A Private Cathedral (Dave Robicheaux 23)

“You’re already up to your bottom lip in Shit’s Creek, douche brain,” Eddy said. “You just don’t get it yet.”

“I’d better not have a reception waiting for me in Key West, Eddy.”

Eddy took a Kleenex from a box and blew his nose. “You got no idea what’s out there. Call me in a few days and tell me how you like it.”

Chapter Ten

CLETE DROVE HIS rental down to the Keys. On the western horizon, trapped under a black lid of storm clouds, was an eye-watering band of blue brilliance and a pinkish-yellow sun that the rain could not diminish and the Gulf of Mexico could not sink. He opened his windows when he drove across Seven Mile Bridge, the salty denseness of the wind like an immersion into a warm pool that could magically restore his youth. For just a moment he felt a sense of comfort so great that he dozed off and hit a rumble strip that jarred his teeth.

He righted the steering wheel and glanced down through the steel grid and saw a patch of color in the water that looked exactly like india ink floating under the surface. He wondered if he was dreaming or witnessing a sign. By the time he reached Key West, the sun was only a spark on the horizon, the moon was rising, and Duval Street was filled with music and celebrants who were innocently happy and hilariously drunk, forming conga lines on the curbs, perhaps certain that death would pass them by or perhaps accepting it for what it was.

In Clete’s mind, for good or bad, Key West had always been a hole in the dimension that took him back to his childhood in old New Orleans. Rick’s Bar was a two-story white frame building with a big veranda and numerous windows and doors, similar to the nineteenth-century residences in the Irish Channel. Clete went inside, sat at the bar, and ordered a vodka Collins and two dozen oysters on the half shell.

The stage was small and bare and framed with different-colored lightbulbs. Johnny Shondell came out from behind a curtain with his Super Jumbo Gibson slung from his shoulder, the belly and neck pointed down. Hardly anyone took notice of him. He was grinning as he bent to the microphone and adjusted it to his height. A thick dark blue cloud of smoke sagged from the ceiling. Clete took a long swallow from his glass, letting the crushed ice and cherries and orange slices and the coldness of the vodka have their way.

Johnny looked up and momentarily seemed to recognize him, then dropped his gaze and began tuning his guitar. The bartender set a napkin and a tiny fork in front of Clete, then went back to the bin and opened an oyster and slid it down the bar trailing ice. “Curbside service,” he said. “I shuck ’em, you chuck ’em.”

“How’s the kid doing with your customers?” Clete asked.

The bartender’s arms were huge and tanned and wrapped with black hair. “It’s Key West. People see UFOs under the water. How do you compete with an act like that?”

Johnny made a chord up on the neck of his Gibson, ran his thumb over the strings, then went into Doc Watson’s “Freight Train Boogie.” The speed of his fingers was stunning. Clete once saw Robbie Robertson and Eric Clapton perform together: It was the only time he had seen anyone faster and more graceful than Johnny. Four other musicians joined Johnny, and he played and sang six traditional numbers in a row. The applause was more courteous than passionate. A man shouted for an Elvis song as though Johnny were a reenactor. Johnny sang “Heartbreak Hotel,” then left the stage and ordered a drink at the end of the bar.

Clete picked up his glass and moved down the bar and sat on the stool next to him. “I really dug your songs,” he said.

Johnny was shaking his head negatively before Clete could continue. “We shouldn’t be talking, Mr. Clete.”

“Eddy Firpo told you I was coming?”

?

?He’s still in shock from what you did to his house in Bay St. Louis.”

Clete signaled the bartender for another Collins. “Dave Robicheaux and I are trying to do you a solid, kid. How about getting with the program?”

Johnny looked at Clete’s left arm. “You’re out of the sling, huh?”

“Forget about me. You got a lot of talent. You can go somewhere.”

“I’m heading out to Los Angeles with Eddy. I know you don’t like Eddy, but he’s on my side. Now lay off us.”

“Eddy Firpo is not a person. He’s a disease. Time to take off the blinders. You going to see Isolde in L.A.?”

Johnny looked into his drink. “That’s all over.”

“I heard y’all sing together. You remind me of Dale and Grace. Maybe even better.”

“You got to leave this alone, Mr. Clete.”

“If Adonis Balangie or your uncle is behind this, we can do something about it,” Clete said. “This isn’t 1861.”

Johnny looked over his shoulder and scanned the street. “Have you talked to Isolde or seen her?”

“No,” Clete said.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Start telling the truth. Stop covering up for greaseballs. What the hell is the matter with you?”