A Private Cathedral (Dave Robicheaux 23)

“No, I was lying to her.”

“How about the dye on the money?”

“That’s true. It’s not much, but it’s there. The serial numbers are not in the FBI database, so maybe the money is from a source that can’t report the loss.”

“Go on,” I said.

“She said

Melancon would take her to hookups in the Quarter, in-and-out deals that didn’t have the approval of Adonis. The night Melancon got killed, the john was a guy with a face like a snake. He said his name was Gideon. He gave her the thirty grand.”

“For what reason?”

“Try to process this: She has to get out of the life. The john is a combo of Billy Graham and Reinhard Heydrich.”

“It’s funny you used Heydrich’s name.”

“What about it?” Dana said.

“His middle name was Tristan.”

“So what? Look, there’s something else. The black hooker says the john called himself a revelator. You ever hear anything like that?”

“Yeah, last night, from a woman with ties to Adonis Balangie.”

“What’d she say?”

“She said Adonis warned her about a guy calling himself that.”

“Who’s the woman?”

“She’s not a player.”

“Like Penelope Balangie is not a player?”

I didn’t reply.

“A ghoul was carrying your address,” he said. “While you’re busy inserting yourself into the Balangie family’s inner workings. Notice my choice of words.”

“I appreciate your concern, Dana. But you’re mischaracterizing the situation.”

“I tried.”

“You ever deal with Mark Shondell?”

“Shondell wouldn’t take the time to piss on us if we were burning to death,” he replied. “You never cease to astound me, Dave. Have a nice day.”

The line went dead. In all the years I had known him, Dana Magelli had never hung up on me.

* * *

THAT EVENING I drove to the treatment center in North Baton Rouge where Johnny Shondell had checked in for a minimum stay of a month. I suspected one month would be for openers. You don’t have to die to visit Dante’s Ninth Circle. Junk is a culture unto itself. The body, the brain, and the soul are the property of the dealer. Street addicts knowingly inject themselves with AIDS and hepatitis rather than face withdrawal. When it comes to satisfying the addiction, no form of depravity is off the table. How does anyone get himself in that kind of shape? It’s easy. You’ve got snakes in your head, the rattling of Gatling guns in your ears, and a sense of despair as bottomless as the Grand Canyon, and voilà, here comes the candy man, who offers you a ride on the big white horse, and with just a little poke in the arm, you’re galloping through a field of flowers.

Johnny’s cottage was nestled among azalea bushes under a gnarled oak with limbs so big and heavy they touched the ground like giant elbows. By the tree was a stone bench green with lichen and age and the coldness that seemed to live permanently in the layer of leaves that had turned black and yellow and slick on the ground. The surroundings reminded me of the graveyard behind Father Julian Hebert’s church in Jeanerette, and I wondered if this was not perhaps a reminder of the tenuous grasp we have on our lives.

I sat with Johnny on the bench. He was wearing an Australian infantry hat and a brown wool jacket zipped up to the throat, and in the dim light, he could have been one of the poor fellows in the trenches at Gallipoli waiting to go over the top into Turkish machine-gun fire, with the same dread of the grave, with the same heart-draining sense of abandonment.

“How are they treating you, Johnny?” I said.