Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux 8)

“He say, ”I ain't come here to argue wit' you. Where Robicheaux at?“

”I say, “He ain't here and that's all you got to know.” I say, “Vas ten, neg. ”That's it. We don't need them kind, Dave.“

He used a half-mooned Clorox bottle to scoop the ashes out of the split oil barrel that we used for a barbecue pit. I waited for him to continue.

”What was his name?“ I said. ”What kind of car did he drive?“

”He didn't have no car, and I ain't ax him his name.“

”Where'd he go?“

”Wherever people go when you run them down the road with a two-by-fo'.“

”Batist, I don't think it's a good idea to treat people like that.“

”One like that always work for the white man, Dave.“

”I beg your pardon?“

”Everyting he do make white people believe the rest of us ain't got the right to ax for mo' than we got.“

It was one of those moments when I knew better than to contend with Batist's reasoning or experience.

”Someting else I want to talk wit' you about,“ he said. ”Look in yonder my shelves, my pig feet, my graton, tell me what you t'ink of that.“

I opened the screen door to the shop but hated to look. The jar of pickled hogs' feet was smashed on the floor; half-eaten candy bars, hard-boiled eggs, and cracklings, called graton in Cajun French, were scattered on the counter. In the midst of it all, locked in a wire crab trap, Tripod, Alafair's three-legged coon, stared back at me.

I picked him up in my arms and carried him outside. He was a beautiful coon, with silver-tipped fur and black rings on his tail, a fat stomach and big paws that could turn doorknobs and twist tops off of jars.

”I'll send Alf down to clean it up,“ I said.

”It ain't right that coon keep messing up the shop, Dave.“

”It looks to me like somebody left a window open.“

”That's right. Somebody. “Cause I closed every one of them.”

I stopped.

“I didn't come down here last night, partner, if that's what you're saying.”

He straightened up from a table, with the wiping rag in his hand. His face seemed to gather with a private concern. Two fishermen with a minnow bucket and a beer cooler stood by the door of the shop and looked at us impatiently.

“You wasn't down here last night, Dave?” he asked.

“No. What is it?”

He inserted his thumb and forefinger in the watch pocket of the bell-bottom dungarees he wore.

“This was on the windowsill this morning. I t'ought it was some-ting you found on the flo',” he said, and placed the oblong piece of stamped metal in my hand. “What you call them tings?”

“A dog tag.” I read the name on it, then read it again.

“What's wrong?” he said.

I felt my hand close on the tag, felt the edges bite into my palm.

“You know I cain't read, me. I didn't want to give you so meting bad, no.”