Last Car to Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux 13)

"Why?" he said.

"Because I see better with natural light," I said.

When he pulled back the curtains the room was immediately flooded with sunshine. The window gave onto a patio and a beautiful view of the bayou and the live oaks in the side yard. But the potted plants on the patio were dead, the glass-topped table marbled with dirt and the dried rings of evaporated rainwater. Helen and I pulled all the shoes out of the closet and bagged two pairs of black ones.

Dr. Parks sat on the side of the bed, his shoulders rounded. His wife opened the bathroom door, looked at us briefly, then closed it again. "Look, you've got your job to do. I accept that. But I heard .. ." he said.

"Heard what?" I said.

"You people found the gun that killed the daiquiri-shop operator," he said.

"The man who owns the weapon makes a convincing case it was stolen," I said.

"You think I go around stealing guns from people?"

"You attend gun shows, Dr. Parks?" Helen asked.

"Sure. All over the country."

"Ever buy a firearm at a tailgate sale?" she asked.

He rubbed his brow. "It's hopeless, isn't it?" he said.

"What do you mean?" I said.

"I've heard about stuff like this. You can't make your case and you zero in on the survivors of the victim," he said.

There were many rejoinders either Helen or I could have made. But you don't break off the barb of a harpoon in a man who has already been ripped from his liver to his lights.

We got back in the cruiser and crossed the drawbridge in Lor-eauville, then headed up the state highway toward New Iberia. We passed cane trucks and the old Negro quarters left over from plantation days and an emerald green horse farm with big red barns and pecan trees next to a white house.

"Why'd you want the curtains open back there?" Helen asked, watching the road.

"Their bedroom was like a grave. I couldn't breathe."

She glanced sideways at me.

"You didn't feel it?" I asked.

"You worry me, bwana," she said.

Chapter 8.

On Saturday morning I drove with Clete to New Orleans to check out his apartment, which he had loaned to Gunner Ardoin and his little girl. We crossed the Atchafalaya on the arched steel bridge at Morgan City, the docked shrimp boats and old brick buildings and tile roofs and palm-dotted streets of the town spread out below us in the sunshine. Then we drove into rain that seemed to blow out of the cane fields like purple smoke, and by the time we approached the giant bridge spanning the Mississippi, Clete's Cadillac was shaking in the wind, the fabric in the top denting with hailstones.

We drove into the French Quarter and parked in front of his apartment on St. Ann. He r

an through the rain and went upstairs into his apartment. A few minutes later he was back in the car, his brow knitted.

"Gunner taking care of the place?" I said.

"Yeah, everything looks fine," he said.

"What's wrong?" I said.

"He left a message on the machine. He said an Irish guy was asking around in the neighborhood a couple of days ago. A weird-looking dude with little ears. Gunner thought maybe this guy had business with me."

"Max Coll?" I said.