"That's when Benny comes through the door and sticks a .38 behind my ear. He says, 'Get out of town, Purcel. Next time, your brains are coming out your nose.'
"I didn't argue, mon. I almost made the front door when I hear the Mouse come roaring out of the can and charge down the hallway at me, streaming ice and piss and toilet paper that was stuck all over his feet.
"Except a bunch of people in a side dining room fling open this oak door, it must be three inches thick with wrought iron over this thick yellow glass panel in it, and they slam it right into the Mouse's face, you could hear the metal actually ding off his skull.
"So while Ricky's rolling around on the carpet, I eased on outside and decided to cruise very copacetically out of Baton Rouge and leave the greaseballs alone for a while."
"Why were state troopers after you? Why were you out by Spanish Lake instead of on the four-lane?"
His eyes clicked sideways, as though he were seriously researching the question.
"Ummm, I kept thinking about begging off from the Mouse when he put his stun gun on snap, crackle, and pop. So out there in the parking lot were about eight or nine chopped-down Harleys. They belonged to the same bunch the Gypsy Jokers threatened to kill for wearing their colors. I still had all my repo tools in the trunk, so I found the Mouse's car and slim-jimmed the door and fired it up. Then I propped a board against the gas pedal, pointed it right into the middle of the Harleys, and dropped it into low.
"I cruised around for five minutes, then did a drive-by and watched it all from across the street. The bikers were climbing around on Ricky's car like land crabs, kicking windows out, slashing the seats and tires, tearing the wires out of the engine. It was perfect, Dave. When the cops got there, it was even better. The cops were throwing bikers in a van, Ricky was screaming in the parking lot, his broad trying to calm him down, Ricky swinging her around by her arm like she was a stuffed doll, people coming out every door in the restaurant like the place was on fire. Benny Grogan got s
apped across the head with a baton. Anyway, it'll all cool down in a day or so. Say, you got any of those sandwiches left?"
"I just can't believe you," I said.
"What'd I do? I just wanted to eat some oysters and have a little peace and quiet."
"Clete, one day you'll create a mess you won't get out of. They're going to kill you."
"Scarlotti is a punk and a rodent and belongs under a sewer grate. Hey, the Bobbsey Twins from Homicide spit in their mouths and laugh it off, right? Quit worrying. It's only rock 'n' roll."
His eyes were green and bright above the beer bottle while he drank, his face flushed and dilated with his own heat.
JUST AFTER EIGHT THE next morning the sheriff came into my office. He stood at the window and propped his hands on the sill. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, his forearms thick and covered with hair.
"I talked with that FBI woman, Glazier, about Harpo Scruggs. She's a challenge to whatever degree of civility I normally possess," he said.
"What'd she say?"
"She turned to an ice cube. That's what bothers me. He's supposed to be mixed up with the Dixie Mafia, but there's nothing in the NCIC computer on him. Why this general lack of interest?"
"Up until now his victims have been low profile, people nobody cared about," I said.
"That woman hates Megan Flynn. Why's it so personal with her?"
We looked at each other. "Guilt?" I said.
"Over what?"
"Good question."
I walked down to Helen's office, then we both signed out for New Orleans.
WE DROVE TO NEW Orleans and parked off Carondelet and walked over to the Mobil Building on Poydras Street. When we sat down in her office, she rose from her chair and opened the blinds, as though wishing to create an extra dimension in the room. Then she sat back down in a swivel chair and crossed her legs, her shoulders erect inside her gray suit, her ice-blue eyes fixed on something out in the hallway. But when I turned around, no one was there.
Then I saw it in her face, the dryness at the corner of the mouth, the skin that twitched slightly below the eye, the chin lifted as though to remove a tension in the throat.
"We thought y'all might want to help bring down this guy Scruggs. He's going back and forth across state lines like a Ping-Pong ball," I said.
"If you don't have enough grounds for a warrant, why should we?" she said.
"Every cop who worked with him says he was dirty. Maybe he even murdered convicts in Angola. But there's no sheet on him anywhere," I said.
"You're saying somehow that's our fault?"