It makes a good story. I doubt that it's true. The mob isn't given to poetics.
A New Orleans hit man, who admitted to murdering people for as little as three hundred dollars, told me Hoffa was ground up into fish churn and thrown by the bucket-load off the stern of a cabin cruiser, then the deck and gunnels hosed and wiped down a pristine white, all within sight of Miami Beach.
I believed him.
The body of the man named Jack had probably been mutilated by a professional, or at least the directions to do so had been given by one. But sinking the body with a tangle of fish line and scrap iron on the edge of a navigable channel had all the marks of an amateur, and probably a lazy one at that, or we would have never found it.
I called Helen at the department.
“What's ruthless, lazy, and stupid all over?” I asked.
“The guy taking your calls?”
“What?” I said.
“The old man assigned your open cases to Rufus Arceneaux.”
“Forget Rufus. We missed something when we pulled the floater out. He was tied up with scrap iron and fish line.”
“I'm not following you.”
“Let me try again. What's perverse, is not above anything, looks like a ghoul anyway, and would screw up a wet dream?”
“Sweet Pea Chaisson,” she said.
“Clete and I went to his house on the Breaux Bridge road before we had that run-in with him and Patsy Dap in Lafayette. I remember a bunch of building materials in the lot next door-building materials or maybe junk from a pipe yard.”
“Pretty good, Streak.”
“It's enough for a warrant,” I said.
“Then we toss his Caddy and maybe match the blood on the rug to the scraping you took from the trailer behind the juke. Dave, square your beef with the old man. I can't partner with Rufus.”
“It's not my call.”
“You heard Patsy Dap's in town?”
“No.”
“Nobody told you?” she said.
“No.”
“He got stopped for speeding on East Main yesterday. The city cop made him and called us. I'm sorry, I thought somebody told you.”
“Where is he now?”
“Who knows? Wherever disfigured paranoids hang out.”
“Keep me informed on the warrant, will you?” I said.
“You're a good cop, Dave. You get your butt back here.”
“You're the best, Helen.” I walked down to the dock. The air was hot and still and down the road someone was running a Weed Eater that had the nerve-searing pitch of a dentist's instrument. So Patsy Dapolito was in New Iberia and no one had bothered to tell me, I thought. But why not? We did it all the time. We cut loose rapists, pedophiles, and murderers on minimum bail, even on their own recognizance, and seldom notified the victims or the witnesses to their crimes. Ask anyone who's been there. Or, better yet, ask the victims or survivors about the feelings they have when they encounter the source of their misery on the street, in the fresh air, in the flow of everyday traffic and normal life, and they realize the degree of seriousness with which society treats the nature of their injury. It's a moment no one forgets easily. My thoughts were bitter and useless.
I knew the origins of my self-indulgence, too. I couldn't get the word disfigured out of my mind. I tried to imagine the images that flashed through Patsy Dap's brain when he saw his face reflected in the mirror.
I helped Batist fill the coolers with beer and soda and scoop the ashes out of the barbecue pit, then I sat in the warm shade at one of the spool tables with a glass of iced tea and thought about Clete's offer.