A Morning for Flamingos (Dave Robicheaux 4)

"No, I mean it. You're stylish. I remember you when you smelled like an unflushed toilet with booze poured in it." He rubbed his fingers up and down the edge of my coat lapel. Then he touched my tie, put one finger under it, drew it slowly out from my chest and let it drop.

I looked away at the grassy lake and the way the wind made the light break on the water. The golfers on the other side of the lake had stopped their game and were watching us.

"You like the pockets in that shirt?" And his two fingers slid down inside the cloth, so that I could feel them against the nipple.

"Don't do that, Nate."

"It's got a nice feel to it. It pays to buy a quality shirt."

I could see the peppery grain of his skin along the edge of his beard, a piece of yellow mucus in the corner of his eye, the pucker in his mouth that almost made a smile. His fingers felt as thick and obscene as sausages inside my pocket.

I raised my hand and pushed his arm slowly away from me.

"That's not smart," he said quietly, and reached his hand toward me again.

I put the flat of my hand against his forearm and moved it away from me as you would press back a slowly yielding spring. He smiled and took a puff off the filter tip of his cigarette, his lips making a soft popping sound.

"Bust him. Interference with an officer in the performance of his duty," he said to his partner. Then to me, "I'll ask them to process you right into the population so you can eat mainline tonight."

"Fuck you, Baxter. We'll make bail in two hours," Tony said as a uniformed cop raised him to his feet.

"It's Friday afternoon, Tony," Baxter said. "Next arraignment is Monday morning."

"What about the broad?" his partner said.

"Tell her to take a cab. Tow his car in and tear it apart."

"Nate, we might be on shaky ground here," the partner said.

"Not with this bunch," Baxter said.

A few minutes later I sat handcuffed next to Tony behind the wire-mesh screen of a squad car. Through the window I could see Kim walking hurriedly out of the park toward the avenue, her face as white as bone.

Tony, Jess, and I were put in a holding cell a short distance from the drunk tank. Because it was a holding cell, it had no toilet or running water and contained only an iron bench that was bolted to one wall. The bars of the door had been repainted so many times that the layers of white paint formed a shell around the metal. The walls were grimed with handprints and scuff marks from people's shoes, covered with scratched drawings of genitalia and names that had been scorched into the paint with butane cigarette lighters. The heat was turned up and the cell was hot. Someone in the drunk tank began screaming and was taken out by two uniformed cops.

Tony paced up and down, took off his rust-colored sports shirt, then worked his T-shirt over his head and used it to wipe his skin.

"What's the drill with this guy? Somebody tell me what the fucking drill is," he said.

"It's Baxter. He's a bad cop. He can't make his case, so he finds something he can do," I said.

"We ain't sitting in this shithole three days. That's out," he said.

"Your lawyer had better know a judge, then."

"You got it," Tony said.

"I got to use the toilet," Jess said.

"Hey, you hear that?" Tony shouted through the bars. "We got a man in here needs to use the toilet."

His olive skin glistened with perspiration, and he kept biting his lower lip. By the time we were booked and moved up to the general population, on the second floor, his hands trembled and he couldn't drink enough water. I sat next to him on the edge of an iron bunk that hung from wall chains. His back was running with sweat now. He leaned forward on his thighs and ran his hand through his wet hair.

"Lockup is at eight o'clock," I said. "Let's go down to the shower."

"I'm cool," he answered.

"You'll feel better after a shower."