Last Car to Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux 13)

"I was in the Corps, too. Sunny "Nam, class of '69, smokin' grass and stompin' ass with Mother Green's Mean Machine. See?" He removed his utility cap and pointed to the globe and anchor emblem inked on the cloth. "We used to have a Bed Check Charley, but he was a guy who'd start lobbing blooker rounds in on us at about oh-two-hundred so nobody could get any sleep. Do you have any autographed photos? No shit, it'd mean a lot."

"Sir, I don't ask this for myself, but there're ladies present. Let's don't have this kind of scene here," Lejeune said.

"I can dig it," Clete said, putting his cap back on, his eyes cocked up in his head as though he were meditating upon a metaphysical consideration. "The problem is some grease balls kidnapped and tortured a police officer and pissed all over his face while he was blind folded. So how about taking the corn bread out of your mouth? It's getting to be a real drag."

"I apologize for any offense I may have given you," Lejeune said. "Tell me something, that badge you have hanging from your belt? I have the feeling you're not a police officer."

I could see the heat climbing into Clete's face. "Dave, hook up this prick. Work out the legal stuff later," he said.

The situation was deteriorating rapidly now. Two security guards had just walked into the pavilion and were standing behind us, awkward, unsure what they should do next. I turned so they could see my badge. "It's all right. Iberia Parish Sheriff's Department," I said.

They tried to be polite, their eyes avoiding mine. I felt sorry for them. They made little more than minimum wage, paid for their own uniforms, and possessed no legal powers. They waited for Castille Lejeune to tell them what to do.

But I raised my finger before he could speak. "We're leaving," I said.

"Screw that," Clete said.

Two cruisers from the St. Mary Parish Sheriff's office had pulled into the parking lot and three uniformed deputies, one black, two white, were walking toward us, their faces filled with purpose. I slipped my hand around the thickness of Clete's arm and tightened my grip. "We're done here," I said.

But it was too late. The three deputies went straight for Clete, with the collective instinct of pack hounds who had just gotten a sniff of a feral hog. At first he didn't resist. When they walked him toward a cruiser, he was seemingly in control of himself again, grinning, full of fun, back in his familiar role of irreverent trickster, ready to let it all play out.

Maybe I should have stayed out of it. But I didn't.

"Let's slow it down a little bit," I said to the black deputy, a towering man with lieutenant's bars on his collar.

"Best let us do our job, Robicheaux," he replied.

"What's the beef? "I said.

"Impersonating a police officer," he replied.

"That's bogus. He never claimed to be a police officer."

"Work it out at the jail. We just deliver the freight," he said.

It should have all ended there, a routine roust to appease a rich man, a discussion down at the sheriff's department, maybe a few hours in a holding cell, at worst an appearance in morning court where the charge would be kicked.

But one of the white deputies, an angry man with corded veins in his neck who had been fired in another parish for abusing a prisoner, had pushed Clete into a search position against the hood of the cruiser and was running his hands down Clete's left leg.

"Ease up, my man," Clete said.

"Close your mouth," the deputy said.

"That's a slapjack in my right hand pocket. I'm not carrying," Clete said, twisting around.

"I told you to shut up," the deputy said, and slapped Clete's utility cap off his head.

Clete ripped his elbow into the deputy's face, breaking his nose, then caught him in the jaw with a right hook that lifted him off the ground and knocked him the full length of the cruiser.

"Ouch," he said, trying to shake the pain out of his hand, trying to step back from his own misdeed.

Then they were on him.

Chapter 25.

It rained at sunrise and kept raining through the morning. Clete was in jail and Father Jimmie had not returned to the house. Because it was Saturday Helen was at home. I called her and told her how it had gone south at Castille Lejeune's golf and tennis club.

"What did you plan to accomplish over there?" she said.