“Who?”
“I kicked a two-by-four up his butt yesterday. I think he might try to square a beef with Johnny by going through you.”
“You have problems with your conscience, sir?”
“Not over you.”
“A matter of principle, that sort of thing?”
“I've said what I had to say.”
“You loathed us long before any of this began.”
“Your friends murdered Sonny Boy Marsallus. Either you or Julia ran down and killed a child. One of these days the bill's going to come due, Moleen.”
I walked back toward my truck. Through the lighted windows I could see Julia, in a yellow dress, a drink in her hand, talking brightly on the phone.
I heard Moleen behind me, felt his hand bite into my arm with surprising strength.
“Do you think I wanted any of this to happen? Do you know what it's like to wake up every morning with your whole-” He waved his arm vaguely at the air, as a drunk man might. Then he blanched, as though he were watching himself from outside his own skin.
“I don't think you're well, Moleen. Get some help. Go into the witness protection program.”
“What do you suggest about Ruthie Jean?”
“If that's her choice, she can go with you.”
“You have no idea how naive you are, sir,” he said.
He wore a stained white shirt and a pair of baggy seersucker slacks with no belt. For just a moment, in the deepening shadows, with the splayed cane rake propped in his hand, a drop of sweat hanging on his chin, he no longer looked like the man whom I had resented most of my life.
“Is there anything I can do?” I said.
“No, but thank you, anyway, Dave. Good night.”
I held out my business card. He hesitated, then took it, smiling wanly, and inserted it in his watch pocket.
“Good night, Moleen,” I said.
I woke early Saturday morning and went to Red's Gym in Lafayette and worked out hard on the speed and heavy bag, did three miles on the outdoor track, then drove back home and helped Alafair and Batist fix lunch for the fishermen who returned to the dock during the midday heat. But I couldn't rid myself of a nameless, undefined red-black energy that made my palms ring, the pulse beat in my wrists. The only feeling I'd had like it was on benders of years ago when my whiskey supply was cut off, or in Vietnam, when we were moved into a free-fire zone only to learn that the enemy had gone. I called Moleen's house.
“I'm afraid you've missed him,” Julia said. “Would you have him call me when he comes back?”
“I've just hired an auctioneer to get rid of his things. Oh, I'm sorry, would you like to come out before the sale and pick up a bargain or two?”
“There's a New Orleans grease ball in town named Patsy Dapolito.”
“I'm supposed to be on the first tee by one o'clock. Otherwise, I'd love to chat. You're always so interesting, Dave.”
“We can put a cruiser by your house. There's still time for alternatives, Julia.”
“You're such a dear. Bye-bye now.” Later, Alafair went to a picture show in town and Bootsie and I fixed deviled eggs and ham and onion sandwiches and ate them on the kitchen table in front of the floor fan. “You want to go to Mass this afternoon instead of in the morning?” she said. sure. She swallowed a small bite from her sandwich and fixed her eyes on my face. Her hair moved in the breeze from the fan. She started to speak. “I've made my peace about Sonny,” I said. “He was brave, he was stand-up, he never compromised his principles. That's not a bad recommendation to take into the next world.”
“You're special, Streak.”
“So are you, kiddo.”
After we did the dishes she walked down to the vegetable garden at the end of the coulee, with the portable phone in her hand in case I was down at the dock when Alafair called from the show. A blue Plymouth turned into the drive, and a moment later I saw Terry Serrett walk across the grass toward the gallery. She was dressed in loose-fitting pink-striped shorts, a white blouse, and red sandals;