Purple Cane Road (Dave Robicheaux 11)

“This is a pretty place. I’d like to live somewhere like this. This guy who got killed in Santa Barbara? He raped a fourteen-year-old girl at an amusement park in Tennessee. She almost bled to death. The judge gave him two years probation. What would you do if you were her father?”

“You were just helping out the family?”

“I’ve tried to treat you with respect, Mr. Robicheaux. I heard you’re not a bad guy for a roach.”

“You came here with a sawed-off shotgun.”

“It’s not for you.”

“Who were the other people you did?”

The rain had slackened, then it stopped altogether and the water dripping out of trees was loud on the bayou’s surface. He removed his straw hat and stared reflectively into the cypress and willows and air vines, his eyes full of light that seemed to have no origin.

“A greaseball’s wife found out her husband was gonna have her popped. By a degenerate who specialized in women. So the wife brought in an out-of-state guy to blow up her husband’s shit. The degenerate could have walked away, but some guys just got to try. Nobody in Pacific Palisades is losing sleep.”

“Who paid you to do Zipper Clum and Little Face Dautrieve?”

“The money was at a drop. All I know is they tried to pop me yesterday. So maybe that puts me and you on the same team.”

“Wrong.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

His eyes seemed to go out of focus, as though he were refusing to recognize the insult that hung in the air. He pulled at his T-shirt, lifting the wetness of the cloth off his skin.

“You gonna try to take me down?” he asked.

“You’re the man with the gun,” I replied, grinning again.

“It’s not loaded.”

“I’m not going to find out,” I said.

He lifted the cut-down shotgun off the seat and lay it across his thighs, then worked his boat alongside my engine. He ripped out the gas line and tossed it like a severed snake into the cattails.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” I said.

“I don’t lie, sir. Not like some I’ve met.” He pumped open the shotgun and inserted his thumb in the empty chamber. Then he removed a Ziploc bag with three shells in it from his back pocket and began fitting them into the magazine. “I dropped my gun in the water and got my other shells wet. That’s why it was empty.”

“You said ‘not like some.’ You calling me a liar?” I said.

“You spread rumors I was a snitch. I was in the Flat Top at Raiford. I never gave anybody up.”

“Listen, Johnny, you backed out on the Little Face Dautrieve contract. You’re still on this side of the line.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t understand. Look at me.”

“I don’t like people talking to me like that, Mr. Robicheaux. Let go of my boat.”

I looked hard into his face. His eyes were dark, his cheeks pooled with shadow, like a death mask, his mouth compressed into a small flower. I shoved his boat out into the current.

“You got it, kid,” I said.

He cranked the engine and roared down the bayou, glancing back at me once, the bow of his boat swerving wildly to avoid hitting a nutria that was swimming toward the bank.