Last Car to Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux 13)

"Yeah. I think Gunner's got it wrong, though. Coll doesn't have any reason to be interested in me. Gunner might get himself popped."

"Where's Gunner now?"

"He didn't say. How do I get involved in crap like this?"

"Let's have a talk with Fat Sammy."

"I can't stand that guy. He looks like a blimp after all the air has gone out of it."

"There're worse guys in the life."

"Oh, I forgot, he gives discounts to the meth whores who work in his porn films," he said.

He fired up the Caddy, the rust-eaten muffler roaring against the asphalt, and we drove in the rain to Fat Sammy's house on Ursulines.

I rang the iron bell at the entrance.

"Who is it?" Sammy's voice said from the speaker inside the archway.

"Dave Robicheaux," I replied.

He buzzed open the gate and we walked through the flooded courtyard to the door of his house, which he had already unbolted and left ajar. I had not told Sammy that Clete was with me. When we stepped inside the living room he was lying on the floor, dressed in purple gym trunks and a strap undershirt, watching an opera on cable TV while he curled dumbbells into his chest. His massive legs were as white and hairless as a baby's, his pale blue eyes looking at us upside down.

"What's the haps, Sammy?" Clete said.

"Who said you could come in here, Purcel?" Fat Sammy asked.

Clete looked at me. "I'll wait in the car," he said.

"Clete's my friend, Sammy."

Sammy set down the dumbbells and got to his feet, his lungs wheezing. The living room was dark, the windows covered with thick velvet curtains. Through a side door I could see two men, neither of whom I recognized, shooting pool. Sammy looked down from his great height at both me and Clete.

"So you want to watch some opera?" he asked. He spread his feet and began touching his toes.

"You know a guy named Max Coll?" I said.

"Do I know him? No. Do I know who he is? Yeah, he works out of Miami 'cause it's suppose to be an open city there. Here's the short version. You want somebody clipped, there's guys in Little Havana who work for a service. You want it done right, you ask for this Irish character. Except some people say he's a wacko."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Clete staring intently through the side doorway at the two men shooting pool.

"Wacko how?" I said.

"I don't know, 'cause I don't keep company with them kind of people," Sammy said. "Look, what I hear is the wacko screwed up a job in New Orleans and stiffed the wrong people. That means if he goes back to Miami he might float up in a barrel. Now, we done with this?"

"The guy in there with the patent-leather hair? Is that Frank Del-lacroce?" Clete asked.

"What about it?" Sammy said.

"Nothing. I thought he was down on a murder beef in Texas. Maybe George W. slipped up during his days as chief needle injector," Clete said.

Sammy's eyes looked at nothing while he scratched at his cheek with three fingers. "Come back another time, Robicheaux," he said.

Outside, rain was sluicing off the rooftops while Clete and I ran for his Cadillac. We got inside and slammed the doors. "Why do you always have to start up the garbage grinder?" I said.

"That grease ball shooting pool put his infant daughter in the refrigerator and held a gun to his wife's head while he did it. You think Sammy is on the square? I think he's a fat douche bag who should have been blown out of his socks years ago."

"You don't listen, Clete. It's hopeless. You'll never change."