Jolie Blon's Bounce (Dave Robicheaux 12)

Dear Folks Who Own This House, I rob homes in this neighborhood only because most people who live hereabouts try to keep up decent standards. But after breaking into your house I think you should consider moving to a lower rent neighborhood. You don’t have cable TV, no beer or snacks in the icebox, and most of your furniture is not worth stealing.

In other words, it really sucks when I spend a whole day casing a house only to discover the people who live in it take no pride in themselves. It is people like you who make life hard on guys like me.

Sincerely,

A guy who doesn’t need these kinds of problems

He took a shower and shaved in one home, ordered delivery pizza in another, and sometimes answered the telephone and wrote down phone messages for the home owners.

Two nights ago he robbed a city councilman’s house, a short distance from City Park. Evidently the councilman had locked his pet poodle in a pantry by mistake and the poodle was dying to go to the bathroom. The Easter Bunny leashed him up and took him for a walk along the bayou, then returned him to the house and filled his bowls with fresh water and dog food.

The phone on my desk rang.

“What are you doing, Streak?” Bootsie said.

“Looking for the Easter Bunny,” I replied.

“If that’s a joke, it’s not funny. I just heard you punched out Perry LaSalle in Victor’s Cafeteria.”

“I guess that’s fair to say,” I replied.

I expected a rejoinder, but in the silence I realized she had called for another reason.

“The homeless man, the ex-soldier you told me about, he’s down at the bait shop,” she said.

“What’s he want?”

“He said he thought you usually came home for lunch. He wanted to talk to you.”

“What’s he doing now?”

“Reading the newspaper. Is he dangerous, Dave?”

“I’m not sure. Is Batist there?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll call the shop, then ring you back,” I said.

The phone at the bait shop was busy. Five minutes later Batist picked up the receiver.

“That homeless fellow in the shop? He’s a couple of quarts down. Everything okay there?” I said.

“All our boats is full of water. That’s about it,” he replied.

“Give me a call if you need to.”

“Ain’t no problem here, Dave,” he said.

After I hung up I called Bootsie back, then began replacing the case folders I had removed from my file cabinet. A piece of lined yellow paper on which I had scribbled several notations with a felt pen became unstuck from the outside of a manila folder and floated to the floor.

The notations had to do with the telephone call I had received from Marie Guilbeau, the cleaning lady in St. Mary Parish who had been molested by an intruder at her house and had felt obliged to tell me she had flirted the same day with a guest at the motel where she worked.

It took about ten minutes to create what it is called a photo lineup, in this case six mug shots that I pulled from the department’s files. Actually, her identifying the man at the motel would do little to make a case against the intruder, but the report she had filed had been treated casually by the authorities in St. Mary Parish and by me as well, and perhaps now was an opportunity to make it right. I called Marie Guilbeau’s home and was told by a niece that her aunt was at the motel on the four-lane where she worked.

But I didn’t drive directly to the motel. First I called Batist at the bait shop.

“Is that fellow still there?” I asked.