Purple Cane Road (Dave Robicheaux 11)

“It doesn’t help. I think about him and want to wash my body with peroxide.”

“I’m going to help Batist close up, then we’ll go for some ice cream,” I said.

I walked down to the bait shop and called Dana Magelli, my NOPD friend, at his home and got the unlisted number for Jim Gable’s condo in New Orleans.

“Why are you messing with Gable?” Magelli asked.

“Cleaning up some paperwork, interdepartmental cooperation, that sort of thing.”

“Gable leaves shit prints on everything he touches. Stay away from him. It’s a matter of time till somebody scrambles his eggs.”

“It’s not soon enough.”

I punched in Jim Gable’s number. I could hear opera music playing in the background when he answered the phone.

“Y’all are picking up Johnny Remeta tomorrow,” I said.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“Dave Robicheaux. Remeta thinks somebody might want to blow up his shit.”

“Hey, we owe you a big thanks on this one. You made the ID through that home invasion in Loreauville, didn’t you?”

“He’d better arrive in New Orleans without any scratches on the freight.”

“You’re talking to the wrong man, my friend. Don Ritter’s in charge of that case.”

“Let me raise another subject. I understand you’ve made some remarks about my wife.”

I could hear ice cubes rattle in a glass, as though he had just sipped from it and replaced it on a table.

“I don’t know where you heard that, but it’s not true. I have the greatest respect for your wife,” he said.

I stared out the bait shop window. The flood lamps were on and the bayou was yellow and netted with torn strands of hyacinths, the air luminescent with insects. My temples were pounding. I felt like a jealous high school boy who had just challenged a rival in a locker room, only to learn that his own words were his worst enemy.

“Maybe we can take up the subject another time. On a more physical level,” I said.

I thought I heard the voice of a young woman giggling in the background, then the tinkle of ice in the glass again.

“I’ve got to run. Get a good night’s sleep. I don’t think you mean what you say. Anyway, I don’t hold grudges,” Gable said.

The woman laughed again just before he hung up.

But the two New Orleans detectives who were assigned to take Johnny Remeta back to their jurisdiction, Don Ritter and a man named Burgoyne, didn’t show up in the morning. In fact, they didn’t arrive at the department until almost 5 P.M.

I stayed late until the last of the paperwork was done. Ritter bent over my desk and signed his name on a custody form attached to a clipboard, then bounced the ballpoint pen on my desk blotter.

“Thanks for your help, Robicheaux. We won’t forget it,” he said.

“You taking the four-lane through Morgan City?” I said.

“No, I-10 through Baton Rouge,” Burgoyne, the other detective, said.

“The southern route is straight through now. You can be in New Orleans in two hours and fifteen minutes,” I said.

“The department uses prescribed routes for all transportation of prisoners. This one happens to go through Baton Rouge,” Burgoyne said. He grinned and chewed his gum.

He was young, unshaved, muscular, his arms padded with hair. He wore a faded black T-shirt and running shoes and Levi’s with his handcuffs pulled through the back of his belt. He wore his shield on a cord around his neck, and a snub-nosed .38 in a clip-on holster on his belt.