The New Iberia Blues (Dave Robicheaux 22)

We got out in the rain. I had put on a hat. The rain ticked on the brim and blew in my face. Sean wiped his eyes. “Want me to head around back?”

“Stay behind me.”

“Somebody give you a tip on this, Dave?”

“No. No one. It’s just a feeling.”

“Say that again?”

I walked ahead of him. I had clipped my nine-millimeter on my belt. I tapped on the screen door and waited. There was no movement inside the house. Through the curtains I could see a lamp on a table by one end of the couch. I thought I could make out a shadowy figure at the far end, but I couldn’t be sure. The buildings on both side of Bella’s cottage were dark, the thick banana plants under her eaves impossible to see through. A bolt of lightning popped on the bayou, illuminating the yard like a flashbulb: The banana plants were as yellow as old teeth and streaked with black mold. Then the yard was dark again. I opened the screen and knocked hard on the inside door.

“I’m going around back,” Sean said.

“No,” I said.

“Barricaded suspect.”

“No,” I repeated.

“That’s the protocol.”

I reached for his arm. “Give it a minute. Don’t do anything you don’t need to do.”

He pulled away from me. “You’re wrong on this, Dave. I’m going around back.”

How do you convince a kid in the middle of an electrical storm that an unannounced nocturnal police visit to a neighborhood, particularly a black one, produces fear, and that fear gets people killed?

He looked over his shoulder to assure me. “I got this covered.” He stepped into the middle of the yard, his hand tucked around the butt of the hideaway resting inside the back of his belt, the rain beading on his face. The clouds flared again, and a man who had been hiding in the banana plants bolted for the street. It made no sense. If the man feared us, why didn’t he run for the alley? Then I remembered that access to the alley was sealed off by a wood fence between Bella’s cottage and the neighbor’s house.

“Police officer! Halt!” Sean said. He pulled his piece from his belt and pointed it in front of him with both hands. It was a .22 semi-auto.

“Hold on, Sean!”

“Son of a bitch has a gun.”

“Let him go, let him go, let him go.”

“The motherfucker has a gun. I saw it.”

“Lower your weapon!” I shouted at Sean.

The figure turned in the middle of the street; I don’t know why. Maybe he was trying to surrender. But he held his right arm straight out in front of him. Perhaps he was trying to show that he had a gun and was going to set it down. How do you put yourself inside the head of an armed faceless man who can park a pill in the middle of your face with a cat’s-whisker pull on the trigger?

“Drop it! You hear me? Drop it!” Sean shouted. “Don’t think about it! Do it! Do it! Do it!”

I saw the man’s wrist start to turn downward. Maybe he was going to set his weapon slowly on asphalt so it wouldn’t discharge. I had my badge out and was holding it so it reflected the streetlamp. I felt the situation begin to correct itself. “Just lower your weapon slowly and set it down and step away from it. We’ll all go home safe.”

I thought I saw the man’s knees start to bend. I thought I saw a smile of recognition on his face. But I also saw the barrel of the Luger tilt upward as he started to squat down.

Sean starting shooting, pop-pop-pop-pop, four or five or maybe seven rounds, I couldn’t count them. The bolt on his .22 semi-auto locked open on an empty chamber.

The man with the Luger went straight down like a puppet released from its strings.

“Fuck!” Sean said.

I stepped off the curb. A car was coming down the street, its headlights sweeping across us. Hugo Tillinger was on his back, wearing a suit coat over a T-shirt, his face unshaved. His body looked like a broken question mark. There were two entry wounds in his throat, one in his chest, and one above his ear. His hand fluttered at his throat. A large red bubble issued from his mouth. The Luger lay by his side. I pushed it away with my foot and squatted down, my knees aching.

“Where’s Bella?” I said.