The New Iberia Blues (Dave Robicheaux 22)

“How about this fellow Butterworth?” I said.

“You’ve met Antoine, have you?”

“Twice.”

Wexler’s eyes were sparkling. “And?”

“An unusual fellow,” I said.

“Don’t take him seriously,” Wexler said. “Nobody does. He’s a bean counter posing as an artist.”

“I heard he was in a couple of wars,” I said.

“He was best at scaring the natives in the bush, rattling around in a Land Rover, and showing up for photo ops. South Africa was full of them.”

“That’s your home?” I asked.

“For a while. I was born in New Orleans. I live in Los Angeles now.”

If he’d grown up in New Orleans, he had acid-rinsed the city from his speech.

“We pulled a body out of the salt just south of Desmond Cormier’s house,” I said. “The body was tied to a cross. I spotted the cross through a telescope. Our man Butterworth took a peep but couldn’t see a thing. Neither could Desmond, although this morning he told me he had bad eyesight. Butterworth didn’t seem bothered one way or another.”

The room was silent. Alafair stared at me.

“Can you run that by me again?” Wexler said.

I repeated my statement.

“Well, that’s something, isn’t it?” Wexler said. “Sorry, I haven’t been watching the time. I have to get a new gym bag. Then I need to pick up some fellows in Lafayette. We’re searching out a couple of locations. Perhaps you can help us.”

His level of self-involvement was hard to take.

“I probably wouldn’t know what you’re looking for,” I said.

He touched at his mouth with his napkin and set it aside. “It’s been grand meeting you, Mr. Robicheaux.”

“Likewise.”

“Don’t get up.”

I didn’t intend to. Alafair walked him to the door. Then she came back into the kitchen, her jaw clenched. “Why do you have to be so irritable?”

“You’re a success on your own. You don’t need these phony bastards.”

“You stigmatize an entire group because of this Butterworth character?”

“They’re nihilists.”

“Desmond’s not. He’s a great director. You know why? Because he paid his goddamn dues.”

“How about it on the language, Alf?”

“Sometimes you really disappoint me,” she said.

I felt my face shrink. I took my plate outside and finished eating at the picnic table with Snuggs and Mon Tee Coon. Then I went back inside. Alafair was brushing her hair in front of the mirror in the bedroom. She was five-ten and dark-skinned, with beautiful hair that fell to her shoulders. She had a black belt in karate and ran five miles every morning. Sometimes I couldn’t believe she was the same little El Salvadoran girl I’d pulled from a submerged airplane near Southwest Pass.

“What was that guy doing here, anyway?” I said.