Black Cherry Blues (Dave Robicheaux 3)

“If he does, we don’t know about it. Maybe he put out the contract and let Dodds hire a backup guy. I tell you, though, if this new guy is working with Dodds, he’s not going to try for any ‘before and after’ stuff, not after Dodds blew it. He’ll go for a clean hit, one that you’ll never see coming. I don’t want to be graphic, but you know how they usually do it—one behind the head, one in the ear, and three under the chin.”

“Run Mapes for me.”

“What do you expect to find?”

“I don’t know. My lawyer says he was in trouble only once, for beating up a kid with a golf club when he was seventeen. But I’ve seen this guy in action, and I can’t believe he hasn’t bumped into the furniture more than once.”

“Where’s he from?”

“He beat up the kid in Marshall, Texas.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“There’s one other thing. Dixie Lee moved out of Dio’s place. He says he’s through with him. You might talk to him.”

“About what?”

“That’s your province. How about grand jury testimony? It took guts to walk out on Dio, particularly when he owes him fifteen thou.”

“When did you decide to start sharing Pugh’s secrets?”

“He’s probably going to need federal protection sometime. He might be a drunk, but his head sops up information and people’s conversations like a blotter.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s staying with me.”

“What did you do for kicks as a kid? Swallow thumbtacks?”

“The guy’s up against the wall,” I said.

“No, I take that crack back. You’re a slick operator, Robicheaux. Pugh becomes a federal witness, Pugh lives at your house, your house and the people in it go under our umbrella. Right?”

“Not really.”

“I hope not. Because we choose the accommodations.”

“Clever people don’t end up in the mess I’m in, Nygurski.”

“I think maybe there’s solid truth in that statement. I’ll get back to you. In the meantime you watch your butt.”

“When can I hear from you about Mapes?”

“I’m going the extra mile for you. Ease up on the batter, okay? Have a little trust. If you ever get out of this, get your badge back. I think everybody would rather have you inside the tent pissing out the flap rather than the other way around. I’m sure of it.”

Dixie Lee was up early the next morning and had breakfast with me and Alafair at the kitchen table. He was one of those drunks whose eyes clear and whose skin becomes pink and unlined with only a twenty-four-hour respite from alcohol. This morning his face was shaved and bright, and he wore a pair of pleated, white summer shorts and a white sport shirt with green parrots on it. I walked Alafair to school, then made him go to an AA meeting with me down the street and put his name in with the job-placement service. His mood was not as cheerful on the way back home as it had been earlier.

“Them people make me nervous, son,” he said. “I feel like a turd floating around in somebody’s soup bowl.”

“It’s the one place where maybe people can understand guys like us, Dixie.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been to them meets before, and it didn’t take. I think that’s just the way it is with some guys. Jesus pointed his finger at the people he wanted. I ain’t seen nobody point his finger at me. Hey, you remember those jokes we used to tell in the fifties? Like, what’d the bathtub say to the toilet? ‘I get the same amount of ass you do, but I don’t have to take all that shit.’”

“Come on, partner, what’s really bothering you?”

“I don’t relate to that fourth-and fifth-step stuff. Where you got to go over all you done wrong and confess everything to somebody. I really don’t dig that at all. I got enough damn guilt without poking at it with a stick.”

“Take it a step at a time. You don’t have to do that now. Besides, haven’t you owned up to a lot of things already? You told me some pretty honest stuff when you were in the hospital in Lafayette.”