Black Cherry Blues (Dave Robicheaux 3)

“I bet he did. Dio was playing poker with one of the Mexico City crowd on a yacht out in the Gulf. They were playing deuces wild, and the greaseball had taken six or seven grand off our friend. Except Dio caught him with a deuce hidden under his thigh. Sal’s old man used to be known as Frankie ‘Pliers.’ I won’t tell you why. But I guess Sal wanted to keep up the tradition. He had another guy hold the greaseball down on the deck and he cut off most of his ear with a pair of tin snips. Then he told him, ‘Tel

l everybody a duck ate your ear.’ That’s the guy you were visiting today. That’s the guy who takes care of your buddy Dixie Lee.”

“Why does he care about Dixie Lee?”

“He gets something out of it. Sal doesn’t do anything unless there’s a blow job in it for him somewhere.”

“Leasing or buying land for him?”

“Maybe. But don’t concern yourself. Go back to Louisiana.”

“You know anything about some AIM members who might have disappeared from the Blackfeet Reservation?”

“I’m really wondering about the soundness of your mind at this point.”

“It’s a simple question.”

“If you really want to step into a pile of shit, you’ve found a good way to do it.”

“Look, Mr. Nygurski, I’m all on my own. Maybe I’m going to Angola pen. That’s not hyperbole, I’m just about wiped out financially, my own testimony is my only defense, and my personal history is one that’ll probably make a jury shudder. Tell me what you’d do in my circumstances. I’d really appreciate that.”

He paused, and I heard him take a breath.

“I never heard anything about any AIM guys disappearing,” he said. “You’ll have to talk with the tribal council or the sheriff’s department. Maybe the FBI, although they don’t have any love lost for those guys. Look, the reservation is a world unto itself. It’s like a big rural slum. Kids cook their heads huffing glue, women cut each other up in bars. The Browning jail is a horror show on Saturday night. They’re a deeply fucked-up people.”

“I may be over to see you in Great Falls.”

“Why?”

“Because I think Dio is mixed up in this. Harry Mapes has been around his place, and I don’t think it’s simply because he knows Dixie Lee.”

“Dio is mixed up with narcotics, whores, and gambling. Let me set you straight about this guy. He’s not Bugsy Siegel. Comparatively speaking, he’s a small-time player in Vegas and Tahoe. Anything he owns, he’s allowed to own. But he’s an ambitious guy who wants to be a swinging dick. So he’s come up here to Lum ’n’ Abner land to make the big score. Now, that’s all you get, Robicheaux. Stay away from him. You won’t help your case, and in the meantime you might get hurt. If I hear anything about missing Indians, I’ll let you know.”

“Is it possible you feel you have the franchise on Sally Dio?”

“That could be, my friend. I grew up in West Virginia. I don’t like what shitheads can do to good country. But I’m also a federal agent. I get paid for doing certain things, which doesn’t include acting as an information center. I think I’m already overextended in this conversation. So long, Mr. Robicheaux.”

That evening I walked Alafair downtown in the twilight, and we ate fried chicken in a restaurant by the river. Then we walked over the Higgins Street Bridge, where old men fished off the railing in the dark swirls of current far below. The mountains in the west were purple and softly outlined against the red sun, and the wind was cold blowing across the bridge. I could smell chimney smoke and wood pulp in the air, diesel and oil from a passing Burlington Northern. We walked all the way to the park, where a group of boys was trying to hurry summer with a night baseball game. But in the hard glare of the lights the wind grew colder and the dust swirled in the air and finally drops of rain clicked across the tin roof of the dugout. The sky over the valley was absolutely black when we made it home.

Firewood was stacked on the back porch of our house, and I broke up kindling from an orange crate in the fireplace, placed it and balls of newspaper under three pine logs on the andirons, and watched the bright red cone of flame rise up into the brick chimney. It was raining hard outside now, clattering against the roof and windows, and I could see a sawmill lighted across the river in the rain.

During the night lightning flickered whitely on the far wall of my bedroom. It created a window in the soft green plaster, and through it I saw Annie sitting on a rock by a stream’s edge. Cylindrical stone formations rose against the cobalt sky behind her. Her hair and denim shirt were wet, and I could see her breasts through the cloth.

I’m worried, Dave, she said.

Why’s that?

You haven’t been going to AA meetings. You think maybe you’re setting yourself up for a slip?

I haven’t had time.

She pulled her wet shirtfront loose from her skin with her fingers.

Will you promise me to look in the yellow pages today and find a meeting? she said.

I promise.

Because I think you’re flying on the outer edges now. Maybe looking at something worse than a slip.