“Ain’t you figured it out yet? I’m in the life. I’m the kind of people you hate.”
“No, you’re not. You’re an artist.”
“You learn the blues at the crossroads, darlin’. There ain’t no going back once you been there.”
“Don’t let anyone sell you that crap, Bella. Who’s Hilary Bienville’s pimp?”
“The pimp is a middleman. Hilary don’t have no middleman, just a piece of trash wit’ a badge looking out for her.”
“Axel Devereaux?”
“Wasn’t me said it,” she replied. “Take me home, please. I don’t sing the blues, I live them. Ain’t shooting you a line, darlin’.”
We arrived at her small house in St. Martinville just as a thundershower blew through town and clattered like hail on my truck. I put a raincoat over our heads and ran with her to the door, then said good night and drove back to New Iberia.
Chapter Ten
I SLEPT LATE ON Saturday morning and woke to birdsong and sunshine in the trees. Alafair was gone and had not left a note. Snuggs was sitting on the back steps, his white coat smudged with mud, a cut like a three-inch piece of red string threaded through his fur. I wiped him off with paper towels and dressed his wound and took him inside and fed him on the floor. The cut was jagged, as if he’d hooked himself going over a chain-link fence.
“You okay, old fella?” I said, stroking his head.
I went outside and looked for Mon Tee Coon. There was no sign of him. I called Clete and told him of my conversation with Bella Delahoussaye the previous night and my worries about my animals.
“Axel Devereaux is shaking down local hookers?” he said.
“On one level or another. Maybe they’re just hauling his ashes.”
“You think he hurt your coon?”
“He probably killed Sean McClain’s pets.”
“Everyone thinks that?”
“That’s right.”
“And he’d do the same to yours when he’d be the first guy people would suspect?”
“He’s a sociopath and a sadist,” I said. “He can’t change what he is. If he’s not cruel to an animal, he’ll be cruel to a person.”
“How about if I break his wheels?”
“That’s out.”
“You called me, Dave.”
“Sorry I did.”
“What the hell is the matter with you?” he said.
“I’m like you. I want to do it the old-time way. But we can’t.”
“Speak for yourself,” he said. He hung up.
I called him back. “I apologize.”
“Quit tormenting yourself, big mon. We handle the actio
n. They deal the play, we scramble their eggs.”