A Morning for Flamingos (Dave Robicheaux 4)

"I have to use the bathroom," I said.

He wet his lips and smiled at me.

I walked down a short hallway, opened a closet door, passed a bedroom that was stacked with hay bales, and opened the last door in the hall. Lionel sat on the side of a brass bed, his left arm tied off with his belt, the syringe mounted on a thick purple vein. A lighted candle and a cook spoon with a curled handle lay on a nightstand next to the bed. He had just taken the hit, and his head was tilted back, his mouth open, his jaws slack as though he were in the midst of orgasm. The flame from the candle flickered on the muscular contours of his body. His breath went in and out with the rush, his eyes trying to focus on me and gain control of his situation again.

He set the syringe down, popped loose the belt on his arm, and straightened his back.

"What the fuck you want, man?" he said hoarsely.

"I was looking for the bathroom."

"It's a privy. Out back, where a privy is."

I closed the door on him, went out into the rain, then walked back through the kitchen. Kim was leaning against the drainboard, looking down at the floor. She had taken off her leather jacket to make the sandwiches, and her breasts were stiff against her T-shirt.

"Is it always this much fun?" I said.

"Always," she said.

Fifteen minutes later came in the form of a Latin man with a black bandanna tied down on his head, beige zoot pants, a canary-yellow shirt unbuttoned to his navel, a soft pad of chest hair on which a gold St. Christopher's medal rested, a leather sports coat that folded and creased as smoothly as warm tallow. He carried a cardboard box wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag. He set the box on the table and removed five individual packages wrapped in butcher paper, opened a single-bladed knife, and handed it to me. I cut through the butcher paper on one of the packages and punched through the clear plastic bag inside. I rubbed the white granules between my fingers, then wiped my fingers clean on the paper.

"You don't want a taste?" he said.

"I trust you."

"You trust me?" he said.

"Yeah."

He looked at Fontenot.

"Mr. Robicheaux doesn't have certain vices," Fontenot said.

"It's good shit, man. Like Ray ordered, no cut," the Latin man said. The hollows of both his cheeks were sprayed with tiny acne scars like needle marks. "Where's Lionel at?"

"He's a little noddy right now. Must be the weather," Fontenot said.

I took the brown envelope with the money out of my left pocket and put it in Fontenot's hand. He counted the bills out on his thigh.

"All stiff and green. It can make the ashes in an old man's furnace glow anew," he said.

The Latin man looked furtively toward the kitchen, where Kim sat at the table, a cup of coffee balanced on her fingers, her eyes starin

g listlessly out the window into the darkness.

"Jennifer and Carmen are at the bar on the blacktop," he said.

"I don't see why they should be left alone," Fontenot said.

The Latin nodded his head at the kitchen, his face a question mark.

"She's an understanding girl. Maybe she can ride back with Mr. Robicheaux," Fontenot said.

I put the five kilos of cocaine back in the cardboard box and wrapped the black garbage bag tightly around it. I lifted it onto my shoulder.

"The next time you guys cut a deal, why not do it in the Greyhound bus depot?" I said.

"Oh, that's good," Fontenot said.