Jolie Blon's Bounce (Dave Robicheaux 12)

“Cain’t you leave me be, man?”

“I want to show you something.”

I started to unroll his sister’s drawing, but he speared his shovel into a swollen bag of garbage and went through the side door of the club. I used a pay phone at the grocery down the street and called the St.Martin Parish Sheriff’s Department to let them know I was on their turf, then went inside the club. The chairs were stacked on the tables and a fat black woman was mopping the floor. Tee Bobby sat at the bar, his face in his hands, the streamers from an air-conditioning unit blowing above his head.

I flattened the sketch of the reclining nude on the bar.

“Rosebud drew this. Look at the crossed wrists, the fear and despair in the woman’s eyes, the scream that’s about to come from her mouth. What’s that make you think of, Tee Bobby?” I said.

He stared down at the drawing and took a breath and wet his lips. Then he blew his nose on a handkerchief to hide the expression on his face.

“Perry LaSalle say I ain’t got to talk wit’ you,” he said.

I clenched his wrist and flattened his hand on the paper.

“For just a second feel the pain and terror in that drawing, Tee Bobby. Look at me and tell me you don’t know what we’re talking about,” I said.

He pressed his head down on his fists. His T-shirt was gray with sweat; his pulse was leaping in his throat.

“Why don’t you just put a bullet in me?” he said.

“You got a meth problem, Tee Bobby? Somebody giving you crystal to straighten out the kinks?” I said.

He started to speak, then he saw a silhouette out of the corner of his eye. I didn’t think his face could look sicker than it did, but I was wrong.

Jimmy Dean Styles walked from his office and crossed the dance floor and went behind the bar. He wore a maroon silk shirt unbuttoned on his chest and gray slacks that hung low on the smooth taper of his stomach. He opened a small refrigerator behind the bar and removed a container of coleslaw, then began eating it with a plastic fork, his eyes drifting casually to Rosebud’s drawing. He tilted his head curiously.

“What you got, my man?” he asked.

“This is a police matter. I’d appreciate your not intruding,” I said.

Styles chewed his food thoughtfully, his eyes focused out the open front door.

“Tee Bobby ain’t did you nothing. Let the cat have some peace,” he said.

“For a guy who busted him up on the oyster shells, you’re a funny advocate,” I said.

“Maybe we got our disagreements, but he’s still my friend. Look, the man’s coming down wit’ the flu. Ain’t he got enough misery?” Styles said.

I rolled up Rosebud’s drawing. “I’ll be around,” I said.

“Oh, yeah, I know. I got a broken toilet that’s the same way. No matter what I do, it just keep running out on the flo’,” Styles said.

When I got back to the department, I went into the office of a plainclothes detective who worked Narcotics. His name was Kevin Dartez and he wore long-sleeved white shirts and narrow, knit ties and a pencil-thin black mustache. His younger sister had been what is called a rock queen, or crack whore, and had died of her addiction. Dartez’s ferocity toward black dealers who pimped for white girls was a legend in south Louisiana law enforcement.

“You seen any crystal meth around?” I asked.

“Out-of-towners bring it into the French Quarter. That’s about it so far,” he replied, tilted back in his swivel chair, hands clasped behind his head.

“The Carousel Club in St. Martinville? I wonder if anyone’s ever tossed that place. Who owns the Carousel, anyway?” I said.

“Say again?” Dartez said, sitting up straight in his chair.

That afternoon Helen came into my office and sat on the corner of my desk and looked down at a yellow legal pad she had propped on her thigh. “I’v

e found three or four people who say they saw Tee Bobby with Amanda Boudreau. But it was always in a public place, like he’d see her and try to strike up a conversation,” she said.

“You think they had some kind of secret relationship?” I asked.