Robicheaux (Dave Robicheaux 21)

“I’ll be out front.”

Two minutes later, I pulled to the curb in front of his office. He was wearing his powder-blue sport coat and porkpie hat and freshly ironed gray slacks and tasseled loafers shined as bright as mirrors. His eyes were clear, his face ruddy, his youthfulness temporarily restored, as always when he went twenty-four hours without booze.

“Let’s rock,” he said. When he pulled open the door, his coat was heavier on one side than the other.

“What’s in your pocket?” I asked.

“Lint,” he replied.

* * *

EVERY WEEKDAY AT noon, Tony could be found at one of two oyster bars in the Quarter, primarily because both had accommodations that could seat a gargantuan blob who had to spread his cheeks across a padded bench or two chairs pushed together. The restaurant also had to accommodate his oxygen cylinder and sometimes a nurse and a retinue of hangers-on and, of course, his bodyguards, Maximo Soza and JuJu Ladrine.

JuJu was half coon-ass and half Sicilian and could do squats with a five-hundred-pound bar across his shoulders. He wore blue suits and ties and starched white shirts, regardless of the heat, and in public always seemed embarrassed and popping with sweat and about to burst out of his clothes.

Maximo was another matter. He had a twenty-two-inch waist and the diminutive features of a child; he had been a jockey in Cuba. He wore a flat-topped gray knit cap with a bill and unironed slacks that flapped like rags and a suit coat buttoned tight at the waist and flared on the hips. He took orders from Tony as if there were no moral distinction between chauffeuring a limo and sticking an ice pick into one of Tony’s enemies.

I parked the cruiser in a garage on Royal, and Clete and I walked to the oyster bar and went inside. It was 12:05 P.M. Tony was sitting at a long table in a back corner, the checkered tablecloth set with a pitcher of sangria and baskets of sourdough bread

. Maximo and JuJu were not Tony’s only companions. The man seated immediately next to him was famous for all the wrong reasons. Plastic surgery had transformed him from a homely Ichabod Crane born in the Midwest to a regal and tragic Jefferson Davis in the twilight of the Confederacy. He had been a leader of the Klan and the American Nazi Party and the friend of every white-supremacist group in the country. Then he discovered religion and was born again and wore his spirituality like a uniform. He had served in the Louisiana legislature and run for the presidency and the United States Senate. Then he went to Russia to promote his latest anti-Semitic book. While he was out of the country, the FBI got a warrant on his house and found his mailing list. He had been selling subscriptions to his racist publications and concealing the income from the IRS. Later, the multicultural nature of the prison shower room was not his favorite conversational subject.

Bobby Earl was his name, and manipulation was his game. During the peak of his career, women who affected the dress of Southern belles lined up to be photographed with him. Then the plastic surgeon’s handiwork began to soften and deteriorate and slip from the bone, and Bobby Earl’s face took on the appearance of wax held to a flame. His hair fell out, too, and he wore a wig that resembled barbershop sweepings glued to a plastic skullcap. While attending an anti-America/anti-Israel convention in Iran, he was interviewed on CNN and reduced by Wolf Blitzer to a raging idiot while spittle flew from his lips.

The hostess started to seat Clete and me at a small table.

“We’re with Mr. Nemo,” I said.

“Are you sure? He didn’t tell me others would be joining him,” she said.

Clete waved at Tony. “Sorry we’re late, big guy,” he said.

The hostess took us to the table and walked away quickly.

“You don’t mind, do you, Tony?” I said.

He looked up from his shrimp cocktail. “We’re eating, here.”

Clete and I opened our menus. Clete turned to JuJu and Maximo. “What do you guys recommend?”

Neither answered.

“You drink your breakfast, Purcel?” Tony said.

“Actually, I did. A protein shake with bananas and strawberries,” Clete said. “You ought to try it.”

Tony stuck his finger in one ear and wiped it on the tablecloth. “You followed me in here?”

“We were in the neighborhood,” I said. “How’s it going, Bobby?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“The Advocate says Jimmy Nightingale is trying to distance himself from you,” I said. “I think you’re getting a dirty deal.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Clete said. He hit Earl hard between the shoulders, slanting his wig.

I caught the waiter’s attention and ordered iced tea and a dozen raw oysters. Clete ordered a po’boy sandwich and a vodka Collins. A black busboy filled our water glasses and took away an empty bread basket and brought back a full one. Tony called the manager over. “That colored kid don’t come close to this table again unless he’s got white gloves on, clear?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Nemo,” the manager said, bending stiffly.