Crusader's Cross (Dave Robicheaux 14)

"Wake you up?" the voice said, one that sounded like that of a man with infected membrane on his vocal cords.

"Jericho?" I said.

"I know it's early, but I let Jigger Babineau sleep it off in the back of my

saloon. Then he goes crazy about an hour ago and starts breaking out my windows with pool balls. Remember Jigger? He used to wash money for the Giacanos? So I'm sticking his head in a bucket of ice water when he tells me he saw you coming out of my saloon and you're gonna get clipped by a cop. I say, 'Why tell me, Jigger?' He goes, 'Because Robicheaux is a prick and so are you.'"

"So I ask him if the hitter is a guy name of Billy Joe Pitts, since Pitts ain't a player anymore. He says no, that ain't the name, it's a cop on a pad who's also a gash-hound and likes to nail young girls but he don't know the name. In fact, he don't know nothing except that Dave Robicheaux, who he called a self-righteous lush, is about to get his wick snuffed. So I thought I ought to pass it on."

"Anything about Purcel?" I said.

"You're the hit, my man. You know a dirty cop who'd go so far he'd smoke another cop?"

"Pitts's partner, a dude named J. W. Shockly," I replied.

"If I was you, I'd start hanging around with a better class of people," he said.

Clete and I fished for speckled trout and gafftop catfish in Atchafalaya Bay, just south of Point au Fer. The trout were not running, but we loaded the ice chest with big, hard-bodied gafftop and that evening put ashore at a camp built on stilts in the sawgrass that Clete leased by the year. We cleaned and filleted the fish on the dock and deep-fried them in a huge skillet, while the sun went down like a red wafer in the Gulf of Mexico.

That night the wind came up and blew the mosquitoes back into the marsh. Then at sunrise it rained hard for thirty minutes and the air was sweet and cool as we headed south through groundswells that burst on the bow in ropes of green and white foam. Clete had not had any alcohol in two days, and his face looked youthful and handsome inside the boat cabin, where he was tying fresh leaders and feathered spoons onto the rods we were about to set in the outriggers. The mist-covered Louisiana coastline fell away behind us, and we left the westward alluvial flow of the Mississippi and entered the smoky green, rain-dimpled roll of the Gulf, flying fish sailing across our bow like sleek, salmon-colored birds.

I could have stayed on that stretch of water the rest of my life.

But a storm broke in the early afternoon, and we headed back for land, eating fried-oyster po'boys, our skin stiff with salt and sunburn, a good thirty pounds of gutted fish in the ice chest.

The problems of the workweek had completely disappeared from my mind. We winched the boat up on the trailer and washed it down, then started to clean up the cabin. The rain was hitting hard on the tin roof now, and the gum trees and saw-grass in the marsh were turning gray inside the mist. Without explanation, Clete seemed to be growing agitated, faintly irritable, looking at his watch as though he were late for an appointment.

"Give me the keys and I'll gas up and buy some groceries to replace what we used," he said.

"We can buy gas on the way out," I said.

"I know that. But I want to restock my canned goods. That's why I just said I wanted to buy groceries," he replied.

Clete's duration of abstinence from booze was always short-lived. After a maximum of forty-eight hours, a physiological change would take place in him. He would perspire and constantly clear his throat, as though his mouth had turned to cotton, then light up a cigarette and take a deep hit on it, holding it inside, just as if he were toking on a joint. In a short while he would be back on the dirty boogie, tossing back Beam with the happy abandon of a hog rolling in slop.

But who was I to be the expert on somebody else's alcoholic chemistry? I tossed him the truck keys and watched through the back window as he drove down the road through the sawgrass and sheets of rain, the northern sky forked with lightning.

He should have been gone no longer than a half hour. I finished washing the dishes and making our beds, but still no Clete. I tried his cell phone and got no answer. I lay down on top of one of the bunks and by the light of a Coleman lantern read a fine novel titled The Black Echo by Michael Connelly. The wind outside made a humming sound in the sawgrass, and when I glanced through the window I could see whitecaps on the bay, like tiny bird wings, all the way out to the horizon.

Where was Clete?

I fell asleep briefly and had a troubling dream that later I couldn't remember. When I woke I heard my truck coming up the shell road, the boat trailer bouncing through the depressions. I sat on the side of the bunk and rubbed the sleep out on my face, resolving not to be angry or impatient with Cletus. The side window of the cabin had fogged in the rain, and I wiped it clean and looked out at the parking spot by the boat ramp. Clete had somebody with him and they were both drunk.

I opened the door onto the small gallery and watched them gather up two bags of groceries and a case of beer and head through the rain. The man with Clete was dressed western — in tight jeans, cowboy boots, chrome belt buckle the size of a car tag, a snap-button shirt that glittered like tin, and a short-brim Stetson tilted on the side of his head. His teeth were long, his face as lined as a tobacco leaf.

"Hey, Streak, look who I ran into — Bob Cobb. Remember Stomp-ass Bad Texas Bob?" Clete said.

They clomped inside the cabin, shaking off the rain, blowing out their breath, sorting out the beer and snacks on the kitchen table. Bad Texas Bob sat down in a chair, removed his hat, and wiped the water out of his hair onto the floor. "You guys got any chippies down here?" he said.

"Not a good question, Bob," Clete said.

"I was pulling Dave's joint," Bob said. "How's it danglin', Streak?"

"We're just about to head out," I said, giving Clete a look.

Bob's face wrinkled with hundreds of little lines when he grinned, but his eyes contained a steady, forced brightness, the kind you see in people who claim to be born again or wish to sell you something. I had not shaken hands with him, although I wasn't sure why not. In fact, I had stepped backward, toward my rucksack, which lay against the wall, the flap open.

"I didn't know you were a fisherman," I said.