Creole Belle (Dave Robicheaux 19)

“There’s always new talent floating around. You read vampire books? I just bought a shitload of them. Vampire lit is in, muff-diver lit is out. I’m ahead of the curve.”

“Where’s the new talent from?” I asked.

“Someplace that begins with M. Miami or Memphis. Maybe Minneapolis. I don’t remember. This is stuff I don’t need to know about.”

I looked toward the back of the store. The Count was sweeping a cloud of dust through the door into a courtyard that was green and dark with mold and cluttered with junk.

“He’s on his meds and doing good. Leave him alone, Dave,” Jimmy said.

“The Count is what is called an autistic savant, Jimmy. Everything he hears and sees goes onto a computer chip.”

“Yeah, I know all that, and I don’t like people giving him names like ‘autistic savant.’ He did too many drugs, but that don’t mean he’s retarded.”

“You want to ask him, or do you want me to?” I said.

Jimmy poured the rest of his soda into a sink and put a matchstick in his mouth. “Hey, Count, you hear anything about a new mechanic in town?” he said.

The Count stopped sweeping and stared downward at his broom. Rain was swirling inside the courtyard, blowing in a fine mist across his cape and small pale hands. He lifted his eyes to mine, puzzled about either the question or my identity.

“It’s Dave Robicheaux, Count,” I said. “I need your help. I’m looking for a hitter by the name of Caruso.”

“Caruso? Yes. I know that name,” said the Count. He smiled.

“In New Orleans?”

“I think so.”

“Where?” I asked.

The Count shook his head.

“Who’s he work for?” I asked.

He didn’t speak and instead continued to look into my face, his irises tinged with the colors you expect to see only in a hawk’s eyes.

“How about the name Caruso? Is that an alias?” I said.

“It means something.”

I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. “It means what?” I asked.

“Like the opera singer.”

“I know who the opera singer is. But why is this guy called by that name?”

“When Caruso sings, everybody in the theater gets quiet. When he leaves, they stay in their seats.”

“Where do you think I might find him? This is real important, Count.”

“They say he finds you. I heard what you said about me. I’m the way I am because I’m smart. People say things in front of me that they won’t say in front of anyone else. They don’t know I’m smart. That’s why they make fun of me and call me names.”

He swept a cloud of dust out into the rain, then followed it into the courtyard and shut the door behind him.

I deserved his rebuke.

THE HOUR WAS three P.M., and I had time to make another stop before returning to New Iberia, which was only a two-hour drive if you went through Morgan City. The old office of Didi Giacano, the one where he kept an aquarium full of piranha, was on South Rampart, outside the Quarter, just across Canal. The building was two stories and constructed of soft, variegated brick and had an iron balcony and a colonnade, but one of the side walls had been scorched by fire and the building had a singed, used look that the potted bougainvillea and caladium and philodendron on the balcony did little to dispel.

The inside of the office had been completely redone. The beige carpet was two inches thick, the off-white plastered walls hung with paintings of Mediterranean villages and steel-framed aerial color photos of offshore oil platforms, one of them flaring against a night sky. The receptionist told me that Pierre Dupree was at his home in Jeanerette but that his grandfather was in his office and perhaps could help me.