Crusader's Cross (Dave Robicheaux 14)

"Val put the contract on me?" I said.

"Figure it out. How many people want you snuffed?"

"I wouldn't be clever."

"He don't consult with me. He's an educated man. People get in his face, he deals with it. That he gets from me."

I looked at him a long time. There were other questions I could have asked him, but the surge of terror that had robbed him of his defenses was gone and I had no inclination to restore it. In fact, I wondered if the moral insanity that characterizes terminal alcoholism had not taken up presence in my own life. I wiped the .38 clean on a towel and opened the curtain on the sliding glass door. Hailstones were bouncing on the St. Augustine grass and the cement by the pool.

"I can't force you out of the area, Lou, but I'm going to make life as uncomfortable for you as I can," I said.

"You did a switcherroo on that gun, didn't you? You palmed the shell?"

I flipped open the cylinder on the .38 and shucked out the cartridge I had loaded earlier. It had been one chamber removed from rotating under the firing pin.

"You got a lot of luck, Lou. Wear this on your key chain," I said, and bounced the cartridge off his chest.

As I turned to walk out, I heard him scrape the steak knife off his dinner plate and charge at my back. I drove my elbow into his face and left him on the carpet, holding his nose with both hands.

A moment later I stopped at the desk in the lobby. "I owe you an apology, Miss," I said.

"What for?" the girl behind the desk said, smiling.

"One day I'll tell you. Here are a couple of gift certificates for a dinner at the Patio in New Iberia. The owner gave them to me, so it's no big deal."

"You don't have to do that," she said.

"Yeah, I do."

"Thank you," she said.

"Good night," I said.

"Good night," she replied.

I got in my truck and drove out from under the spreading oak where I had parked. A blue and pink neon sign in the shape of a martini glass and a reclining nude inside it was stenciled against the sky. I floored the truck through a broken chain of puddles and swerved out onto the old two-lane to New Iberia, the road ahead black with rain.

chapter THIRTY

At 8:01 a.m. Friday I called Koko Hebert at his office. "Was Honoria Chalons a kidney donor?" I said.

He put down the receiver, then scraped it up a moment later. "Neither a donor nor a recipient," he said. "Why?"

"Val Chalons was asked to be a kidney donor for his father. It turned out they weren't related. Supposedly Honoria bailed out the old man."

"Honoria took all her parts into the grave."

"You know how to say it, Koko."

"Anything else?"

"Where do we start a search on a kidney transplant for Raphael Chalons?"

"No, where do you start a search," he corrected., and hung up.

Outside, the rain was twisting in sheets, cars inching along in water up to the doors. The phone on my desk rang in less than thirty seconds after Koko had broken the connection. "What are you trying to tell me?" he said.

"Val is not the son of Raphael Chalons. The old man didn't leave a will. The Chalons estate is probably up for grabs."