Last Car to Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux 13)

"I was confused. I know the truth now."

I gave up. Through the kitchen window I could see steam rising off the bayou in the rain. Theodosha picked up Snuggs, set him on the counter, and rubbed her hand down his back. "Merchie is leaving me," she said.

"That's too bad."

"We're not good for each other. We never were. I'm too messed up and he's too ambitious."

"I have some things to do today, Theo."

I could hear an oak branch slapping against the side of the house, water rushing out of a gutter into the drive.

"We had fun together, didn't we?" she said.

"Yeah, sure," I replied.

"Know why we're alike?"

"No."

"We both live in the cities of the dead. We don't belong with other people."

"That's not true. Why did you use that term?" I said, my heart quickening.

But she didn't answer. She lifted up Snuggs and set him back down on the floor, then touched me on both cheeks and kissed me on the mouth. "So long, baby. I never told you this, but you're the only man I ever slept with and dreamed about later," she said.

She went out the front door, letting the screen slam behind her, then ran for her car. I had to force myself not to go after her.

I lay down on my bedspread, with my arm across my eyes, and listened to the rain on the roof. I drifted off to sleep and suddenly saw an image out of my past, one that had no catalyst other than perhaps the story told by the war veteran at the noon AA. meeting.-I saw the members of my platoon marching at night through a rain forest that had been denuded by napalm. Their faces and uniforms and steel pots, even the green sweat towels draped over their heads like monk's cowls, were gray with ash. They cast no shadows and made no sound as they marched and their eyes were all possessed by the strange non-human look that soldiers call the thousand-yard stare.

I sat straight up in my bed, my throat choking.

The phone was ringing in the kitchen. I went to the counter and picked it up, the dream still more real than the world around me. "Hello?" I said.

"Is Father Dolan there?"

"Coll?"

"Sorry to be a nuisance, Mr. Robicheaux. I just wanted to pass on something to Father Dolan."

My mind began to race. Castille Lejeune had remained untouchable and was about to skate. Will Guillot could probably not be charged with any crime more serious than breaking and entering, and the evidence against him was problematic and subject to easy dissection by a defense attorney.

"I owe you one, Max. That means I don't want to see you taken off the board by a couple of local scum wads," I said.

"Could you be speaking a little more plainly, sir?" he replied.

My pulse was beating in my wrists, the veins dilating in my scalp. "I think the clip on you came down from a couple of homegrown characters in the porn and meth trade. Maybe you should stay out of Franklin, Louisiana, and spend more time at Biscayne Dog Track," I said.

"A couple of local fellows, you say? Now, that's interesting, be cause I'd come to a very different conclusion. I thought the porn connection was the woman, the screenwriter, Ms. Flannigan. She's the brains in the family, not her father. The colored people hereabouts say he may have had his way with her when she was a child. This fellow Guillot is trying to take over the business, so Ms. Flannigan does the daiquiri fellow, draws a lot of attention to her father's selling grog to teenagers and drunk drivers, and uses Guillot's gun to do it. Perfect way to screw both her daddy and her business rival."

"Why would Theo Flannigan be the porn connection?"

"I'm ashamed to say I'm well acquainted with a number of lowlifes in the underworld who say Sammy Figorelli's films were successful because they were written by a famous woman author. It's not a big reach to figure out who that might be.... Hello? Are you there?"

"Yes," I said weakly.

"I've never harmed a woman, sir, so I let the matter go. But I'll be reamed up the bung hole with a spiked telephone pole if you haven't made me reconsider the Lejeune and Guillot fellows."

"Hold on, Coll."