“Then I guess it ain’t here, no.”
Clete suppressed a yawn and looked out the door, knowing the drill from many years.
“Ms. Crochet, we’ve already spoken to a couple of your neighbors,” I said. “I know your grandson is Bertrand Melancon. I know he’s staying with you. I don’t want to see him hurt. But some very bad men will do whatever it takes to get their hands on something they believe Bertrand has in his possession or at least has access to. I can’t stress enough how dangerous these men are.”
“He’s in trouble again, huh?”
“Yes, he is.”
“It started with their mama,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“Their mama always liked a downtown man. She went off to New Orleans, wasn’t gonna live in the Quarters like a field hand, she said. Eddy and Bertrand never had no real daddy.”
For just a moment I thought our trip was not in vain. “Where’s Bertrand right now, ms. Crochet?”
“Don’t know.”
“Has a man named Otis Baylor tried to contact you?”
“Who’s he?”
I wrote my home phone on the back of my business card and put the card on her coffee table. “Ask Bertrand to call me.”
“I got the feeling I ain’t gonna see him again, Mr. Robicheaux.”
I was surprised she had remembered my name and I realized that her mind and intelligence were far less influenced by her age than her body was. “Why is that?”
“’Cause I always knowed he was gonna die young. He didn’t talk till he was fo’ years old. Know why? He was always scared. A li’l boy scared every day of his life. He always been that same li’l boy, trying to prove he ain’t scared of nobody.”
“Bertrand told me he had an auntie in the Lower Nine. Think he might be with her?” I smiled when I said it.
“From what I hear, ain’t nobody left in the Lower Nine, lessen you count dead people.”
I got up to go.
“Suh?” she said.
“Yes?”
“What’s Bertrand done? He ain’t killed nobody? He ain’t done somet’ing like that, no?”
She made me think of a small bird looking up from the bottom of a nest.
CLETE AND I got back in his convertible and drove up the lane, to the end of the Quarters, on the outside chance Bertrand was at a neighbor’s house. I could tell Clete was exasperated by the way the interview had gone. “Why didn’t you tell her her grandson probably killed a Catholic priest?” he said.
“Because it wouldn’t do any good. Because she’s too old to handle that kind of weight.”
“You didn’t press her about the aunt, either.”
“I can’t chase him all over the state, Clete. I don’t have the time or the resources. How about lightening up?”
The right-front tire hit a chuckhole and the frame slammed down on the spring, splashing water on the windshield.
“It’s your case, but he’s still my bail skip,” Clete said. “And he’s still the guy who ran me down with his automobile.”
“That’s right, it’s my case. I’m glad we have that straight.”