A Private Cathedral (Dave Robicheaux 23)

“Did you ever speak at the Work the Steps or Die, Motherfucker meeting?” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” she said.

“?‘Oh, yeah’ what?”

“I knew that one would catch up with me one day.”

I remembered her in a much more detailed way now. She had been heavier, probably from a jailhouse diet, her hair much longer, partially dyed; she was just beginning the steps of the program. But I remembered her most for her candor. Women speakers are the most honest at A.A. meetings and often give histories about themselves that men do not want to hear, because they fear the same level of honesty will be required of them. Leslie Rosenberg went the extra mile and left nothing out. Had there been a parole officer at the meeting, she could have violated herself back to the Orleans Parish Prison.

She ran away from home at age seventeen and hooked up with three outlaw bikers who gang-raped her on the way to Sturgis. She had an abortion in Memphis and spent three months in jail for soliciting at a truck stop on I-40. The next two stops were Big D and New Orleans and runway gigs with a G-string and pasties, then Acapulco and Vegas with oilmen who could buy Third World countries with their credit cards.

Miami was even more lucrative. She went to work for a former CIA agent turned political operative who set up cameras in hotel rooms and blackmailed corporate executives and Washington insiders. She helped destroy careers and lives and woke up one morning next to the corpse of a married man who died from an overdose in his sleep and whose family she had to face at the police station. One week later, she swallowed half a bottle of downers, turned on the gas in the oven, and stuck her head in. Three weeks later, she slashed her wrists. One month after that, she helped a pimp roll a blind man.

It’s not the kind of personal history you forget.

“Something wrong with the pie?” she asked.

“It’s good. Do you still go to meetings?”

“Mostly to N.A. I was into drugs more than alcohol.”

“Who’s the father of your little girl?”

“The dead guy I woke up with. I think I said that at the meeting.”

She waited for me to speak, but I didn’t.

“You’re wondering why I had one abortion but not another one?” she said. “I figured I owed the guy something. Or his family. Shit if I know. Anyway, I love Elizabeth.”

“Where does the Balangie family come in?” I said.

“I moved back to New Orleans, and Penelope saw me at the clinic where I take Elizabeth. I told her my story. She introduced me to Adonis. That was it.”

“That doesn’t sound like Adonis.”

“Try getting to know him.”

“No strings attached?”

“I’m going to say this only once,” she said, “and that’s because I don’t want you walking out of here with the wrong story. Adonis is a gentleman. He asks. You get my meaning?”

“He asks?”

“Yeah, fill in the blanks.”

“You’re an intelligent woman. There’s something weird going on with the Balangies, and I have a feeling it bothers you.”

She tried to stare me down.

“You ever hear of a guy who has a face like a reptile?” I said.

“No.”

“A guy who enjoys breaking the necks of pimps?”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

I was tired and the rain was blowing hard, the banana fronds outside pressing wetly against the glass. I knew I would probably hit high winds around Morgan City. I put on my coat.