The New Iberia Blues (Dave Robicheaux 22)

“You’re always a man of mystery,” he said.

I wondered how he had lived as long as he had. I went up the wooden steps and knocked on the front door. Desmond answered shirtless and in a pair of cargo pants, staring expectantly over my shoulder. “Hi, Dave. Bailey’s not with you?”

• • •

THIS STORY STARTED with Desmond, and as I stood in his living room, I believed it would end with Desmond. I must make a confession here. Like many, I was drawn to Desmond for reasons hard to admit. He was one of us, born poor, hardly able to speak English the first day he got on the school bus, rejected for either his race or his heritage or his culture, forbidden to speak French on the school grounds. But unlike the rest of us, he had a vision, one greater than he or the world in which he was born, and he painted it as big as a sunset on the Mojave Desert.

When Ben Jonson said Shakespeare belonged to the ages, I think he was also talking about people like Desmond. Des was staring at me with a spatula in his hand, quizzical, the framed still shots from My Darling Clementine behind him. “You’re looking at me in a peculiar fashion, Dave.”

“Didn’t mean to. I need to talk to you about a few things. Finances, mostly.”

“No more gloom and doom. It’s too fine a day. Say, how did you like the concert last night?”

“I didn’t see you there,” I said.

“I was in the back. Saw you with Bailey. You two aren’t an item, are you?”

“How about minding your own business?”

“Sorry. I have the highest respect for you both.”

Desmond was a good director but not a good actor. He was breathing through his mouth, his jaw hooked, his profile like a Roman gladiator’s, his eyes pieces of stone.

“You don’t approve of my being with her?” I asked.

“I don’t impose my way on others,” he said.

“Right. That’s why you’re a film director,” I said.

“Let’s have some breakfast. Or at least have coffee. I really admire and like you, Dave. Why won’t you accept that?”

I guess his charm was another reason we envied Desmond. He wore the world like a loose cloak and could dine with paupers or kings and accept insult and acclaim with a diffidence that unsettled both his admirers and detractors. I never knew another man, either rich or poor, who achieved his degree of personal freedom.

“How about it? Some eggs and bacon?” he said.

“If you can answer a question or two,” I said.

“I’ll give it my best.”

I followed him into the kitchen. Butterworth was on the deck, performing some kind of ridiculous martial arts exercise.

“Evidently you’re in serious debt,” I said.

“Hollywood runs on other people’s money,” he replied.

“You owe major amounts to some bad guys.”

“Money is money. It’s not good or bad. The issue is how you use it.”

“Your big creditors are out of Jersey and Florida.”

“Walt Whitman is buried in one state and Marjorie Rawlins in the other.”

“Pull your head out of your ass,” I said.

“Would you like two strips of bacon or three?”

I was determined not to let him shine me on. I went into his bathroom to wash my hands. There was a hypodermic in an open felt case on the lavatory. I went back into the kitchen. “I hope the needle belongs to Butterworth.”