A Private Cathedral (Dave Robicheaux 23)

“I like your shirt,” I said. “What was that about popping me?”

“I gave you a break because you’re a recovering drunk and twice a widower. When the wife of a notorious mobster comes into my department and asks about one of my detectives, I get curious.”

“I can’t blame you, Carroll. I don’t know what Ms. Balangie wants.”

“This isn’t the first time. You were seen walking with her at the Shadows.”

“You’re following me around?”

“Right or wrong, you were at the Shadows with her?”

“Yes.”

He tapped his finger on the air. “When I was in vice, I never took juice. But you hang with Clete Purcel, a guy who made a living out of it. Tell me who has the problem. I catch you playing sticky finger while you’re on the job, I’ll have you cleaning toilets.”

“You’re a heck of a guy, Carroll,” I said.

After he left the room, my head was a Mixmaster. Yes, Carroll LeBlanc was a misogynist, a homophobe, and a racist, but he saw a weakness in me that I could not deny. The mention of Penelope Balangie had caused a quickening in my heart, the kind every man remembers from his youth. For me it happened when I was seventeen and I pitched a perfect game against Lafayette in the American Legion finals at the old Brahman Bull Stadium. Fans and players alike were jumping up and down and pounding me on the back as we walked off the field, the electric lights iridescent in the sunset. But the only person in my ken was a girl from Spanish Lake waiting for me by the dugout, her heart-shaped face glowing with the lights of love and adoration, her mouth aching to be kissed.

A moment of that kind never goes away. You take it to the grave. Tell me I’m blowing smoke.

Chapter Fourteen

THAT SAME DAY, at 6:47 exactly, I returned to my house from Winn-Dixie and saw a Ferrari by the curb, the left rear tire on the rim, Penelope Balangie struggling with the spare. I pulled in behind her. She dropped the tire and dusted off her hands. Her face looked hot, her hair damp on her cheek. “I just discovered you have no Triple A,” she said.

“We’re purists in that regard,” I said. “As few services as possible. Let’s see if I can help.”

It seemed too much of a coincidence that her tire would go completely flat in front of my home. The air loss was the kind you associate with a sliced valve. I squatted down and ran my hand over the casing. A two-inch piece of angle iron, its edges knife-sharp, was embedded in one of the grooves.

“I had to special-order the spare,” she said. “I just noticed it’s smaller than the others. Is that going to be a problem?”

Yeah, it is. In more ways than one.

“There’s a guy in Lafayette who sells used Ferraris,” I said. “You can give him a call.”

“I can’t get service on my cell phone here.”

“Yeah, that’s another problem we have,” I said. “Miss Penelope…”

“What?” she said.

“A very nasty plainclothes named Carroll LeBlanc says you were looking for me at the department. LeBlanc would like to take my skin off. I wish you wouldn’t help him do that.”

“Would you please explain how I’m impairing your career?”

“You’re the wife of a notorious gangster. Your father-in-law may have been involved with the assassination of John Kennedy.”

“These things are not true.”

“The Balangies made their money peddling bananas?”

“There are many things you think you know about me, Mr. Robicheaux. Most of them are wrong.”

“You want me to put on your spare?”

The light was dying in the trees. Down the street, flocks of swallows were descending on the Shadows.

“If you would be so kind,” she said.