Sunset Limited (Dave Robicheaux 10)

"You got a point. Let me correct that."

He walked back inside, his hands at his sides, balled into fists as big as hams.

"Hey, Jimmy, I didn't mean anything about the First Cav. I just can't take the way you chop onions. It irritates the hell out of me," he said.

Then he drove his right fist, lifting his shoulder and all his weight into the blow, right into Jimmy Figorelli's face.

Jimmy held on to the side of the Coca-Cola box, his hand trembling uncontrollably on his mouth, his eyes dilated with shock, his fingers shining with blood and bits of teeth.

THREE DAYS LATER IT began to rain, and it rained through the Labor Day weekend and into the following week. The bayou by the dock rose above the cattails and into the canebrake, my rental boats filled with water, and moccasins crawled into our yard. On Saturday night, during a downpour, Father James Mulcahy knocked on our front door.

He carried an umbrella and wore a Roman collar and a rain-flecked gray suit and a gray fedora. When he stepped inside he tried not to breathe into my face.

"I'm sorry for coming out without calling first," he said.

"We're glad you dropped by. Can I offer you something?" I said.

He touched at his mouth and sat down in a stuffed chair. The rain was blowing against the gallery, and the tin roof of the bait shop quivered with light whenever thunder was about to roll across the swamp.

"Would you like a drink, sir?" I asked.

"No, no, that wouldn't be good. Coffee's fine. I have to tell you about something, Mr. Robicheaux. It bothers me deeply," he said.

His hands were liver-spotted, ridged with blue veins, the skin as thin as parchment on the bones. Bootsie brought coffee and sugar and hot milk on a tray from the kitchen. When the priest lifted the cup to his mouth his eyes seemed to look through the steam at nothing, then he said, "Do you believe in evil, Mr. Robicheaux? I don't mean the wicked deeds we sometimes do in a weak moment. I mean evil in the darkest theological sense."

"I'm not sure, Father. I've seen enough of it in people not to look for a source outside of ourselves."

"I was a chaplain in Thailand during the Vietnam War. I knew a young soldier who participated in a massacre. You might have seen the pictures. The most unforgettable was of a little boy holding his grandmother's skirts in terror while she begged for their lives. I spent many hours with that young soldier, but I could never remove the evil that lived in his dreams."

"I don't understand how—" I began.

He raised his hand. "Listen to me," he said. "There was another man, a civilian profiteer who lived on the air base. His corporation made incendiary bombs. I told him the story of the young soldier who had machine-gunned whole families in a ditch. The profiteer's rejoinder was to tell me about a strafing gun his company had patented. In thirty seconds it could tear the sod out of an entire football field. In that moment I think that man's eyes were the conduit into the abyss."

Bootsie's face wore no expression, but I saw her look at me, then back at the priest.

"Please have dinner with us," she said.

"Oh, I've intruded enough. I really haven't made my point either. Last night in the middle of the storm a truck stopped outside the rectory. I thought it was a parishioner. When I opened the door a man in a slouch hat and raincoat was standing there. I've never felt the presence of evil so strongly in my life. I was convinced he was there to kill me. I think he would have done it if the housekeeper and Father Lemoyne hadn't walked up behind me.

"He pointed his arm at me and said, 'Don't you break the seal.' Then he got back in his truck and drove away with the lights off."

"You mean divulge the content of a confession?" I asked.

"He was talking about the Terrebonne woman. I'm sure of it. But what she told me wasn't under the seal," he replied.

"You want to tell me about Lila, Father?" I said.

"No, it wouldn't be proper. A confidence is a confidence. Also, she wasn't entirely coherent and I might do her a great disservice," he said. But his face clouded, and it was obvious his own words did little to reassure him.

"This man in the truck, Father? If his name is Har

po, we want to be very careful of him," I said.

"His eyes," the priest said.

"Sir?"

"They were like the profiteer's. Without moral light. A man like that speaking of the confessional seal. It offends something in me in a way I can't describe."