Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux 8)

“You're a confused man, Patsy.” He pinched his nose, blew air through the nostrils, looked about at the sky, the overhang of the trees, a cloud of dust drifting from a passing pickup through a cane brake. “Look, there's guys ain't even from the city in on this deal, military guys think they're big shit because they cooled out a few gooks and tomato pickers. I did a grown man with a shank when I was eleven years old. You say I'm lying, check my jacket.”

“It's Johnny you want to bring down, isn't it?” I said. He kept huffing puffs of air through his nostrils, then he pulled a wadded handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose in it. i85

“Johnny don't show it, but he's a drunk,” Dapolito said. “A drunk don't look after anybody but himself. Otherwise you'd be fish bait, motherfucker. I walked out to meet the cruiser sent by the dispatcher.

The deputy was a big red bone named Cecil Aguillard whose face contained a muddy light people chose not to dwell upon. ”You t'ink he's carrying?“ Cecil said. ”Not unless he has an ankle holster.“

”What he's done?“

”Nothing so far,“ I said. He walked down the dock ahead of me, his gunbelt, holster, and baton creaking on his hips like saddle leather. The umbrella over Patsy's head tilted and swelled in the wind. Cecil pushed it at an angle so he could look down into his face. ”Time to go,“ Cecil said. Patsy was hunkered down over the tabletop, scowling into a state fish and game magazine. He made me think of a recalcitrant child in a school desk who was not going to let a nun's authority overwhelm him. ”Dave don't want you here,“ Cecil said. ”I ain't done nothing.“ His shoulders were hunched, his hands clenched into fists on the edges of the magazine, his eyes flicking about the dock. Cecil looked at me and nodded his head toward the bait shop. I followed him. ”Clear everybody out of here, Dave, I'll take care of it,“ he said. ”It won't work on this guy.“

”It'll work.“

”No, he'll be back. Thanks for coming out, Cecil. I'll call you later if I have to.“

”It ain't smart, Dave. You turn your back on his kind, he'll have your liver flopping on the flo'.“ I watched Cecil drive down the road in the deepening shadows, then I helped Batist seine the dead shiners out of our bait tanks and hose down the boats we had rented that day. Patsy Dapolito still sat at his table, smoking cigarettes, popping the pages in his magazine, wiping bugs and mosquitoes from in front of his face.

The sun had dipped behind my house, and the tops of the cypress in the swamp had turned a grayish pink in the afterglow.

”We're closing up, Patsy,“ I said.

”Then close it up,“ he said.

”We've got a joke out here. This fellow woke up on his houseboat and heard two mosquitoes talking about him. One said, “Let's take him outside and eat him.” The other one said, “We'd better not. The big ones will carry him off for themselves.”

“

”I don't get it,“ he said.

”Have a good one,“ I said, and walked up the slope to the house.

Two hours later it was dark. I used the switch inside the house to turn on the string of lights over the dock. Patsy Dapolito still sat at his table, the Cinzano umbrella furled above his head. His hard, white body seem to glow with electrified humidity.

Later, Bootsie and Alafair pulled into the drive, the car loaded with bags of groceries they had bought in Lafayette.

”Dave, there's a man sitting on the dock,“ Bootsie said.

”It's Patsy Dap,“ I said.

”The man you-“ she began.

”That's the one.“

”I can't b

elieve it. He's on our dock?“

”He's not going to do anything,“ I said.

”He's not going to have a chance to. Not if I have anything to do with it,“ she said.

”I think Johnny Giacano's cut him loose. That's why he's here, not because of me. He couldn't think his way out of a wet paper bag, much less rejection by the only form of authority he's ever respected.“

But she wasn't buying it.

”I'll get rid of him,“ I said.

”How?“