“Actually, I was interested in a safe that used to be here,” I said. “I collect all kinds of historical memorabilia. It was a huge box of a thing right over there in the corner.”
“I know the one you mean. It’s not here anymore. Mr. Pierre took it out when we installed the new carpets.”
“Where is it?” I asked.
She was an attractive blond woman in her early twenties, with an earnest face and eyes that seemed full of goodwill. Her forehead wrinkled. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember. I think some movers took it out.”
“How long ago was that?”
“About five or six months ago, I think. Did you want to buy it?”
“I doubt that I could afford it. I just wanted to look at it.”
“What’s your name again?”
“Dave Robicheaux, with the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Department.”
“I’ll tell Mr. Alexis you’re here. That’s Mr. Pierre’s grandfather. I’ll bet he can tell you all about the safe.”
Before I could stop her, she went into the back of the building and returned with a man I had seen once or twice in New Iberia or Jeanerette. For his age, he was remarkable in his posture and his bearing. He was even more remarkable for the story associated with his name. I couldn’t remember the specific details, but people who knew him said he had been a member of the French Resistance during World War II and had been sent to an extermination camp in Germany. I couldn’t recall the name of the camp or the circumstances that had spared his life. Was it Ravensbrück? He was dressed in slacks and a long-sleeve white shirt rolled to the elbows. When he shook my hand, the bones in his fingers felt hollow, like a bird’s. A chain of numbers was tattooed in faded blue ink on the underside of his left forearm. “You were asking about an old safe?” he said.
“I collect old things. Antiques and Civil War artifacts and that sort of thing,” I replied.
“There was a safe here that came with the building, but it was taken out a long time ago, I think.”
His face was narrow, his eyes as gray as lead, his hair still black, with a few strands of white. There was a pronounced dimple in his chin. On his left cheek were two welted scars. “Would you like coffee or perhaps a drink?”
“No, thank you. I didn’t mean to disturb you. Do you know a fellow by the name of Frankie Giacano or his friend Bix Golightly?”
“Those names aren’t familiar. Are they antique dealers?” He was smiling when he spoke, the way an older man might when he’s showing tolerance of his listener.
“No, they’re bad guys, Mr. Dupree. Pardon me, the use of the present tense isn’t quite accurate. Frankie Giacano is still around, but somebody over in Algiers parked three rounds from a semi-auto in Bix Golightly’s face.”
“That’s a graphic image, Mr. Robicheaux. Why are you telling me this?”
“It’s probably just the ambience. I remember when Didi Gee used to hold a person’s hand in an aquarium over by that wall. I came in here once when the water was full of blood.”
“I’m not one who needs convincing of man’s inhumanity to man.”
“I meant you no offense.”
; “Of course you did,” he said. “Good day to you, sir.”
I started to leave. He was an elderly man. The tattoo on his left arm was of a kind that only a visitor to hell could have acquired. Sometimes there are occasions when charity requires that we accept arrogance and rudeness and deception in others. I didn’t feel this was one of them. “You lied to me, sir.”
“How dare you?” he replied, his eyes coming to life.
THE NEXT MORNING at work, Helen Soileau called me into her office. She was watering the plants on her windowsill with a tin sprinkler painted with flowers. “I just got off the phone with Alexis Dupree. You called an eighty-nine-year-old man a liar?” she said.
“I said he lied to me. There’s a difference.”
“Not to him. My ear is still numb. What were you doing in his office?”
I explained to her about Didoni Giacano’s old safe and the marker that supposedly was found inside it. “The receptionist said the safe was taken out five or six months ago. The old man said otherwise. In front of her. Her face turned red.”
“Maybe Dupree was confused. Or maybe the receptionist was.”