Swan Peak (Dave Robicheaux 17)

“Troyce, I don’t want to lose you.” She said this without emotion, as a fact, in the way women know facts that men do not, and he knew he had entered a new stage in his life. “You’re a good man. You just don’t know how good you are.”

He looked at her for a moment, as though seeing her more clearly than he had ever seen her before. Then he winked and went inside the restroom. Quince was relieving himself in a urinal.

“You seen the man in the photograph?” Troyce asked.

“What kind of finder’s fee we talking about?”

“Finder’s fee?”

“Yes sir,” Quince said, zipping his pants. He began touching at his face in the mirror, feeling the stubble, without washing his hands.

“How about you don’t get charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive?” Troyce said.

“You aren’t a cop.”

“No, I’m not. But can I tell you a secret?”

Someone tried to open the door. “I got a sick man in here. You’ll have to wait,” Troyce said, squeezing the door shut again, shooting the bolt.

Quince stopped touching at his face and looked at the locked door.

“You know why you don’t get a finder’s fee?” Troyce said. “It’s ’cause you’re for sale. A man who’s for sale suffers the sin of arrogance. What he don’t understand is that nothing he’s got is worth the spit on the sidewalk. You remind me of the tramps down at the blood bank. The blood you sell has disease in it, but you pass it on to other people to put wine in your stomach. You ain’t no different from a whore, except your skinny ass ain’t worth the time it’d take to kick it around the block… Where you think you’re going?”

“I’m finished talking with you,” Quince said.

“What’d you say to my lady friend out yonder?”

“You don’t listen, do you, boy? That woman was staring at me like her shit don’t stink. Your size don’t bother me, either. Mess with me, I’ll get you down the road. Take that to the bank, motherfucker.”

Quince tried to brush past Troyce and unbolt the door. Troyce ripped his elbow into the side of Quince’s face, knocking him into the condom machine. Then Troyce hit Quince with his elbow again, this time in the temple, splaying him cross-eyed to the floor. He grabbed the back of Quince’s neck and drove his face down on the toilet bowl, smashing it again and again on the rim. Blood and pieces of a dental bridge slid in rivulets down the porcelain into the water.

When Troyce straightened up, the pain that went through his chest felt like tendons were pulling loose from the bone. For a moment he was sure he was going to pass out. He forced himself to breathe slowly, his face draining in the mirror, his eyes out of focus.

Quince was on his knees, bent over the toilet, his hands cupped to his mouth, strings of blood and saliva hanging from his fingers.

Troyce pulled a half-dozen paper towels from the dispenser and wadded them up and stuck them in Quince’s hand. “You dealt it, bubba. Don’t come around for seconds,” he said.

He slid the bolt and went outside, the racks of snack food bright and colorful under the fluorescent lighting, the glass doors on the cold boxes smoky with refrigeration, the cashier ringing up a purchase for a sunburned woman in a swimming suit, the world of normality back in place.

“Is that sick man still in there?” the cashier asked.

“He’s cleaning up. He’s gonna be fine,” Troyce said. “Thanks for the use of your facilities.”

“Anytime,” the cashier said.

Troyce got in the SUV and let Candace drive. As they headed up the highway, she glanced sideways at him. “There’s blood coming through your bandages,” she said.

He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Want to rent a cabin at one of those lakes? Maybe have dinner at the steak house up the road this evening and dance under the stars? Like reg’lar folks, just me and you. What do you say, you little honey bunny?”

She was sure there were words that would adequately express what she felt, but she didn’t know what they were.

CHAPTER 12

AFTER CLETE AND I interviewed Reverend Sonny Click, we stopped by the courthouse to see Joe Bim Higgins. I could tell Joe Bim was not happy to see Clete, but I didn’t care. Clete had found the wood cross that belonged to Seymour Bell, and the wood cross had linked Bell to Wellstone Ministries. If Joe Bim didn’t want to give Clete credit, that was his problem, not ours.

“You think this preacher might be involved with Bell’s death?” he asked.

“Who knows? On one level or another, I suspect he’s a predator,” I replied.