The New Iberia Blues (Dave Robicheaux 22)

Smiley’s eyes were swimming. Inside the bronze glaze on the water, he saw a metal shield rise to the surface like a great bubble of air released from the ancient world. A woman clad in a red and gold bodice and metallic-blue shorts sprinkled with stars waded to the shore, a magic rope coiled on her belt. She smiled at him, her eyes filled with the lights of love and pity.

• • •

THE MEN TOOK him back to the Laundromat and folded his laundry for him and put it into a basket. Marco set the basket in the back of Smiley’s car and got in the front, and Jerry Gee followed them down the highway to the business district of a small town that had been killed by Walmart. The sun had just set. The buildings and streets were deserted, the store signs removed, the walls pocked with rusted spikes. The entire neighborhood seemed leached of color, even the sky, like a cardboard movie set. A few cars were parked behind an old two-story building that once was a dry goods store. Smiley and the men ascended wood stairs in back and went inside. There was a rumbling sound below.

“You rent a room above a bowling alley?” Marco said.

Smiley sat on the bed and stared into space. “I pretend they’re toy soldiers. They all fall down and get up again.”

“You’re a special kind of guy, all right,” Jerry Gee said. “Where’s the recorder?”

“I’ll get it.” Smiley reached toward the nightstand.

“Whoa,” Marco said. He pulled out the drawer and removed the recorder. He clicked it on and listened. “That’s Tillinger?”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Smiley said.

“Yeah, you did,” Marco said. “You want an aspirin or something?”

“You hurt me inside. You’re not my friend. Don’t pretend.”

“We’re sorry,” Marco said. “You shouldn’t have jerked us around. We’re just taking orders here.”

Jerry Gee took the recorder from Marco and held it to his ear and listened while he gazed down at the street. He clicked it off. “I’m taking this back to Miami.”

“It’s mine.”

“Not anymore it isn’t. Answer me something, will you?”

“What?” Smiley said.

“They say you use deer urine. Like when you’re on the job. That’s for real?”

“It hides the human smell,” Smiley said.

“The people you’re about to clip aren’t deer or elks,” Jerry Gee said.

“There’s no difference. We’re all animals.”

“You know this area pretty good?” Jerry Gee said.

Smiley was still on the bed, the Wonder Woman comic by his thigh. He didn’t answer.

“Where do we go for a good pump?” Jerry Gee said.

“You mean to do something with bad women?” Smiley said.

“In this case, bad is good.”

“Back in Morgan City.”

“Will you take whatever you’re sucking on out of your mouth? Where in Morgan City?”

“I’m not sucking on anything.” Smiley gave him the name of a bar and the name of the motel next door.

“I’m not gonna get a nail there?” Jerry Gee asked.

“A what?” Smiley said.