Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux 8)

“You got the wrong signal, ace,” the voice said.

“Pogue?”

“Your little girl misunderstood.”

“No, you did. I told you not to come through the wrong man's perimeter.”

“I was there to help. They got a mechanic on you.”

“Come anywhere near my house, I'm going to take you off at the neck.”

“Don't hang up …” I could hear his breath rise and fall against the receiver. “The Dutchie don't let me alone. I think I got only one way out. I cool out the hitter, I don't let nobody hurt your family. The problem is, I got no idea who they sent in. I need time, man, that's what you fucking don't hear.”

“Do you know what 'roid-induced psychosis is?” I said.

“No.”

“Too many injections in the butt. Then you drink a few beers and the snakes put on a special floor show. Don't call here again.”

“You got cement around your head? I ain't a bad guy. We went into Laos twice to get your friend back. You know anybody else who gave a shit about him?”

“You frightened my daughter. One way or another, that's going to get squared, Emile.”

“Me? Marsallus was there. She didn't tell you?”

“Your wheel man, Jerry Jeff Hooker, is in custody. He gave you up.

Come in and maybe we can get you into a federal hospital.”

“I could smell Marsallus's breath, it was like the stink when you pop a body bag. The Dutchie turned him loose on me. Laos, Guatemala, colored town out there on the highway, it's all part of the same geography. Hell don't have boundaries, man. Don't you understand that?”

The phone was silent a long time. In the moonlight I saw an owl sink its razored beak into a wood rabbit in my neighbor's field. Then Emile Pogue quietly hung up.

Chapter 31

HE SHERIFF HAD been moved out of Intensive Care into an ordinary room at Iberia General, one that was filled with flowers and slatted sunlight. But his new environment was a deception. His whiskers were white against his flaccid skin, and his eyes had a peculiar cast in them, what we used to call the thousand-yard stare, as though he could not quite

detach himself from old events that were still aborning for him on frozen hilltops that rang with bugles.

“Can you hand me my orange juice, please?” he said.

I lifted the glass straw to his lips, watched him draw the juice and melting ice into his mouth.

“I dreamed about roses under the snow. But then I saw they weren't roses. They were drops of blood where we marched out of the Chosin.

It's funny how your dreams mix up things,” he said.

“It's better to let old wars go, skipper.”

“New Iberia is a good place.”

“It sure is.”

“We need to get these bastards out of here, Dave,” he said.

“We will.”

“Your daughter ID-ed Marsallus from his mug shot?”