The New Iberia Blues (Dave Robicheaux 22)

“That’s enough, Clete,” Alafair said.

“It’s okay, isn’t it, fellow?” Clete said to Butterworth. “You guys float in and take a dip in the local pond, then head back to Malibu. Splish-splash.”

“Cool your jets, Clete,” I said.

“My bad,” he said, still talking to Butterworth. “That’s an expression you guys started. Samuel Jackson says it in a film, then all the locals are saying it. You guys have a big influence on Hicksville, did you know that?”

“Let’s go, Alf,” I said, getting up.

“Don’t bother,” Butterworth said. “I’ll be running along. Oh, look. Des seems to have found another dancing partner. My, my, and yum, yum.”

Desmond and Bailey Ribbons were waltzing in a wide circle. All the other dancers had left the floor, maybe realizing, as I did, that Des and Bailey had become Henry Fonda and Cathy Downs waltzing in the exaggerated fashion of frontier people in My Darling Clementine. In fact, the band had gone into the song; I didn’t know if they had been told to do so. I felt as though I had stepped into the film, [[p158]]but not in a good way. I should have been witnessing a tribute to a seminal moment in the history of film and the American West, but instead, Desmond’s drunkenness, the inscrutability of his eyes, the rawness of his half-clothed body, were all like a violation of a sacred space, one that had been hollowed out of a vast burial ground.

Alafair pulled on my arm. “Come on, Dave. Finish your supper.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’m just a little off my feed today.”

But the moment wasn’t over. Bailey and Desmond sat down with their friends, and someone fired up a fatty and passed it. When it was Bailey’s turn, she leaned forward and took a toke, then passed it on, laughing as she exhaled. I dropped my napkin on the table and went to my room.

Fifteen minutes later, Bailey was at my door.

“What’s the haps?” I said.

“I was going to talk with you, but you stormed off,” she replied.

“Long day. I’m on the bench.”

“May I come in, or should I just stand here in the hall?”

I stepped aside and let her in. I could smell her perfume as she passed me. I closed the door.

“What do you mean, ‘on the bench’?”

“Helen has me on suspension without pay.”

“For what?”

“Dereliction of duty, I suspect. I held back information to keep Clete Purcel out of trouble.”

“Why are you angry with me?”

“Who said I was?”

“You’re filling the room with it right now.”

“You were smoking weed.”

“Clete Purcel doesn’t?”

“He’s not a cop. If you show contempt for your shield, why should anyone else respect it?”

Her face was tight, her eyes burning with anger, the rim of her nostrils white. “I didn’t know I could give you such discomfort.”

“It’s not about me. You took an oath. We set the standard or we don’t. If we don’t, dirty cops like Axel Devereaux do.”

“I won’t be an embarrassment to you again.”

“Are you going to throw in with these guys?” I said.