Robicheaux (Dave Robicheaux 21)

“You’re nuts. You belong in a gerbil cage. Tell me what you want.”

“Don’t make me mad.”

“My dick in your mouth, jerk-off. I got guys out there gonna take you apart no matter what happens in here.”

“No nasty talk. Not one word.” Chester tightened the comic in his grip and hammered the butt end on Tony’s nose. Tony’s face went out of shape, his eyes watering. A sound like a punctured tire wheezed from his throat. “I got to have my tank.”

“Bad boys don’t get what they want. I did some research on you. You have been very bad.”

“What the fuck is this?”

“Did Kevin Penny work for you?”

“So what?”

“He was cruel to his little boy. You knew about it. You didn’t stop it.”

“I didn’t know nothing about his personal life. You’re here from Boys Town?”

Chester’s head was throbbing like wooden blocks falling down a staircase. “I wasn’t in Boys Town. I was in a place where bad things were done to me.”

“From what I hear, you already fucked up two hits. One with the cop in New Iberia, one with Clete Purcel. Kevin Penny’s kid is living with Purcel. You were supposed to blow up the kid, too? You looking for child abusers? Go look in the mirror, gerbil boy.”

Chester’s mouth had shrunk to a stitch, his nostrils no more than tiny holes, white around the rims. He unrolled his comic book and stared at the cover. Wonder Woman was leaping across a canyon undaunted, her gold and red bodice pushing up her breasts, her blue star-spangled shorts skintight, the message in her face unmistakable. I will, Chester said inside his head.

“You’ll do what?” Tony said.

“What Wonder Woman tells me to. If I don’t, I’ll have bad thoughts and do bad things.”

“Bad thoughts? You’re an assassin who talks to a comic book. You’re a meltdown. I can get you help for that.”

Chester rolled the comic into a tight cylinder again and jammed it as hard as a stick into Tony’s eye. “You will not talk back anymore.”

Tony’s face quivered with shock. His wounded eye was watering and rimmed with a red ring.

“I never did anything to you. Somebody is using you. I’m a businessman, a movie producer. Check me out. You want to be in a movie? I’ll put you in a movie.”

“You need to be punished.”

“What do you call this?”

“Nothing,” Chester said.

He went outside and returned with a black leather bag, the kind physicians once carried. He removed a pair of needle-nose pliers and a plastic container. Tony’s face seemed to shrink and become miniaturized. “Don’t.”

Chester unscrewed the cap and fitted the pliers on Tony’s nose and squeezed. “Open wide.”

Then he poured the container of Drano down Tony’s throat, making sure not to get any on his clothes or hands.

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING Helen called half a dozen plainclothes into her office. She was looking out the window at the Teche as we filed in. When she turned around, it was obvious that she planned to be brief and d

eliver a message that cops understand but don’t talk about.

“The coroner says Nemo went out about as hard as it gets. His chauffeur is still in a coma. A passerby said he saw a man in a boxlike hat get out of the delivery wagon and talk to someone in the driveway. The ‘someone’ was probably the chauffeur: He got his eggs scrambled with a stun gun. The pizza wagon was stolen. Maybe it’s our man Smiley. Maybe not. The homicide is under the jurisdiction of St. Mary Parish.”

“That’s it?” someone said.