Crusader's Cross (Dave Robicheaux 14)

"My bus stops right on the corner. See, there it comes now, right on time," she said, and started walking toward the intersection. A throwaway shopper's magazine was tucked under her arm. She looked back over her shoulder. "I've got your phone number now. I'll call you. I promise."

Jimmie stared after her. "You should have heard her sing," he said.

When the bus pulled away from the curb, Ida was sitting up front, in the whites-only section, totally absorbed with her magazine.

Just as we got into our convertible, the owner of the pawnshop came out on the sidewalk. He was a tall, white-haired man with a sloping girth and big hands and cigars stuffed in his shirt pocket. "Hey, you two," he said.

"Sir?" I said.

"That girl has enough trouble in her life. Don't you be adding to it," the owner said.

Jimmie's hands were on top of the steering wheel, his head bent forward. "What the hell are you talking about?" he said.

"Sass me again and I'll explain it to you," the owner said.

"Screw that. What do you mean she's got trouble?" Jimmie said.

But the pawnshop owner only turned and went back inside his building.

The next night Jimmie came in drunk and fell down in the tin shower stall. He pushed me away when I tried to help him up; his muscular body beaded with water, a rivulet of blood running from his hairline.

"What happened?" I said.

"Nothing," he replied.

"Is this about Ida Durbin?"

"That's not what they call her," he said.

"What?"

"Shut up about Ida," he said.

The next morning he was gone before I woke up, but our car was still in the carport. I crossed Seawall Boulevard to the beach and saw him sitting on the sand, shirtless and barefoot, surrounded by the collapsed air sacs of jellyfish.

"They call her Connie where she works. They don't have last names there," he said.

The previous afternoon Ida had called him at the motel and told him that he was a nice fellow, that she knew he would do well in college, and maybe years from now they'd see one another again when he was a rich and successful man. But in the meantime this was good-bye and he mustn't get her confused in his mind with the girl who was right for him.

After she rang off, Jimmie went straight to the pawnshop and told the owner he wanted to buy Ida's mandolin.

"It's not for sale," the owner said.

"I'm going to give it to Ida as a present. Now, how much is it?" Jimmie said.

"What do you think you're gonna get out of this, son?" he said.

"Get out of what?"

The owner clicked his fingers on the glass display case. "It's thirty-five dollars on the loan, two dollars for the closing charge."

Jimmie counted out the money from his billfold. The owner placed the mandolin in a double paper sack and set it on the display case.

"Can you tell me where she works or lives?" Jimmie asked.

The owner looked at him as though a lunatic had walked into his shop.