Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux 8)

“You've got it. Do you remember how to clear the action?”

She pushes the release button on the butt, drops the magazine, works the slide twice, then peers into the empty chamber.

“Terrific,” I say.

This time I give her a loaded magazine. I stand behind her while she chambers a round and takes aim with both hands. She fires once and throws sand in the air by the side of the cardboard box.

“Aim a little higher and to your right, Alf.”

She misses twice and the rounds whang into the barge back in the trees.

But the next round leaves a hole the size of a pencil in the cardboard.

She starts to lower the pistol.

“Keep shooting till you're empty, Alf.”

The Beretta spits the empty casings into the sunlight, pow, pow, pow, each report echoes across the water. The breech locks open; a tongue of cotton white smoke rises from the chamber. The box is tilted sideways now, its clean surfaces peppered with black holes.

When Alafair smiles at me, I wonder if I have given away a knowledge that should never belong to a child.

She wants to reload.

It rained in the predawn hours this morning and the trees in the swamp were gray and shaggy with mist. Then the sun rose out of the steam and broke against the seal of clouds like a flattened rose. I drop into the office on Main, a sojourner, still not quite accepting the reality of being a fired cop. The door is open to let in the clean smell of the rain tumbling out of the sunlight.

Clete is hooking paper clips in a chain on his desk blotter. I can feel his eyes flicking back and forth between his preoccupation and the side of my face.

“When you chase skips, you've got latitude no cop does,” he says. “You can cross state lines, bust in doors without a warrant, pick up one perp to squeeze another. The Supreme Court will get a hand on it eventually, but right now it's kind of like being on point in a free-fire zone.”

He knows I'm not listening, but he continues anyway.

“We'll have a secretary in here tomorrow. I'm transferring some of the business from the New Orleans office. It just takes a while to make things come together,” he says.

I nod absently, try to avoid looking at my watch.

“You bother me, big mon,” he says.

“Don't start it, Clete.”

“It's not Sonny's death. It's not getting canned from your department, either. Even though that's what you want me to think.”

“I'm not up to it.” I splay my fingers in the air.

“The big problem is one that won't go away, Dave. You can't accept change. That's why you always got a firestorm inside you, that's why you ripped up Patsy Dap. You got to ease up, noble mon. You don't have a shield anymore. You smoke the wrong dude, you go down on a murder beef. Take it from a cat who's been there.”

“I think I'll go back to the bait shop now,” I say.

“Yeah, I guess you better.”

“I apologize for my attitude. You've been a real friend about this par

tnership.”

“No big deal. My business in New Orleans is going down the drain, anyway.”

Outside, the rain is blowing in the sunlight. When I look back through the office window, Clete is drinking coffee, staring at nothing, alone in the silence, a new, virtually unused white telephone on his army surplus desk.

I feel a pain in my chest and go back inside the office. Together, we walk down Main to Victor's for lunch.