Robicheaux (Dave Robicheaux 21)

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He was drinking coffee, one leg resting across the trash can. “I’m boxed in today.”

“You’d be doing me a big favor, Spade.”

“How am I doing you a favor by going to an A.A. meeting?”

“It’s called the ninth step. Making amends to people we’ve hurt. I attacked you. I have to make up for it.”

“All sins are forgiven. I hear you were at the Cajun Dome when someone tried to grease Nightingale.”

“Clete Purcel and I were there.”

“I called it, didn’t I? I knew somebody would try to knock him off.”

“You knew what you were talking about. How about the meeting? Be a sport. It’s like prayer. What’s to lose?”

“You’ve got a brick for a head. Let me take a piss.”

The meeting was in the back of an electrical shop by one of the drawbridges, the windows painted over. The attendees were mostly working people. The room smelled of dust and old rags and machine oil that had soaked into workbenches. Before Labiche sat down, he flicked his handkerchief several times on the seat of the chair.

When the leader of the meeting asked newcomers to introduce themselves by first name only and not to put anything into the basket, Labiche did as requested and then began clipping his nails. It wasn’t long before I noticed something wrong. Two black women who were regulars and spoke often at meetings were silent, their eyes turned inward, their bodies shrunken, as though they were trying to make themselves smaller. Labiche reset his watch, sucked his teeth, and looked sleepily into space while an elderly man spoke of his wife’s death. Then Labiche went to the restroom, tucking in his shirt with his thumbs as he walked. One of the silent black women left in a hurry through a side door. The other bent deeper into herself, her eyes lidded. When Labiche returned, he stank of cigarette smoke.

After the “Our Father,” he helped stack a couple of chairs and followed me outside. The heat was ferocious, the wind like a blowtorch.

“How’d you like it?” I asked.

“Good stuff, but I don’t think it’s for me, Robo. I know I got kind of screwed up and depressed for a while and was talking a little crazy, but I’m okay now.”

“You and Miss Babette are okay, too?”

“Peaches and cream. What makes you think otherwise?”

“No reason. She’s probably had a hard life. She deserves a break.”

“You trying to tell me something?”

“No,” I said. “Did you know any of the people in the meeting?”

“You talking about those black whores? I think I busted one of them.”

“There’re no whores in A.A. Whatever people did before they came in doesn’t count.”

“Yeah, and all God’s chil’en got shoes, too,” he said. “This heat stinks. I need to get back to Florida. There’s nothing like that blue and green water down in the Keys.” He lit up, letting the smoke drift in my face.

“You’re done worrying about somebody clipping you?” I said.

The tropical vision that gave him a brief respite from his problems left his eyes. “What the fuck, man? You get me here to mess with my head?”

Something like that, I thought.

* * *

THAT EVENING CLETE and I went to City Park and watched Homer play softball under the lights. Homer was still awkward with the bat, but he usually got a chunk of the ball and made it to first base. Once there, he was a greased laser beam on the bases. He came in under the tag on his face, like a human plowshare burrowing through the dirt. When the second baseman thought it was over, Homer was on his feet and headed for third. He got caught in the hotbox once, then scampered between the shortstop’s legs and went around third and almost sanded his face off sliding across home plate.

“What’s Homer’s status with the social welfare people?” I said.

“I think they want the situation to go away. It doesn’t matter, though. I’m not giving him back.”