A Morning for Flamingos (Dave Robicheaux 4)

But the others came from a different mold: young and lithe, tanned year-round, they wore gold chains and religious medallions and thick identification bracelets, and had a hungry look in their eyes. You knew they wanted something, but you weren't sure what it was, in the same way that you stare into a zoo animal's eyes and see an atavistic instinct there that makes you

step back involuntarily. They constantly touched the flatness of their stomach, the boxed hairline on their neck, the gold watchband on their wrist; they made cigarette smoking a stylized art form. They seldom smiled, except with women who were new to them, and they talked incessantly about money, either about the amount they had made, or were about to make, or that someone else had made. Like women, they dressed for their own sex, but usually their loyalties went no further than a sentimental attitude toward their parents, whom in reality they seldom saw.

Jess accepted me because Tony had moved me into his house, perhaps just as he would not question Tony's choice of lawn furniture. But the others did not speak to me, other than to reply to a direct question. Jess saw me watching the game with a cup of coffee in my hand.

"You want to play?" he said, and started to move his chair aside.

But the men sitting on each side of him remained stationary. One of them had the deck of cards in his upturned palm and a matchstick in his mouth.

"Cecil just bourréd the pot. Wait till we play it out," he said. His eyes never left the game.

"That's all right. I lose too much at the track, anyway," I said.

No one looked up or acknowledged my statement, and I went back into the kitchen and began making a sandwich on the sideboard. Rain dripped out of the oak trees in back, and the dirt yard was flooded with a wet green light.

"Dad says we're going out on the salt even if it doesn't stop raining," Paul said. "We can put the rods in the sockets and stay in the cabin."

"Sure, this is good tarpon weather," I said. "On a day like this you bounce the bait through the wake and the tarps will hit it so hard the rod will bend all the way to the gunwale."

"Are you glad you came, even though it's raining?" Paul said.

"Sure."

"Dad says you're probably going to move back home with your little girl."

I looked at Tony. He had one eye closed and was threading a nylon leader through the eye of a hook.

"Yes, I guess that's true, Paul," I said.

"Can we come see you? And ride your horse?"

"Anytime you want to."

Tony tied a blood knot with the leader and snipped off the loose end close to the hook's eye with a pair of fingernail clippers. He held the hook by the shank and pulled on the leader to test the strength of the knot. "There," he said to Paul. "They won't bust that one."

He wore bell-bottomed denims, a long-sleeved candy-striped shirt, and his Marine Corps utility cap with the brim propped up. His eyes avoided mine, and like his hired help who rode in the Cadillac he did not speak to me unless to answer a question, or to indicate to me that I could entertain myself with whatever was available in the camp.

I walked out under the dripping trees, then down under the screened gallery supported on stilts. The riverbanks were thick with wet brush and wild morning glory vines, and because the river emptied into the Gulf and its level was affected by the tides, trotlines were strung at crazy angles between tree trunks and logs and stakes driven into the mud. The tide was out now, and the highest water level of the river was marked by a gray line of dead hyacinths along the banks. Thunder boomed and rolled out over the Gulf, and the air was charged with the electric smell of ozone. The tree trunks glistened blackly, the canopy overhead and the scrub brush and canebrakes and layers of rotting leaves literally creaked with moisture. I thought of Alafair and Bootsie and realized that I had never felt more alone in my life.

Later, inside, the phone on the kitchen wall rang. Tony answered it, and after he said hello, he listened without speaking, and looked at me over the top of Paul's head. Then he hung up the receiver and said, "Let's take a ride, Dave. Paul, I have to take care of a little business with Dave. You stay here with Jess, and I'll be back in an hour."

"What about Dave?" Paul said.

"He's got to do some stuff. We'll see him later."

"Aren't you going fishing, Dave?" Paul said.

"We'll see how it works out. I might have to take off for a while," I said.

"I thought you were going with us." He was turned sideways in his wheelchair to talk to me. His blue jeans looked brand-new and stiff and too big for him.

"I might have to go back home," I said. "I've been gone a long time."

"Your little girl wants you to come home?"

"Yes, she does."

He nodded, picked up a piece of leader, and began poking it in a crack on the table.