Last Car to Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux 13)

When I had almost thought my way into a charitable attitude toward Castille Lejeune, I felt a hand touch my shoulder. "Would you like to play a round of racquet ball, Mr. Robicheaux?" he said.

"Never learned how," I said.

"Do you have any idea why this deranged physician, what's-his-name, Parks, would have come to my home, then to my foreman's?"

So you're a showboat as well as a hypocrite, I thought. "His daughter was served illegally at your daiquiri shop before she died in a car crash. Your company defrauded him on the house-remodeling job it did at his home. He also said you sold him a bogus warranty on his house. Maybe that might have something to do with it," I replied.

"I'd like to say your reputation precedes you, Mr. Robicheaux. But your potential seems to have no limits," he said.

"Your deceased wife brought a black convict to your house out of respect for his musical talent, an event evidently you couldn't abide. That same convict, Junior Crudup, disappeared from the face of the earth. I suspect, on the day of your death, his specter will be standing by your bed."

The only sound in the room was the hum of the overhead fans.

"How dare you?" he said.

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; I'm going to get you, you sorry sack of shit, I said to myself, my eyes fixed six inches from his.

The days were growing shorter, and by 6 P.M. the sun had set, the sky was black and veined with lightning, and Bayou Teche was high and yellow and chained with rain rings in the glow of the lamps along the banks of City Park. Father Jimmie walked about in the backyard, his hands in his pockets, examining the sky, the wind swirling leaves around his ankles. He came back in the house smelling of trees and humus, his eyes purposeful.

"I need to work things out with Max Coll," he said.

"You have to do what?" I said.

"He's in New Iberia because I'm here. Now, these other criminals are showing up because he's here. Where does it end? One man is already dead."

"Frank Dellacroce sexually exploited a retarded girl. I think he got off easy."

"I had to own up to some things at the retreat, the big one being pride."

"In what?"

"My feeling of virtuous superiority to others," he said.

"You don't call self-flagellation a form of pride?"

"You're a hard sell, Dave."

The phone rang like a providential respite. Or at least that's what I thought until I realized who was on the other end of the line.

"Where do you get off embarrassing my father in a public place?" a woman's voice said.

"Your father is neither a victim nor a martyr. Cut the crap, Theo," I said.

"Your anger taints everything in your life. You disappoint me in ways I can't describe."

I heard a sheet of rain clatter across the tin roof. I wanted to pretend I was impervious to her words, but the element of truth in them was like a thorn pressed into the scalp. "Where are you?" I said.

"In a bar." She gave the name, a box of a place squeezed between shacks in New Iberia's worst neighborhood.

"How much have you had?" I asked.

"I'm drinking a soda and lime, believe it or not. But I'm about to change that. Why, you want to get loaded?"

"You wait there," I said.

As I backed out of the driveway, the canopy of oaks over the street stood out in lacy, black-green relief against the lightning rippling across the sky. I did not pay particular attention to the car that rounded the corner and followed me past the Shadows.