Cadillac Jukebox (Dave Robicheaux 9)

"He wants her father," I said.

"I don't get it."

"Mookie Zerrang works for Persephone Green and Jimmy Ray Dixon. Jimmy Ray knows sooner or later Aaron's going to kill him."

"What for?"

"I think it has to do with Sabelle."

"To tell you the truth, Dave, I really don't give a damn about any of these people's motivations. It's like figuring out why shit stinks. I just wish they'd stay the hell out of our parish. Get over there, will you?"

The sheriff brushed something out of his eye, then he said, "Except why would this guy torture a woman, then leave her on the train tracks? Why didn't he just kill her and put her out of her misery?"

"Because he hurts a lot more people this way," I said.

Helen Soileau and I drove in a cruiser on the four-lane to Lafayette. Emergency flares burned inside the fog when we arrived at the railroad crossing where the freight locomotive had struck Sabelle's gas-guzzler broadside and pushed it fifty yards down the rails in a spray of sparks.

We parked on the shoulder of the road and walked through the weeds to the car's wreckage by the side of the tracks. It lay upside down, the engine block driven through the firewall, the roof mashed against the steering column. Lafayette firemen had covered the outside metal, the engine, and gas tank with foam and were trying to wedge open the driver's window with a hydraulic jack.

A paramedic had worked his way on his stomach through the inverted passenger's window, and I could hear him talking inside. A moment later he crawled back out. His shirt and both of his latex gloves were spotted with blood.

He sat in the grass, his hands on his thighs. A fireman put a plug of tobacco in the paramedic's mouth to bite off, then helped him up by one arm.

"How's it look?" I said.

"The car didn't burn. Otherwise, that lady don't have a whole lot of luck," he replied. He looked into my eyes and saw the unanswered question still there. He shook his head.

I took off my coat, slipped my clip-on holster off my belt, and squeezed through the passenger's window into the car's interior. I could smell gas and the odor of musty cushions and old grease and burnt electrical wires.

Sabelle's head and upper torso were layered with crumpled metal, so that she had virtually no mobility. I couldn't see the lower portion of her body at all. She coughed, and I felt the spray touch my face like a warm mist.

"What'd he do to you, kiddo?" I said.

"Everything."

"Those guys out there are the best. They'll have you out of here soon."

"When I close my eyes I can feel the world turning. If I don't open them quickly, I won't get back . . . I betrayed Daddy, Dave."

"It's not your fault."

"Mookie Zerrang knows where he is."

"There's still time to stop it. If you'll trust me."

Her eyes went out of focus, then settled on mine again. One cheek was marbled with broken veins. The rent metal around her head looked like an aura fashioned out of warped pewter.

She told me where to look.

"Jimmy Ray Dixon was your pimp in New Orleans, wasn't he? Then he took you north, to work for him in Chicago."

"I made my own choices. I got no kick coming."

"Your father murdered Ely Dixon, didn't he?"

"Wipe my nose, Streak. My hands are caught inside something."

I worked my handkerchief from my back pocket and touched at her upper lip with it. She coughed again, long and hard this time, gagging in her throat, and I tried to hold her chin so she wouldn't cut it on a strip of razored metal that was wrapped across her chest. The handkerchief came away with a bright red flower in the middle of it.