Sunset Limited (Dave Robicheaux 10)

"My brother. He's mixed up with bad people in the Orient. I think the Terrebonnes are in it, too."

"What do you know about the Terrebonnes?"

"My father hated them."

A customer came in and picked a package of Red Man off the wire rack and left the money on the register. Megan straightened her back and touched at one eye with her finger.

"I called the St. Mary Sheriffs Department. Clete will be arraigned at ten," I said.

"You don't hold me in very high regard, do you?"

"You just made a mistake. Now you've owned up to it. I think you're a good person, Meg."

"What do I do about Clete?"

"My father used to say never treat a brave man as less."

"I wish Cisco and I had never come back here."

But you always do, I thought. Because of a body arched into wood planks, its blood pooling in the dust, its crusted wounds picked by chickens.

"What did you say?" she asked.

"Nothing. I didn't say anything."

"I'm going. I'll be at Cisco's house for a spell."

She put a half dollar on the counter for the coffee and walked out the screen door. Then, just before she reached her automobile, she turned and looked back at me. She held her straw hat in her fingers, by her thigh, and with her other hand she brushed her hair back on her head, her face lifted into the sunlight.

Batist flung a bucket full of water across one of the spool tables.

"When they make cow eyes at you, it ain't 'cause they want to go to church, no," he said.

"What?"

"Her daddy got killed when she was li'l. She always coming round to talk to a man older than herself. Like they ain't no other man in New Iberia. You got to go to collitch to figure it out?" he said.

TWO HOURS LATER HELEN and I drove over to Mout' Broussard's house on the west side of town. A black four-door sedan with tinted windows and a phone antenna was parked in the dirt driveway, the back door open. Inside, we could see a man in a dark suit, wearing aviator glasses, unlocking the handcuffs on Cool Breeze Broussard.

Helen and I walked toward the car as Adrien Glazier and two male FBI agents got out with Cool Breeze.

"What's happenin', Breeze?" I said.

"They give me a ride to my daddy's," he replied.

"Your business here needs to wait, Mr. Robicheaux," Adrien Glazier said.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the male agents touch Cool Breeze on the arm with one finger and point for him to wait on the gallery.

"What are you going to do with him?" I asked Adrien Glazier.

"Nothing."

"Breeze is operating out of his depth. You know that. Why are you leaving the guy out there?" I said.

"Has he complained to you? Who appointed you his special oversight person?" she replied.

"You ever hear of a guy named Harpo Scruggs?" I asked.