“We’re alike. You know the world ain’t real. You know what most people believe ain’t real.”
“I think you’re right.”
She kneaded my throat with her thumbs, pressing on my windpipe, her eyes searching inside my head. “You don’t need to come back. You don’t need to feel guilty, neither.”
“Don’t say that. I mean about not coming back.”
“Take care of yourself. You’re stacking time on the hard road. You just ain’t heard that ball and chain clanking.”
• • •
I WENT OUT THE door and walked to my truck. The hood was open, my battery gone.
The streets and the town square were almost empty, the gutters running. A cherry-red convertible, the top up, pulled alongside me. The driver rolled down his window. “Engine trouble?”
It was Lou Wexler. His thick body, his craggy good looks and tangle of sun-bleached hair, his physicality, if you will, seemed too large for the car he drove. He reminded me of other mercenaries I had known. At heart they were secular Calvinists and believed their fellow man was born in a degraded state; consequently, they oversaw atrocities with equanimity and substituted pragmatism for compassion and slept the sleep of the dead.
I don’t know why I had all these thoughts about Lou Wexler. I was unshaved, unshowered, my body clammy, my self-respect tattered. There’s nothing like having a scapegoat show up when you need him.
“Somebody helped himself to my battery,” I said. “I didn’t know you lived in St. Martinville.”
“I rented a place just up the bayou. I’ll treat you to breakfast and we’ll get a Triple A fellow out here.”
“I’m not a member, but I’ll take a ride back to New Iberia.”
“Hop in,” he said.
I got into the passenger seat. The rain had quit, and the leather felt warm and snug and comfortable. I looked back at the Evangeline Oak and the small church and the cemetery next to it and the bayou running smooth and high and yellowish brown in the gloom, and for some reason I felt a large piece of my life slipping away from me, this time forever.
As we drove toward the black district, I saw Bella in her yard, still in her bathrobe, waving my wallet at us.
“Pull over, will you?” I said. “This will take just a minute.”
“Got a car behind me,” Wexler said. “I’d better pull into the drive.”
I looked behind us. The car behind us was halfway down the street. We bounced into Bella’s driveway. I looked hard at Wexler’s profile. He showed no reaction. I rolled down my window. Bella leaned down and handed me my wallet. “You dropped this on the floor.”
“Thank you,” I said. “This is Lou Wexler, Bella. He’s a movie producer.”
“Can I have a role?” she asked.
“Anytime,” he said.
She laughed and went back inside. Wexler backed into the street and drove through the black district to the state road that led to New Iberia. He looked straight ahead. He turned on the radio and turned it off.
“Bella is a friend of mine,” I said.
“She’s a musician?”
“How’d you know?”
“Antoine Butterworth is always talking about blues musicians. I think he mentioned her name. She’s attractive.”
“She is.”
“I keep it simple and take care of my side of the street, Mr. Robicheaux. Where would you like to eat?”
“What do you mean, you take care of your side of the street?”