"That's it? A guy you helped put in prison, maybe unjustly, ends up injected, that's just the breaks?"
"Maybe he's a violent, hateful man who's getting just what he deserves."
I started to walk away. Then I turned.
"I'm going to scramble your eggs," I said.
I was so angry I walked the wrong way in the corridor and went outside into the wrong parking lot. When I realized my mistake I went back through the corridor toward the lobby. I passed the dining room, then a short hallway that led back to a service elevator. Buford was leaning against the wall by the elevator door, his face ashen, his wife supporting him by one arm.
"What happened?" I said.
The elevator door opened.
"Help me get him up to our room," Karyn said.
"I think he needs an ambulance."
"No! We have our own physician here. Dave, help me, please. I can't hold him up."
I took his other arm and we entered the elevator. Buford propped the heel of his hand against the support rail on the back wall, pulled his collar loose with his fingers, and took a deep breath.
"I did a five-minute mile this morning. How about that?" he said, a smile breaking on his mouth.
"You better ease up, partner," I said.
"I just need to lie down. One hour's sleep and I'm fine."
I looked at Karyn's face. It was composed now, the agenda, whatever it was, temporarily back in place.
We walked Buford down to a suite on the top floor and put him in bed and closed the door behind us.
"He's talking to a state police convention tonight," Karyn said, as though offering an explanation for the last few minutes. Through the full-glass windows in the living room you could see the capitol building, the parks and boulevards and trees in the center of the city, the wide sweep of the Mississippi River, the wetlands to the west, all the lovely urban and rural ambiance that came with political power in Louisiana.
"Is Buford on uppers?" I asked.
"No. It's . . . He has a prescription. He gets overwrought sometimes."
"You'd better get him some help, Karyn."
I walked through the foyer to the door.
"You're going?" she said.
She stood inches from me, her face turned up into mine. The exertion of getting Buford into the room had caused her to perspire, and her platinum hair and tanned skin took on a dull sheen in the overhead light. I could smell her perfume in the enclosure, the heat from her body. She leaned her forehead into my chest and placed her hands lightly on my arms.
"Dave, it wasn't just the alcohol, was it? You liked me, didn't you?"
She tapped my hips with her small fists, twisted her forehead back and forth on my chest as though an unspoken conclusion about her life was trying to break from her throat.
I put one hand on her arm, then felt behind me for the elongated door handle. It was locked in place, rigid across the sweating cup of my palm.
CHAPTER 9
A day later Clete Purcel's chartreuse Cadillac convertible, the top down, pulled up in front of the sheriff's department with Mingo Bloomberg in the passenger's seat. Clete and Mingo came up the walk, through the waiting room, and into my office. Mingo stood in front of my desk in white slacks and a lemon yellow shirt with French cuffs. He rotated his neck, as though his collar were too tight, then put a breath mint in his mouth.
"My lawyer's getting me early arraignment and recognizance. I'm here as a friend of the court, so you got questions, let's do it now, okay?" he said. He snapped the mint in his molars.
"Mingo, I don't think that's the way to start out the day here," Clete said.