Sunset Limited (Dave Robicheaux 10)

Geraldine Holtzner braked to a stop by the boat ramp and Clete opened the passenger door and took a bottle of diet Pepsi out of the cooler and wiped the ice off with his palm. He breathed through his mouth, sweat streaming out of his hair and down his chest.

"You trying to have a heart attack?" I said.

"I haven't had a drink or a cigarette in two days. I feel great. You want some fried chicken?" he said.

"They pulled your license altogether?" I said.

"Big time," he said.

"Clete—" I said.

"So beautiful women drive me around now. Right, Geri?"

She didn't respond. Instead, she stared at me from behind her dark glasses, her mouth pursed into a button. "Why are you so hard on my father?" she said.

I looked at Clete, then down the road, in the shadows, where a man in a ribbed undershirt was taking a fishing rod and tackle box out of his car trunk.

"I'd better get back to work," I said.

"I'll take a shower in the back of the bait shop and we'll go to a movie or something. How about it, Geri?" Clete said.

"Why not?" she said.

"I'd better pass," I said.

"I've got a case of 12-Step PMS today, you know, piss, moan, and snivel. Don't be a sorehead," Geraldine said.

"Come back later. We'll take a boat ride," I said.

"I can't figure what Megan sees in you," Geraldine said.

I went back down the dock to the bait shop, then turned and watched Clete padding along behind the convertible, like a trained bear, the dust puffing around his dirty tennis shoes.

A FEW MINUTES LATER I walked up to the house and ate supper in the kitchen with Alafair and Bootsie. The phone rang on the counter. I picked it up.

"Dave, this probably don't mean nothing, but a man was axing about Clete right after you went up to eat," Batist said.

"Which man?"

"He was fishing on the bank, then he come in the shop and bought a candy bar and started talking French. Then he ax in English who own that convertible that was going down the road. I tole him the only convertible I seen out there was for Clete Purcel. Then he ax if the woman driving it wasn't in the movies.

"I tole him I couldn't see through walls, no, so I didn't have no idea who was driving it. He give me a dol'ar tip and gone back out and drove away in a blue car."

"What kind of French did he speak?" I asked.

"I didn't t'ink about it. It didn't sound no different from us."

"I'll mention it to Clete. But don't worry about it."

"One other t'ing. He only had an undershirt on. He had a red-and-green tattoo on his shoulder. It look like a, what you call them t'ings, they got them down in Mexico, it ain't a crawfish, it's a—"

"Scorpion?" I said.

I CALLED CLETE AT his cottage outside Jeanerette.

"The Scarlotti shooter may be following you. Watch for a blond guy, maybe a French Canadian—" I began.

"Guy with a tattoo on his shoulder, driving a blue Ford?" Clete said.