the head, before I could grab her arms. Her muscles were like rocks. She shook my hands off and hurled the can and its contents of cigarette butts, ashes, and candy wrappers caroming off his shoulders.
“You little pissant,” she said. “You think two homicide detectives are wasting their time with a fart like you over a car theft. Look at me when I talk to you!”
“Helen!” I said softly.
“Go outside and leave us alone,” she said.
“Nope,” I said, and helped Roland Broussard back into his chair. “Tell Detective Soileau you're sorry, Roland.”
“For what?”
“For being a wiseass. For treating us like we're stupid.”
“I apologize.”
“Helen!” I looked at her.
“I'm going to the John. I'll be back in five minutes,” she said.
“You're the good guy now?” he said, after she closed the door behind her.
“It's no act, podna. I don't get along with Helen. Few people do. She smoked two perps in three years.” His eyes looked up into mine.
“Here's the lay of the land,” I said. “I believe you creeped that woman's duplex and stole her car, but you didn't have anything to do with the rest of it. That's what believe. That doesn't mean you won't take the fall for what happened in there. You get my drift?” He pinched his temples with his fingers, as though a piece of rusty wire were twisting inside his head.