Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux 8)

rybody he respects. You broke his nose and four of his ribs. A paramedic had to pry his bridge out of his throat. I didn't tell you everything the barf bucket said, either .. .

”The word is Johnny wants it in pieces, like the Giacanos did it to Tommy Fig, remember, they processed him into pork roasts and strung them from the ceiling fan in his own butcher shop, then had a big eggnog party while Tommy went spinning around in the air, except Johnny wants it to go down even worse, longer, on videotape, with an audio …“

Clete collapsed the aluminum beer can slowly in his huge hand, his eyes glancing away from mine uncertainly.

”Look, I need to be off the record here,“ he said.

”About what?“

”I'm serious, Streak. When you operate with your shield you think too much like these Rotary cocksuckers .. . Excuse my language.“

”Will you just say it, Clete?“

He lifted the cardboard box from under the table, tore the tape, reached down inside the flaps.

”This afternoon I cfeeped the dump Patsy rents out on the Jeanerette Road,“ he said. ”Don't worry, he was in a motel with his chippy at Four Corners in Lafayette. Dig this, big mon, a Tec-9, ventilated barrel, twenty-five-round nine-millimeter magazine, courtesy of an arms dealer in Miami who can provide them on the spot so the Jamaicans and the Cuban crazies don't have to wait on the mailman.“

He worked the action, snapped the firing pin on the empty chamber.

”It's got a 'hell trigger' these guys out in Colorado make. You can fire bursts with it almost as fast as a machine gun. Fits neatly under a raincoat. Great for schoolyards and late-night convenience-store visits .. . Here's a set of Smith & Wesson handcuffs, state of the art, solid steel, spring-loaded. Aren't you glad to know a guy like Patsy can buy these at any police supply store .. .“

He put his hand back in the box and I saw his face change, his mouth form a seamed, crooked line, the scar through his eyebrow tighten against the bone. His hand was fitted through the handle of a stubby, cylindrical metal object shaped like a coffeepot.

”The receipt was stuck to the bottom, Dave. He bought it yesterday.

Patsy Bones with a blowtorch? Put yourself inside his head-“

Through the kitchen window I could see Bootsie and Alafair washing dishes, talking to each other, the breeze from the attic fan blowing the curtains by the sides of their lighted faces.

Clete scratched his cheek with four fingers, like a zoo creature in a cage, his eyes waiting.

Chapter 3O

WAS MIDMORNING, the sun hazy through the oak trees that shaded the cluster of trailers and cottages where Patsy Dapolito lived east of town. Helen and I were parked in my truck behind a tin shed that had already started to creak with heat, watching Patsy shoot baskets in a dirt clearing by the side of a garage. His sock less ankles and white legs were layered with scar tissue and filmed with dust, his gym shorts knotted around his genitals like a drenched swimsuit, his T-shirt contoured against his hard body like wet Kleenex.

He whanged one more shot off the hoop, then dribbled the ball- bing, bing, bing-toward the door to his cottage. I got out of the truck, moved in fast behind him, and pushed him hard through the door. When he turned around, his mouth hooked like a cornered predator's, my .45 was pointed in the middle of his face.

”Oh, you again,“ he said.

I shoved him into a wood chair. My hand came away damp from his T-shirt.

The floor was littered with movie and wrestling and UFO magazines, hamburger containers, empty Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets, dozens of beer and soda cans.

Helen came through the door with Clete's cardboard box hanging from her hand. She looked around the room.

”I think it needs a trough inset in the floor,“ she said.

”This my get-out-of-Shitsville roust?“ he said.

Helen gathered up his basketball, bounced it on the linoleum floor twice-bing, bing-then two-handed it off his forehead and caught the rebound between her palms. His head jerked, as though a thin wire had snapped behind his eyes, then he stared at her, with that bemused, inverted grin, the mouth turned downward at the corners, the teeth barely showing in a wet line above the lip.

”Your place got creeped, Patsy. We're returning your goods,“ I said. I replaced my .45 in my clip-on holster and one at a time removed the Tec-9, the handcuffs, and the blowtorch from the cardboard box and set them on his breakfast table. He fingered the half-moon scars and divots on his face, watched me as though I were a strange shadow moving about on a surreal landscape that only he saw.

”The contract you took from Johnny is already sour, Patsy,“ I said.

”There's a guy willing to give you up.“

”It must have been lard-ass that got in my place. He helped himself to the beer and potato salad in my icebox,“ Patsy said. There was a red spot, like a small apple, in the middle of his forehead.