Cadillac Jukebox (Dave Robicheaux 9)

It's the daughter, I thought.

I visited Batist in the hospital that afternoon, then picked up three pounds of frozen peeled crawfish and a carton of potato salad in town, so Bootsie would not have to cook, and drove down the dirt road toward the house. The bayou was half in shadow and the sunlight looked like gold thread in the trees. Dust drifted out on the bayou's surface and coated the wild elephant ears that grew in dark clumps in the shallows. My neighbor was stringing Christmas lights on his gallery while his rotating hose sprinkler clattered a jet of water among the myrtle bushes and tree trunks in his yard. It was the kind of perfect evening that seemed outside of time, so gentle and removed from the present that you would not be surprised if a news carrier on a bike with balloon tires threw a rolled paper onto your lawn with a headline announcing victory over Japan.

But its perfection dissipated as soon as I pulled into the drive and saw a frail priest in a black suit and Roman collar step out of his parked car and glare at me as though I had just risen from the Pit.

"Could I help you, Father?" I said.

"I want to know why you've been tormenting Mr. Dolowitz," he said. His face called to mind a knotted, red cauliflower.

I stooped down so I could see the man in the passenger seat. He kept his face straight ahead, his biscuit-colored derby hat like a bowl on his head.

"No Duh?" I said.

"I understand you're a practicing Catholic," the priest said.

"That's correct."

"Then why have you forced this man to commit a crime? He's terrified. What the hell's the matter with you?"

"There's a misunderstanding here, Father."

"Then why don't you clear things up for me, sir?"

I took his hand and shook it, even though he hadn't offered it. It was as light as balsa sticks in my palm and didn't match the choleric heat in his face. His name was Father Timothy Mulcahy, from the Irish Channel in New Orleans, and he was the pastor of a small church off Magazine whose only parishioners were those too poor or elderly to move out of the neighborhood.

"I didn't threaten this man, Father. I told him he could do what was right for himself," I said. Then I leaned down to the driver's window. "No Duh, you tell Father Mulcahy the truth or I'm going to mop up the yard with you."

"Ah, it's clear you're not a violent man," the priest said.

"No Duh, now is not the time—" I began.

"It was the other guy, that animal Purcel, Father. But Robicheaux was with him," No Duh said.

The priest cocked one eyebrow, then tilted his head, made a self-deprecating smile.

"Well, I'm sorry for my rashness," he said. "Nonetheless, Mr. Dolowitz shouldn't have been forced to break into someone's home," he said.

"Would you give us a few minutes?" I said.

He nodded and started to walk away, then touched my arm and took me partway with him.

"Be easy with him. This man's had a terrible experience," he said.

I went back to the priest's car and leaned on the window jamb. Dolowitz took off his hat and set it on his knees. His face looked small, waxlike, devoid of identity. He touched nervously at his mustache.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I creeped Dock Green's house. Somebody left the key in the lock. I stuck a piece of newspaper under the door and knocked the key out and caught it on the paper and pulled it under the door. They got me going back out. They didn't know I'd been inside. If they had, I wouldn't be alive," he said.

"Who got you?"

"Persephone Green and a button guy works for the Giacanos and some other pervert gets off hurting people." For the first time his eyes lifted into mine. They possessed a detachment that reminded me of that strange, unearthly look we used to call in Vietnam the thousand-yard stare.

"What they'd do to you, partner?"

The fingers of one hand tightened on the soft felt of his hat. "Buried me alive . . .," he said. "What, you surprised? You think only Dock's got this thing about graves and talking with dead people under the ground? Him and Persephone are two of a kind. She thought it was funny. She laughed while they put a garden hose in my mouth and covered me over with a front-end loader. It was just like being lock

ed in black concrete, with no sound, with just a little string of dirty air going into my throat. They didn't dig me up till this morning. I went to the bathroom inside my clothes."