Robicheaux (Dave Robicheaux 21)

* * *

THROUGH A DOOR off the living room, he could see a double bed with the coverlet and pillows and sheets in disarray. The chauffeur was sitting on the rug by the sliding doors, one arm hooked over the end of the couch, breathing through his mouth as though he had run up a hill. Emmeline washed her hands in the kitchen sink, looking over her shoulder. The chauffeur began to moan.

“Get the towels out of the bathroom,” she said to Chester. “There’s a first-aid kit in the closet. I have to think.”

“I want a snack, Em.”

“A snack?”

“My tummy is hurting.”

“Why did you shoot Swede?” she said, her voice pulling loose from her throat.

“Who’s Swede?”

“The man you just shot, you stupid shit.”

“I have to talk to you about what I was told to do,” Chester said. “To the man with the convertible.”

The chauffeur moaned again.

“Shut up,” Chester said to Swede.

“Chester, please do what I say. Close the curtains. Get some bandages. I didn’t mean to call you a bad word. I have to plan for us. I always took care of us, didn’t I?”

“Did you know about the boy who lives with the fat man in the motor court?”

“What boy? What are you talking about?”

“The man named Purcel. He has a little boy living with him.”

“I don’t know anything about that. Get the kit out of the bathroom. I’ll have to call 911, and you’ll need to get out of here. Did anyone see you?”

The chauffeur coughed blood on the carpet and began gesturing and making unintelligible sounds. Emmeline was looking out the window at the road.

“I’ll be right back,” Chester said. He went into the living room and pulled up his trouser leg and removed the British commando knife strapped to his calf. A moment later, he came back into the kitchen and rinsed it in the sink and wiped it with a dish towel. Emmeline stared at him. “What did you just do?”

“Not much. Asked him why he was writing on my cards. He didn’t answer. Now he can’t.”

Chester opened the refrigerator and removed a carton of orange juice and drank from it. He heard her go into the living room. “Oh my God,” she said.

He sat down at the breakfast table, a great fatigue draining through his chest and limbs, the fragmented pieces of his life assembling and reassembling before his eyes. He remembered the music of a calliope in Mexico City, the slap of a teacher’s hand, a punishment closet that had no light, a mattress pad soaked with urine.

“Snap out of it, Chester,” Emmeline said. “You have to leave. I’ll call 911 and tell them we had a home invasion. They’ll believe me. They think a killer is after Jimmy. Did anyone see you?”

“Maybe,” he replied.

“Maybe isn’t good enough.”

“A little colored girl named Loretta.”

“She saw you with the gun?”

“I tol

d her it was an air gun. I told a lie.”

“Where does she live?”