A Morning for Flamingos (Dave Robicheaux 4)

"Yes."

"What were you doing at Baylor?"

"Oh, it's nothing."

"Boots?"

"Yes?"

"What are you holding out on me?"

"Don't worry about it, hon. When am I going to see you?"

"Can I come by now?" I said.

"Mmmm, what'd you have in mind?"

I suddenly realized that I didn't have an honest answer to her question.

"Because I have to go to work, hon," she said.

"I just wanted to see you, to talk to you."

"Is something wrong?"

"No, not really," I said. "Look, Boots, I have to go over to the apartment in a little bit and pick up some things. Your office is only a few blocks away. Can you come by for a few minutes? I'll fix breakfast for us."

"I'll try," she said. "Dave, what is it?"

I took a breath.

"People just need to talk sometimes. This is one of them," I said.

"Yes, I think it is," she said.

I gave her my address on Ursulines.

"Dave?" she said.

"Yes."

"I don't get hurt easily anymore. If that's what we're talking about."

"We're not talking about that at all," I said.

After I hung up the phone I looked out the window at the early sun shining through the trees in Tony's yard, the wind ruffling on his fish ponds, the flapping of the dew-soaked canvas screens on his tennis court. But I took no joy in the new morning.

I drove into the center of the city and parked my truck in the garage on Ursulines, then went through the domed brick archway into the courtyard. The flagstones were streaked with water, and I could smell coffee and bacon from someone's apartment. Upstairs on the balcony a fat woman in a print dress was sweeping dust out through the grillwork into the sunlight.

I had my keys in my hand before I noticed the soft white gashes, in the shape of a screwdriver head, between the door and jamb of my apartment. I slipped my .45 out of the back of my trousers, let it hang loosely at my side, pushed the sprung door back on its hinges with my foot, and stepped inside.

My eyes would not encompass or accept the interior of the apartment all at once, in the way that your mind rejects the appearance of your car after a street gang has worked it over with curbstones. A large bullfrog was nailed to the back of the door. Its puffed white belly was split by the force of the nail, its legs hung down limply, and its wide, flat mouth stretched open as though it were waiting for a fly.

The ceiling, the walls, the cheap furniture, were dotted with blood as though it had been slung there in patterns. Above the kitchen doorway, painted redly into the plaster, were the words you are ded. The blood had run in strings down the plaster and dripped onto the linoleum.

But my bedroom was untouched, and I thought I had seen the worst of it until I looked into the bathroom. The toilet lid was closed, but blood and water had swelled over the lip and streamed down the white porcelain, too thick and dark for the dilution that should have taken place. Written with a ballpoint pen on a damp sheet of lined paper that lay on the toilet lid were the words dont flush, my baby is inside.

I stuck the .45 through the back of my belt and started to raise the lid, then withdrew my hand. Don't rattle, I thought. They didn't do it, they didn't do that.