tap beer and bruised mint in a glass of shaved ice and Jack Daniel’s. Could the world offer any finer gifts?
Since the death of my wife Molly, I wanted to see more and more of Clete, particularly in those moments when I felt as though the defining moments of my life had little application in the present, that somewhere down a deserted street a bus was throbbing at the curb, the passengers hollow-eyed and mute, unable to assimilate the journey that awaited them. Then the driver popped open the doors with a sucking sound, and I knew with a sinking of the heart that the bus was for me and I wouldn’t be returning to the city or the state I loved.
When I have those moments, I say the names of Clete and my daughter, Alafair, over and over. I have done it even in public, indifferent to the stares of others, a napkin held to my mouth or with my chin pointed down at my chest. And that’s why I resented Whitey Zeroski and his hired help or anyone else who tried to hurt the noblest man I ever knew.
“How’s tricks, Whitey?” I said.
He always looked surprised, as though someone had just stepped on his foot. He also had a habit of jerking his entire head when something caught his attention, like a meth addict or a chicken pecking in a barnyard or a man with a fused neck. He wore coveralls zipped up to his neck, the sleeves cut off at the armpits, his arms covered with hair.
“What it is, Robicheaux?” he said.
“Mind telling me what the hell you’re doing?”
“I work for the bank now. They gave me the key to Purcel’s building and the paperwork to move his belongings out on the sidewalk. He’s got another point of view on that.”
“This idiot creeped my house, Streak,” Clete said.
“What happened to your cab business?” I said to Whitey.
“Heard of Katrina?” he said.
“Don’t do this, Whitey,” I said.
“Off my back, Robicheaux. This is a legal action, here.”
“Whitey, I try to be kind to dumb Polacks, but I’m about to stuff you in the storm sewer,” Clete said.
“How about laying off the ethnic slurs?” Whitey said.
Clete looked at me and opened his hands. A pale red scar ran diagonally through his left eyebrow where he’d been hit with a pipe when he was a kid. “This is like beating up on somebody who was born brain-dead. Whitey, I apologize for calling you a dumb Polack. That’s an insult to dumb Polacks.”
Whitey’s face contorted as he tried to figure out what Clete had just said.
“Let me see the paperwork,” I said.
“It’s a reverse mortgage,” Clete said, his face coloring.
I looked at him blankly. “You didn’t?”
“I was jammed up,” he said. He had a little-boy haircut and a dimpled chin and green eyes that never faltered unless he was hiding something from me.
“We’ll get the furniture off the sidewalk,” I said. “We’ll work it out.”
“Oh, you will?” Whitey said. He had a New Orleans working-class accent, like someone whose voice box had been injected with Novocain. “What, I got nothing else to do but walk behind dick-brain here with a dustpan and a broom?”
“Shoot your mouth off one more time, Whitey, and see what happens,” Clete said.
I placed my arm across Whitey’s shoulders. “Take a walk with me.”
“What for?”
“Your helpers don’t seem to speak English. You don’t have an inspection sticker on your windshield. Your license plate isn’t current. You’re parked in a no-loading zone. You don’t have flashers. What should we do about that?”
“Give me a break here, Robicheaux.”
I took out my wallet, removed all the bills from it, and put them in his hand. “That’s about sixty dollars. Tell your boys to put everything back in the building, and buy them a round. I’ll call the bank and get this straightened out.”
“We’re supposed to live on a beer and a shot while you get me fired by the bank? I can’t wait to tell my boys this.”