Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux 8)

I looked at Clete. He shook his head and turned up his palms.

”You've lost me, Johnny,“ I said.

”A hooker says she saw him going by on the streetcar. Last night Frankie and Marco out there swear either him or his twin brother was walking into Louis Armstrong Park. What white person goes into Louis Armstrong Park at night? Then my wife tells me a redheaded guy was standing in our side yard, looking through our window.“ A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. ”What, y'all hire an actor or something?“

Then his eyes clicked away from mine.

”Nope,“ I said.

He wiped the front of his teeth with his index finger, rubbed it dry on his knee. His gaze roved around the room.

”This place is a shithole,“ he said.

”Sonny's dead,“ Clete said. ”You put the whack out, you ought to know, John.“

”You're a Magazine Street mick, Purcel, it ain't your fault you always got your foot up your own ass, so I don't take offense,“ Johnny said.

”But, Dave, you got a brain. I'm asking you, no, I'm begging you, if you guys are trying to cowboy Patsy, or fuck with me, or fuck with anybody in my crew, stop it now. I'm in legitimate business. We put a lot of the old ways behind us, but don't provoke me.“

His words were those of a man in control. But I could smell a peculiar odor on his breath, like sour baby formula laced with booze.

”It's not us,“ I said.

”The guy was a disease. Nobody else cared about him,“ he said.

”Sonny was stand-up, Johnny. He took his own bounce and he didn't need Scotch and milk and a couple of chippies to get him through the morning,“ I said.

Clete lit a cigarette with his Zippo, his broad shoulders hunched, seemingly unconcerned about the drift of the conversation, but through the smoke his eyes were fastened on Johnny's neck.

”You've developed a bad mouth, Dave. I'm here for accommodation, you don't want to listen, fuck you. Just don't try to run no games on me,“

Johnny said.

”The problem's inside you, John. It's not with me or Clete.“

”You got an office and some furniture Nig Rosewater couldn't give away in colored town and you're a shrink now?“

”You've got blood on your hands. It doesn't wash off easily,“ I said.

He rose from his chair, slipped two twenty-dollar bills out of his wallet, and laid them on Clete's desk.

”Yall go up the street, have a nice lunch,“ he said, and walked out into the sunlight.

Clete tipped his cigarette ashes in the tray. Then he scratched his eyebrow with his thumbnail, as though he didn't know which thought in his head to express first. ”You nailed him on that stuff about his chippies. He pays them a hundred bucks to blow him so he won't get AIDS,“ he said. He tilted back in his swivel chair and stared at the wall. ”I can't believe this, the first person in our office is a psychotic grease ball He mashed out his cigarette and went outside with the two twenties wadded in his fist.

He caught the limo just as it was leaving the curb and knocked with his ring on the charcoal-tinted glass. Johnny Carp was bent forward on the seat when he rolled down the window, a smear of milk on his mouth.

“Hey, John, give this to your broads for their oral hygiene,” Clete said, and bounced the bills like soiled green Kleenex off Johnny Carp's face.

I cut the engine on the outboard and Alafair and I drift on the wake into a sandbar, then walk toward a line of willow and cypress trees.

The sun is white, straight overhead, in a blue, cloudless sky. Behind the lacy movement of the trees, in a trapped pool of water, is the rusted, purple outline of a wrecked tow barge. I set up a cardboard box at the end of the sandbar, walk back to the boat, and unzip the carrying case from the Beretta nine-millimeter.

Once again, I show her the safeties and how the trigger mechanism disengages from the hammer, let her work the slide; then I take it from her and slip an empty magazine into the butt.

“Okay, what's the rule, Alf?” I say.

“Never assume a gun is unloaded. But never assume it's loaded, either.”