“Believe it.”
He looked sick. I had never seen LeBlanc like this. He talked to his daughter, then motioned me into the kitchen and closed the door behind him. I gave him every detail about my confrontation with Gideon Richetti in the swamp. By the time I was finished, he was trembling.
“Are you all right?” I asked him.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be all right?”
“You look like you’re about to hit the deck.”
“I shot a black kid in the Desire Project when I was a rookie,” he said. “He was nine years old. That’s how I ended up in vice after I made plainclothes. Nobody wanted to partner with me.”
I looked away from the shame in his eyes. “Everybody makes mistakes.”
“Yeah, try to sell that when you’re in the barrel,” he said. “So we’re talking about blood on a stump and a piece of cloth?”
“That’s it.”
“What do you mean, ‘that’s it’? We’re going out there.”
“What for?”
“Because I don’t believe this shit.”
“What shit?” I said.
“This fucking guy from outer space or whatever.”
“Your agitation isn’t about Richetti,” I said. “What are you keeping from me, Carroll?”
“Mark Shondell has a hard-on for you. You slapped his face in public.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“I was a juicer and taking freebies and collecting for a shylock and had to find another job. Shondell smoothed the way for me. Here in New Iberia.”
“Why the favor?” I said.
He clenched his teeth and breathed through his mouth before he spoke. “The Balangie family was starting to slip. Crack was replacing all the other drugs on the street. A handful of black pukes were taking over the projects. Shondell wanted to make a move. I helped him.”
“Shondell is involved with narcotics?” I said.
“I think it was personal with him. He wanted to screw up Adonis Balangie any way he could.”
“Why are you telling me this, Carroll?”
“I wanted to help people and be a good cop. I saw a kid on a fire escape with a gun. I swear he pointed it at me. I let off three rounds. One went through a window and hit the nine-year-old in his bed. The kid on the fire escape had a BB gun.”
“You want my badge?” I said.
“No, we’re going to Henderson Swamp. You weren’t drinking, were you?”
“No.”
“I want you to UA at Iberia General.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Know why I’m going along with this stuff you just told me?”