Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux 8)

“It's been a long day, Dave.”

“Is it a gambling casino?”

“Good-bye.”

“That's why you got rid of the cemetery.”

“Is there anything else you want to say before you leave?”

“Yeah. It's quarter to five on Friday afternoon and she's still in jail.”

He looked at me distractedly, breathing with his mouth open, his chest sunken, his stomach protruding over his belt like a roll of bread dough. When I got up to go, three buttons were flashing hot pink on his telephone, as though disembodied and cacophonous voices were waiting to converge and shout at him simultaneously.

After supper that night I put on my gym shorts and running shoes and did three miles along the dirt road by the bayou, then I did three sets of military presses, dead lifts, and arm curls with my barbells in the backyard. The western sky was streaked with fire, the air warm and close and alive with insects. I tried to rethink the day, the week, the month, my involvement with Sonny Boy Marsallus and Ruthie Jean and Luke and Bertie Fontenot and Moleen Bertrand, until each of my thoughts was like a snapping dog.

“What's bothering you, Dave?” Alafair said behind me.

“I didn't see you there, Alf.”

She held Tripod on her shoulder. He tilted his head at me and yawned.

“Why you worrying?” she asked.

“A guy's in jail I don't think belongs there.”

“Why's he in there then?”

“It's that fellow Marsallus.”

“The one who shot the-”

“That's right. The guy who was looking out for me. Actually, looking out for all of us.”

“Oh,” she said, and sat down on the bench, her hand motionless on Tripod's back, an unspoken question in the middle of her face.

“The man he shot died, Alf,” I said. “So Sonny's down on a homicide beef. Things don't always work out right.”

Her eyes avoided mine. I could smell my own odor, hear my breathing in the stillness.

“It's not something I had a choice about, little guy,” I said.

“You said you wouldn't call me that.”

“i'm sorry.”

“It's all right,” she said, then picked up Tripod in her arms and walked away.

“Alafair?”

She didn't answer.

I put on a T-shirt without showering and began hoeing weeds out of the vegetable garden by the coulee. The air was humid and mauve colored and filled with angry birds.

“Time for an iced tea break,” Bootsie said.

“I'll be inside in a minute.”

“Cool your jets, Streak.”