Cadillac Jukebox (Dave Robicheaux 9)

"Go ahead, Sheriff."

"Buford called and said you're resentful about the assignment. He said you don't need to come around his house again."

"He did, did he?"

"That's not all. He said you made a pass at his wife last night."

"He's a liar."

"I believe you. But why did he decide to make up a story about you now?"

"Ask him."

"I will . . . Dave, you still there?"

"I'll talk to you later, Sheriff. I have to go somewhere."

"I always knew this job would bring me humility . . . Say, you're not going out to get in Buford LaRose's face, are you?"

I drove Bootsie's Toyota to the mechanic's garage, exchanged it for my truck, and asked the mechanic to drive the Toyota back to my house, then I headed out to the LaRose plantation.

But I was not the only person who had a grievance with Buford that day. Jerry Joe Plumb's blue Buick was pulled at an angle to the old LaRose company store, and Jerry Joe stood on the gallery between the two wooden pecan barrels that framed the double front doors, his hands on his hips, speaking heatedly into Buford's face.

I crunched across the shell parking lot and cut my engine. They both looked at me, then stepped inside the double doors with the oxidized and cracked windows and continued their argument, Jerry Joe jabbing his finger in the air, his cheeks pooling with color.

But I could still hear part of it.

"You're shorting me. Your old man wouldn't do this, Buford."

"You'll get your due."

"Three of the jobs you promised are already let to Dock Green."

"I gave you my word. You stop trying to cadge favors because you knew my family."

"Persephone let you put your head up her dress?"

Jerry Joe's back was to me. His shoulders looked stiff, rectangular, his triceps swollen with tubes of muscle, like a prizefighter's while he waits for the referee to finish giving instructions before the bell.

But Buford turned away from the insult and lit a cigar, cupping and puffing it in the gloom as though Jerry Joe was not there.

Jerry Joe's leather-soled oxblood loafers were loud on the gallery when he came out the double doors.

"What's the haps, Jerry?" I said.

He balanced on his soles, his face still glowing.

"He asks me the haps? Here's a lesson. You take up with piranha fish, don't expect them to go on a diet."

"Buford stiffed you?"

"That guy don't have the lead in his Eversharp to stiff anybody. Hey, keep your hammer in your pants or get you a full-body condom," he said, and got into his Buick and started the engine.

I got out of my truck and put my hand on his door window. He rolled it down with the electric motor.

"Spell it out," I said.

"You're in the way. She knows how to combine business and pleasure. Don't pretend you're a dumb shit." He pushed the window button again and scorched two lines in the shell parking lot out to the state highway.