Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux 8)

“You recognize the other woman?”

“No.”

“She used to be a chicken for Sweet Pea Chaisson. I tried to help her get out of the life. Except we went a little bit beyond that.”

“Who cares?”

“I've got to turn this stuff in, Dave.”

“The hell you do.”

She was silent, waiting. “Do you have to prove you're an honest person?” I said. “And by doing so, cooperate with evil people in injuring yourself. That's not integrity, Helen, it's pride.” She returned the photo to the envelope, then studied the backs of her hands. Her fingers were thick and ring less square on the ends. “The only guy who comes to mind is that paramilitary fuck, what's his name, Tommy Carrol,” she said. “Maybe,” I said. But I was already remembering Sonny Boy's warning. “But why would he put this note on the envelope?” She turned it over so I could read the line someone had written with a felt pen- Keep your mind on parking tickets, Mujfy. “Why the look?”

“Sonny Marsallus. He told me not to send anything on this guy Emile Pogue through the federal computer. All those informational requests had your name on them, Helen.” She nodded, then I saw her face cloud with an expression that I had seen too often, on too many people, over the years. Suddenly they realize they have been arbitrarily selected as the victim of an individual or a group about whom they have no knowledge and against whom they've committed no personal offense. It's a solitary moment, and it's never a good one. I worked the envelope out from under her hands. “We could do all kinds of doo-dah with these photos, and in all probability none of it would lead anywhere,” I said. I slipped the photos facedown out of the envelope and walked with them into the kitchen. “So I'm making use of a Clete Purcel procedure here, which is, when the rules start working for the lowlifes, get a new set of rules.” I took a lucifer match from a box on the windowsill above the sink, scratched it on the striker, and held the flame to the corner of the photographs. The fire rippled and curled across the paper like water; I separated each sheet from the others to let the air and heat gather on the underside, the images, whatever they were, shrinking and disappearing into blackened cones while dirty strings of smoke drifted out the screen. Then I turned on the faucet and washed the ashes down the drain, wiped the sink clean with a paper towel and dropped it in the trash.

“You want to have some early lunch, then go to the office?” I said.

“Give me a minute to change.” Then she said, “Thanks for what you did.”

“forget it.”

“I'll say this only once,” she said. “Men are kind to women for one of two reasons. Either they want inside the squeeze box or they have-genuine balls and don't have to prove anything. When I said thank you, I meant it.”

There are compliments you don't forget.

Before I drove away I put the stiffened body of one of the dead coons in a vinyl garbage sack and placed it in the bed of my truck.

The investigation had gone nowhere since the night of Delia Landry's murder. I had made a mistake and listened to Sonny Boy's deprecation of the mob and his involvement with them. Sweet Pea Chaisson's name had surfaced again, and Sweet Pea didn't change toilet paper rolls without first seeking permission of the Giacano family. If the spaghetti heads had started to crash and burn back in the seventies, it was a secret to everyone except Sonny.

The heir to the old fat boy, Didoni Giacano, also known as Didi Gee, whose logo had been the bloodstained baseball bat that rode in the backseat of his Caddy convertible when he was a loan collector and who sometimes held down the hand of an adversary in an aquarium filled with piranhas, was his nephew, a businessman first, a gangster second, but with a bizarre talent for clicking psychotic episodes on and off at will-John Polycarp Giacano, also known as Johnny Carp and Polly Gee.

Friday morning I found him in his office out by a trash dump in Jefferson Parish. His eyes, nose, and guppy mouth were set unnaturally in the center of his face, compressed into an area the size of your palm. His high forehead was ridged and knurled even though he wasn't frowning. His hair was liquid black, waved on the top and sides, like plastic that had been melted, molded, and then cooled again.

When I knew him in the First District, he had been a minor soldier in the organization, a fight fixer, and a Shylock with jockies out at Jefferson Downs and the Fairgrounds. Supposedly, as a kid, he had been the wheel man on a couple of hundred-dollar hits with the Calucci brothers; but for all his criminal history, he'd only been down once, a one-year bit for possession of stolen food stamps in the late sixties, and he did the time in a minimum security federal facility, where he had weekend furloughs and golf and tennis privileges.

Johnny Carp was smart; he went with the flow and gave people what they wanted, didn't contend with the world or argue with the way things were. Celebrities had their picture taken with him. He lent money to cops with no vig and was never known to be rude. Those who saw his other side, his apologists maintained, had broken rules and earned their fate.

“You look great,” he said, tilting back in his swivel chair. Through the window behind him, seagulls were wheeling and dipping over mountains of garbage that were being systematically spread and buried and packed down in the landfill by bulldozers.

“When did you get into the trash business, Johnny?”

“Oh, I'm just out here a couple of days a week to make sure the Johns flush,” he said. He wore a beige suit with thin brown stripes in it, a purple shirt and brown knit tie, and a small rose in his lapel. He winked. “Hey, I know you don't drink no more. Me, neither. I found a way around the problem. I ain't putting you on: Watch.”

He opened a small icebox by the wall and took out an unopened quart bottle of milk. There were two inches of cream in the neck. Then he lifted a heavy black bottle of Scotch, with a red wax seal on it, from his bottom desk drawer. He poured four fingers into a thick water glass and added milk to it, smiling all the while. The Scotch ballooned and turned inside the milk and cream like soft licorice.

“I don't get drunk, I don't get ulcers, I don't get hangovers, it's great, Dave. You want a hit?”

“No thanks. You know why anybody would want to take down Sonny Boy Marsallus?”

“Maybe it's mental health week. You know, help out your neighborhood, kill your local lunatic. The guy's head glows in the dark.”

“How ab

out Sweet Pea Chaisson?”

“Clip Sonny? Sweet Pea's a marshmallow. Why you asking me this stuff, anyway?”

“You're the man, Johnny.”