Cadillac Jukebox (Dave Robicheaux 9)

I rubbed my palms on my knees and let out my breath.

"Why does he bother you so much?" she asked.

"Because you never let another man talk to you like that."

"People have said worst to you." She lay her hand on my arm. "Put the covers over you. It's cold."

"I'm going to fix something to eat."

"Is it because of his background?"

"I don't know."

She was quiet for a long time.

"Say it, Boots."

"Or is it Karyn?" she asked.

I went into the kitchen by myself, poured a glass of milk, and stared out the window at my neighbor's pasture, where one of his mares was running full-out along the fence line, her breath blowing, her muscles working rhythmically, as though she were building a secret pleasure inside herself that was about to climax and burst.

The next morning I parked my truck on Decatur Street, on the edge of the French Quarter, and walked through Jackson Square, past St. Louis Cathedral, and on up St. Ann to the tan stucco building with the arched entrance and brick courtyard where Clete Purcel kept his office. It had rained before dawn, and the air was cool and bright, and bougainvillea hung through the grill work on the balcony upstairs. I looked through his window and saw him reading from a manila folder on top of his desk, his shirt stretched tight across his back, his glasses as small as bifocals on his big face.

I opened the door and stuck my head inside.

"You still mad?" I said.

"Hey, what's goin' on, big mon?"

"I'll buy you a beignet," I said.

He thought about it, made a rolling, popping motion with his fingers and hands, then followed me outside.

"Just don't talk to me about Aaron Crown and Buford LaRose," he said.

"I won't."

"What are you doing in New Orleans?"

"I need to check out Jimmy Ray Dixon again. His office says he's at his pool hall out by the Desire."

He tilted his porkpie hat on his head, squinted at the sun above the rooftops.

"Did you ever spit on baseballs when you pitched American Legion?" he said.

We had beignets and coffee with hot milk at an outdoor table in the Cafe du Monde. Across the street, sidewalk artists were painting on easels by the iron fence that bordered the park, and you could hear boat horns out on the river, just the other side of the levee. I told him about Mingo Bloomberg's death.

"It doesn't surprise me. I think it's what they all look for," he said.

"What?"

"The Big Exit. If they can't get somebody to do it for them, they do it themselves. Most of them would have been better off if their mothers had thrown them away and raised the afterbirth."

"You want to take a ride?"

"That neighborhood's a free-fire zone, Streak. Let Jimmy Ray slide. He's a walking ad for enlistment in the Klan."

"See you later, then."