Pegasus Descending (Dave Robicheaux 15)

“A kid called just before you got home. He wouldn’t leave a number. He said he’d call back later.”

“What’s his name?”

“Tony?”

“Tony Lujan?”

“He just said ‘Tony.’ He sounded like he’d been drinking.”

“He probably was. That’s Bello Lujan’s kid. The D.A. and the Feds are about to chain-drag him down East Main.”

The phone rang again. This time I went inside and answered it. It was Wally, our dispatcher, working the late shift and, I suspected, trying to pass on his discontent about it.

“We got Monarch Little in a holding cell. He t’rew his food t’rew the bars. What do you t’ink we ought to do?”

“Tell him to clean it up. Why you calling me with this, Wally?”

“’Cause he wants to talk to Helen, but she ain’t here.”

“What’s he in for?”

“Illegal firearms possession. Maybe littering, too, ’cause he left his burned car on the street.”

“I’m not in the mood for it, partner.”

“His car caught fire, down at the corner where he sells dope. Soon as the fire truck gets there, shotgun shells start blowing up inside the car. There was a sawed-off double-barrel on the floor. The firemen found what was left of a truck flare on the backseat. Want to come down?”

“No.”

There was a pause. “Dave?”

“What?”

“One of the uniforms called Monarch a bucket of black gorilla shit. Monarch axed him if it was true the uniform’s mother still does it dog-style in Master P’s backyard. The same uniform tole me he was recommending suicide watch for Monarch. I go off shift in t’ree hours. I don’t want no accidents happening here after I’m gone.”

I took the receiver from my ear and pinched the fatigue out of my eyes. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“T’anks. I knew you wouldn’t mind.”

I asked Molly to save my dinner and went down to the jail, where Monarch sat in a holding cell, barefoot, beltless, his gold neck chains locked up in a personal possessions envelope. One eye had a deep red blood clot in the corner, the eyebrow ridged, split in the middle.

“Who popped you?” I asked.

“Slipped down getting into the cruiser. Check the arrest rep

ort if you t’ink I’m lying. I cain’t get ahold of that FBI woman. I’m suppose to be in Witness Protection, not in no holding cell.”

“This may come as a shock, but Witness Protection doesn’t empower a person to go on committing crimes.”

“That cut-down shotgun ain’t mine. I ain’t never seen it before.”

“Why were you on the corner?”

“I wasn’t on the corner. I was in the back room of the li’l store there, drinking a soda wit’ my friends. I go there every afternoon to have a soda. Then my ’Bird explodes. Next t’ing I know, I got a racial problem wit’ a cracker don’t have no bidness in a black neighborhood.” He brushed at his eye with the back of his wrist.

“Did you mouth off to the arresting officer?”

“I tole him what I tole you—that ain’t my gun. He t’ought my ’Bird burning up was funny. He said too bad I wasn’t taking a nap in it.”