“There’s Pierre Dupree,” Alafair said.
He had moved out of the crowd and was walking toward Gretchen’s pickup, wearing a pin-striped suit with a western shirt and buffed needle-nosed cowboy boots. In the background, through the trees, I could see Clete Purcel parking his maroon convertible by a picnic shelter. He and Julie Ardoin got out, and the two of them headed toward the building.
“Does Clete know Pierre is trying to put moves on Gretchen?” Alafair said.
“Yep.”
“What’s he plan to do about it?” she asked.
“Turn Pierre Dupree into wallpaper. Maybe that was just a metaphor,” I replied.
“I’m going over there,” Alafair said.
“For what?” I said.
“Pierre is evil. Gretchen is fighting a war in her head about forgiveness while this lying piece of shit is giving her a line.”
“Stay with Molly, Alf. I’m asking you, not telling you,” I said. “Please trust me on this.”
“You said you weren’t going to call me that again.”
“I’m just not much good at keeping certain kinds of promises.”
Her eyes studied mine, and I knew she wasn’t thinking about pet names. “I’ve got a bad feeling, Dave.”
“About what?”
“All of this,” she said.
AT FIRST GRETCHEN tried to ignore him, to pretend that either his presence or his absence was of no concern to her. But even as she reached back into the cab of her pickup to retrieve her Steadicam, his shadow seemed to loom above her and block out the lights of the building and invade her thoughts and reduce her in size and importance, as though he knew the location of every weakness in her body and soul. “I hoped you’d be here,” he said.
“I said I would be, didn’t I?” she replied.
“You sure did. Is this your equipment?”
“Whose does it look like?”
“You have to remember, film isn’t my medium.” He was smiling, his collar unbuttoned, the black hair on his chest showing.
“You see movies, though?” she said.
“Sometimes.”
“You ever see The Johnson Patrol? It was about an American patrol in Vietnam. But it was done by the French. It’s one of the best documentaries I ever saw. It
made me think of Robert Capa’s work.”
“Who?”
“He was one of the greatest combat photographers who ever lived.”
“I was never that keen on motion pictures and photography. I’m a painter.”
“You don’t like movies?”
He grinned and shrugged. “Sit with me.”
“I’m working.”