“Mr. Robicheaux?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a good man. I could see it in your face.”
There was no mistaking the voice and accent. There was also no mistaking a thread of manipulation. “Ms. Balangie?”
“I’m sorry to call. I need your help to get my daughter back.”
I don’t know if my next question showed more concern for her or for me. “Are you at home?”
“No. I’m at a—”
“I don’t need to know.” I was so tired I thought my knees were about to give out. I sat in a chair and took a pencil and notepad from a drawer. “Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Give me a number I can call tomorrow.”
“You’re not going to contact Adonis, are you?”
I thought again of the dream I’d just had. What did it mean? I had no idea. “No promises about anything, Ms. Balangie. Not about your daughter. Not about you. Not about your husband. Not about anything.”
Chapter Six
MY CALL TO her at midmorning went immediately to voicemail. I left the following message: “Miss Penelope, regarding your daughter’s situation, my advice is you contact the FBI. You should also contact the state police and the sheriff’s department in New Orleans. I don’t believe I can be of any other service to you.”
I was sitting in the backyard with my cell phone, which I believed symbolized humankind’s latest attempt to control our lives and our fate. But I didn’t feel any control at all. The leaves were turning gold and red in the oak trees, rustling each time the wind scudded across the bayou’s surface. Robins that had just arrived from the north pecked in the grass, and the Teche was flowing at high tide through the pilings of the drawbridge at Burke Street. It was one of those Indian summer days in South Louisiana that is cold and warm simultaneously and makes you feel that the earth will abide forever. But on this day I felt there was a hole in my life I would never fill, an ache that had no source. Death is not a transitory or incremental presence. It swallows you whole.
I went inside and began fixing breakfast. Fifteen minutes later, I heard an automobile turn in to my gravel driveway, the tires clicking. I looked through the window and saw Penelope Balangie behind the wheel of a maroon Ferrari convertible, the top down. She wore black sunglasses and a white silk scarf on her head. I went out the door and walked across the lawn, my unraked leaves crackling under my shoes.
“How did you know where I live?” I said.
“Asked.”
“I left a message. You didn’t retrieve it?”
“No,” she said. “What did you wish to tell me?”
“I appreciate your situation, but I don’t want to have any more to do with it. Call the FBI or a state or parish agency.”
“Adonis says ‘FBI’ stands for ‘Forever Bothering Italians.’?”
“That’s what most of the wiseguys say. That’s because they’re dumb. And because they’re dumb, and I mean stupid-to-the-core incapable of thought, most of them end up in jail.”
She removed her sunglasses. She wasn’t wearing makeup, and her skin was pale and puckered around the eyes. “What made you change your mind?” she said.
“Change my mind about what?”
“You tried to help Isolde. Now you regret it.”
“Y
ou’ve got it wrong, Miss Penelope. I talked to her on an amusement pier, then got harassed by a couple of bird dogs who work for Mark Shondell. That’s when Clete Purcel stepped in and got a stiletto stuck in his arm. The same guys slashed all four of his tires after we left your home.”
“You’re Catholic, aren’t you?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”