“I do something wrong?” he asked.
“No.”
“Because you don’t sound eager to have me along.”
“I’m going to talk to Helen right now. Why don’t you join us?”
“Thanks,” he said. “Sorry again for yesterday. I mean that pity-pot stuff. You know how—”
We were at the stairwell. “After you,” I said.
We went into Helen’s office. She was looking out the window. The sky had turned yellow, and birds were rising from the trees in the park. I told her about Clete’s phone call and his belief that Mark Shondell might be holding Johnny and Isolde.
“That’s for the FBI, Pops,” she said.
“I bet they’d love getting in on this,” I replied. “Want me to tell them we’re dealing with a guy from the year 1600? Or the possibility that Mark Shondell is in league with evil forces?”
“You lay off that voodoo dog shit, Dave,” she said.
“Helen, we can’t rule anything out,” Carroll said. “There’s something weird going on. Look at the sky. It’s like hurricane season in August.”
“End of discussion,” she said. “How long do you need to be in Terrebonne?”
“Two or three days, maybe,” I said.
“The media better not hear any of this,” she said. “You copy?”
I didn’t reply.
“Yes, ma’am, we copy,” Carroll said.
She waited for me to answer. “Dave?”
“Yeah?” I said.
She was fiddling with some papers on her desk, her head down. She looked up, obviously tired. “I get on your case because I can’t begin to guess what we’re dealing with. Don’t get mad at me. And don’t get hurt in Terrebonne.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
* * *
I HAVE TO PAUSE at this juncture and say something of a personal nature. Death’s a motherfucker. We already know that. However, I was about to learn it comes in many forms, and that one’s own transition might not happen at a specific time but instead may take place at several different stops on one’s journey; in effect, there are no parallel lines, only the swirling vortex of which we’re a tiny part. I was also about to learn that time and historical sequence are relative, and that those who deny the existence of an aperture in the dimension are a fond and foolish group. Call it madness, but I believe the sulfurous sky we witnessed that day was the backdrop of a drama about good and evil, just as the wine-dark waves at the amusement pier in Texas were the same as those Homer described three thousand years ago.
The rain began falling as I turned south at Houma and drove down to the salt. Carroll had dozed off, his head on his chest. He looked older, tired, the line of moles blacker under his left eye. His body shook suddenly, and he made a sound down in his throat but didn’t open his eyes. In my career I’ve known three cops who ate their gun. Others did it a day at a time with pills and booze. Carroll had all the signs of a cop about to burn his kite.
We drove down a cracked stretch of asphalt road through miles of wetlands and sawgrass and palmettos and a swamp in which the algae was so thick it undulated with the tide like a milky-green blanket. In the distance I could see a crossroads and a small motel and a café and slips that had been cut for both sailboats and cabin cruisers, but much of the coastline had been eroded by saline intrusion, and the docks and shelters and wooden walks had been abandoned.
I went over a rise in the road and hit a pothole. Carroll’s head jerked up. “We there?”
“This is it,” I said.
He rubbed his face. “I had a dream. Did I say something?”
“No.”
“I was climbing this ladder up to a real high place. I had my daughter with me and a dog I had when I was a kid. I had to drop one of them.”
“Your daughter is going to be okay, Carroll.”