I walked back up the slope to my truck and used my cell phone to make an animal cruelty report on Val Chalons to the St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Department. I waited for their cruiser to show up before I left, to
ensure as best I could that Chalons and his friends would kill no more pigeons that day. But more disturbing than his cruelty was his apparent indifference to the fact that a man like Johnny Wineburger might be in town to break his wheels. That one definitely would not slide down the pipe.
I got back to the office by 1:30 p.m., drinking a Coca-Cola packed with ice and lime slices, my heart rate up, my shirt peppered with sweat. Even in the air-conditioning, I couldn't stop perspiring. I washed my face in the lavatory and went up front for my mail. "Been running up and down the stairs?" Wally said from the dispatcher's cage.
"How'd you know?" I replied.
But it wasn't funny. I could feel the blood veins tightening in the side of my head again and unconsciously I kept pushing at my scalp with my fingers, like a man who fears his brains are seeping out of his skull. Therapists call it psycho-neurotic anxiety. The manifestation is obvious but the cause is not, because the cause keeps itself armor-plated somewhere in the bottom of the id. I know of only one other experience that compares with the syndrome. Your combat tour is almost over.
You're "short," counting days until you catch the big freedom bird home. Except your private calendar doesn't change the fact you're on a night trail in a Third World shithole, wrapped in your own stink, your skin crawling with insects, your toes mushy with trench foot, and out there in the jungle you're convinced Bedcheck Charlie is writing your name on an AK-47 round or a trip-wired 105 dud.
At 1:47 p.m. my Vice cop friend at Lafayette P.D. called. His name was Joe Dupree. Joe had worked Homicide for years before he had gone over to Vice, claiming he had burnt out on blood-splattered DOAs. But some said Joe simply wanted to be closer to a cheap source of narcotics. Sometimes I saw him at AA meetings. Other times I saw him wasted in a baitshop or by himself in his boat, out at Whiskey Bay, doing his own kind of time inside his own head.
"I busted a couple of lowlifes in North Lafayette last night. They say the word on the street is a husband-wife team out of Florida are setting up a new escort service," he said.
"Lou and Connie Coyne?"
"That's who it sounds like."
"Why now?" I asked.
"Oil is supposed to hit fifty dollars a barrel this year. You know a better local aphrodisiac?" he replied.
So much for the altruism of Ida Durbin, I thought.
Another half hour went by. I went into Helen's office. "I've got to get off the desk," I said.
She pulled on an earlobe. "Really?" she said.
"Chalons is about to make a move. Against me or Molly or Clete. I saw this televangelical character Alridge out at his place. Jericho Johnny Wineburger is around, too. I can't figure any of it out."
I thought she would be angry or at least irritated and dismissing. I knew I looked and sounded like a man waving his arms on the street, prophesying doom to anyone who would listen. Instead, she stood up and, just for something to do, arranged a floating flower in a glass bowl on her desk. "The D.A. is going ahead with felony assault charges against you, Dave. Also, there's that molestation issue. Maybe we ought to count our blessings."
"Roust Wineburger. I think he's got a contract on somebody. But I don't know who."
"Give me an address," she said, picking up a pen.
"I saw him fishing at Henderson Swamp."
She clicked the button on her pen several times, staring wanly into space, afraid to speak lest she hurt me in ways she couldn't repair.
I went back to my office and tried to think. But long ago I had learned that my best thinking usually got me drunk. Through the window I saw a truck sideswipe a car at the train crossing, smashing it into a telephone pole, and was glad for the diversion. I dumped my incoming baskets of accident and domestic dispute reports and payroll requests and time sheets into a large paper sack, stapled it at the top, and dropped it in a corner like a load of bagged-up Kitty Litter.
Then my phone rang. "I just had lunch with Ida," Jimmie's voice said. "There's something real weird going on with Valentine Chalons."
"He wouldn't see Ida?" I said.
"No, she visited him at Iberia General. He was overjoyed. They were supposed to have supper in Lafayette last night. Lou Kale dropped her off under the porte cochere at the restaurant. But Chalons takes one look at her, turns to stone, and has the valet bring up his car. Ida was pretty shook up. What a prick."
"Did Kale try to come in with her?"
"No, he just drove her there."
"Did Chalons see him?"
"I guess. Why?"
"Get away from them."