“Did he know Lucinda Arceneaux?” I asked.
“I don’t know who that is,” he answered.
“Are any Hollywood guys involved in this?” I asked.
“One, for sure.”
“Who?” I said.
“A guy who likes to hang girls up on coat hooks,” he said. “Least that’s what I heard. He’s got a funny name.”
“Antoine Butterworth?” I said.
“Rings a bell,” he replied. “I got to get back to work. That’s eight-fifty on the drinks. The tip is on me. If you’re gonna hang around, don’t get too intimate with the clientele. There’s a lot of abnormal people around these days.”
• • •
WE WENT OUTSIDE to Clete’s Caddy. It was parked behind the club by a stand of trees strung with dead vines. The wind had turned cold; yellow and black leaves were tumbling through the parking lot and floating in pools of rainwater greasy with oil. The bikers’ motorcycles were parked in straight lines, the wheels at the same angle, the bodies wiped down and shining in the moonlight.
Clete put an unlit cigarette in his mouth. His porkpie hat was slanted on his forehead. I removed the cigarette from his mouth and flipped it into the water. He watched it floating in the pool. “You think Butterworth is our guy?” he asked.
“We’ve run him six ways from breakfast,” I said. “He likes playing the bad boy. I get the feeling he wants to be knocked around.”
“How’s he different from those guys inside?” he said, looking at the club. “Just because they’re imitation Hells Angels doesn’t mean they don’t kill people.”
“Let’s get out of here. It’s depressing.”
“Why do they bother you?”
“Who?”
“Bikers,” he said.
“It’s not bikers. It’s these kinds of bikers. If they had their way, we’d be living in the American Reich.”
But he was no longer listening. “There’s a guy you’re not thinking about, Dave.”
“Oh yeah?”
Clete put another cigarette into his mouth. This time he lit it. The smoke came out of his mouth like a piece of cotton. “A guy you keep pretending isn’t dirty.”
I zipped up my windbreaker and buttoned the collar. I took the second cigarette from his mouth and dropped it into the water. “Stop playing games with me, Clete.”
“Who’s standing in the middle of all this and doesn’t get touched?” he said. “Who’s got a reason to do you some serious injury? In this case by degrading and then killing Bella Delahoussaye?”
“I know where you’re going. Get off it.”
“Who has an obsession with John Ford’s work and Henry Fonda and Wyatt Earp and Clementine Carter and the actress who played her and the woman here in New Iberia who looks just like the actress?”
“It’s not Desmond. That’s crazy.”
“You’re sleeping with Bailey Ribbons, Dave. In Desmond Cormier’s mind, you stole his dream. Wake the fuck up.”
• • •
ON TUESDAY MORNING, a nurse called me from Iberia General. “Hello, Mr. Robicheaux. I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“Not at all,” I said. I looked at my watch.