“Axel Devereaux is a dirty cop,” I said to the bartender. “Why carry his weight?”
“Way it is, suh.”
“Lose the Stepin Fetchit routine.”
He leaned toward me, his head round and slick and small for his big shoulders. “I ain’t got to take this.”
“You’re right.” I placed my business card in front of him. “I’ll tell Devereaux you’re a stand-up guy. I see you’ve got a mop and pail back there. That might make a great coat of arms.”
I went outside and got into my truck. But I didn’t leave. The light began to go out of the sky, and birds were gathering inside the oaks along the bayou, the tree frogs singing. Fifteen minutes passed. Then the front door opened and the woman in the cowboy shirt and Mardi Gras beads came out and popped a paper match and lit a cigarette in a holder and flipped the match away. She came to my window, smoke sliding from her lips. “What’s goin’ on, darlin’?”
“No haps.”
“Girl you looking for gonna need some he’p. You’ll find her in the trailer court by the drawbridge in Jeanerette, right acrost from the big plantation house.”
“Is she in danger?”
“She dimed Axel Devereaux wit’ your PI friend.”
“Where’d you get the scar on your neck?”
“I’m a Mississippi nigger. I got all kinds of stories.”
“You’re from New Orleans,” I said. “Don’t put yourself down, beautiful.”
“How you know I’m from New Orleans?”
“You’ve got an accent like an angel.”
She slipped her fingernails into my hair. “Come see me sometime when you ain’t working. I can burn away your blues.”
“I’m too green to burn,” I said.
She smiled, her gold-rimmed teeth glinting. “You got a gris-gris on you, baby. Let Mama know when you need some he’p.”
She picked my hand up off the steering and tenderly bit my finger.
• • •
I WOKE HARD AND throbbing in the morning, filled with all the desire and longing that old men never lose, no matter how dignified they may behave. The manifestation of that desire takes many forms, none of them predictable and none of them good.
At 8:16 a.m., I followed Axel Devereaux into the department men’s room. He wet his comb at the sink. I stood behind him but didn’t speak. He tapped the water off his comb and put it into his shirt pocket, watching me in the mirror.
“You look a little out of joint. Somebody cross her legs on your nose?” he said.
“I don’t like to talk to a reflection.”
He turned slowly, his eyes meeting mine. His forearms were thick and solid, wrapped with monkey hair. “Purcel been talking to you?”
I slapped him across the face. His skin was as coarse as emery paper. He stared at me unblinking, his face stark, as if someone had flashed a strobe on it in a dark room. I’ve known evil men, but I had never seen any man’s eyes look the way his did. There was a dirtiness in them that had no bottom.
“Speak disrespectfully about my partner again and I’ll hang you by your toes and cut your tongue out,” I said. “That’s not a metaphor.”
His gaze slipped off mine and focused on empty space.
“Did you hear me?” I said.
He walked past me and out the door, causing two deputies to step aside, water dripping from his hair onto his shirt.