Light of the World (Dave Robicheaux 20)

“He let Alafair interview him in prison because he thought she was going to write a book about him. He took creative writing courses at Wichita State and wrote a novel based on himself. He thinks he’s an intellectual and a great artist.”

“You should have talked to me first.”

“I need approval?” she said.

“The guy tried to kill you with a bear trap. Your life was saved by a rabbit.”

“I get you. I’m so inept, I’d be dead except for the intervention of an animal.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Surrette is a narcissist, Clete. Believe me, he’ll swallow the bait. Hollywood is a drug. Its sharpest critics are fascinated by it. Otherwise they wouldn’t be talking about it all the time.”

“He outsmarted the cops for twenty years, Gretchen. He survived a collision with a gas truck. Dave thinks Surrette may come from somewhere else. He didn’t say it exactly that way, but that’s what he’s thinking.”

“How about taking the mashed potatoes out of your mouth?”

“Years back we went up against a guy named Legion Guidry. He was an overseer on a plantation in Iberia Parish.” Clete shook his head as though deciding whether he should revisit the experience. “I think maybe this guy wasn’t human. I try to forget about him. I get the heebie-jeebies when I start thinking too much about stuff like that.”

They were sitting on the front porch of the cabin. It was Friday, the beginning of a fine weekend, and Gretchen could see the mist from the sprinklers in Albert’s yard blowing on the flower beds and the patches of clover in the fescue. It was the kind of summer day that lacked only the smell of mowed grass to be perfect. “What stuff?” she said.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Don’t leave me hanging like this.”

“Dave believed Legion Guidry worked for the devil. I didn’t want to hear it. I grew up listening to stuff like that. But Dave and I never could explain a lot of the things Guidry did or the power he seemed to have over people.”

“You guys got him, right? Doesn’t that tell you something? He was flesh and blood.”

“It wasn’t us. He was hit by lightning. He ran into a swamp with bullets flying around him. Then lightning hit the woods. The coroner and some deputies found his body floating in a bay with a bunch of dead pigs.”

Clete had been drinking a can of warm beer. He picked it up, then looked at it as though he didn’t know where it had come from. He set it back down and stared into space.

“Are you all right?” she said.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I don’t like to go inside my own head sometimes.”

“Wichita PD nailed Surrette,” she said. “He wasn’t the criminal genius of the century.”

“He sent them a floppy disk that could be traced to his employer’s computer. He made the disk on a Saturday, when no one else was in the office. I think he deliberately screwed up.”

“What for?”

“He wasn’t getting enough attention. He wanted to stand up in court, in front of the families, and describe in detail what he did to his victims. He was happier than a hog rolling in shit.”

“Both you and Dave are letting this guy get to you. There’s one way you deal with a guy like Surrette. You put more holes in him than he can put plugs in. It’s that simple.” He turned in his chair. She saw the sadness in his eyes. “Don’t look at me that way,” she said.

“That’s the stuff shank artists in the joint say,” he replied. “You get that kind of language out of your vocabulary.”

“What I’m saying is the guy’s no supervillain. He’s not from the Abyss,” she said. “You’ve been around the worst of the worst. You know they all go down.”

“I took money from the Giacanos and worked for Sa

lly Dee. They were bad guys, but they didn’t come close to Legion Guidry. This is what you’re choosing not to hear. Dave is right about Surrette. How does he come and go on Albert’s property? How’d he disappear after he almost killed you with a bear trap?”

“Are we working together or not?” she asked.

“I’ll always back your play. You know that.”