His phone buzzed. He picked up the receiver slowly and placed it to his ear. He thought he could hear a sound like a metal top spinning on a wood floor.
“Mr. Purcel?” said Hulga, his secretary.
“Yes?”
“I got here a little early. I wasn’t sure that was you in there.”
“It’s me.”
“Are you all right?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You sound strange.”
The frame and grips of the pistol had grown warm inside his hand. He touched the barrel to the roll of flesh under his chin, as though reminding himself about an unfinished chore.
“Do you want me to get you coffee?” she asked.
“What day is it?”
“Friday.”
“Funny how the week slips by. Everything is simpatico here, Hulga.”
“Mr. Purcel, I don’t want to say the wrong thing, but you don’t sound like yourself at all.”
“I broke the coffeemaker yesterday. Can you go down the street for some?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t do that right now.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, Mr. Purcel, what can I say? You’re such a good man. You use profane language and have rough ways sometimes, but in your heart you’re always a gentleman. I’m proud to work for you.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m a gentleman. But thank you.”
“You were going to dictate a letter to the state attorney’s office yesterday. Can I come in there now and get that out of the way?”
“It can wait.”
“Let me come in there or call someone for you. Can I call Mr. Robicheaux?”
“No, you can’t.”
“Mr. Purcel, I know the signs. My husband died by his own hand. I apologize, but I’m going to call Mr. Robicheaux. It’s just something I have to do. Be mad at me all you want. Did you hear me, Mr. Purcel?”
He didn’t remember what he said next or even if he said anything. He remembered replacing the receiver in the phone cradle and easing the hammer down on the .38 and removing his finger from inside the trigger guard. Then the .38 was back in its holster, hanging below his left nipple and the top of his rib cage. He opened the door to the main office and made sure Hulga could see him. He smiled at her and put on his sport coat and his porkpie hat. He put on his aviator shades and tucked his shirt into his belt with his thumbs, his grin still in place, like a man on his way to the track or to buy a lady a bouquet. Then he went outside and started his Caddy and drove it down a brick alleyway onto Main Street, with no clue as to his destination, with a dead space like an ice cube in the center of his mind, with no solutions in sight, no mojo, no booze, no weed, to deal with the centipedes, his body dead to the touch except for an enormous weight that seemed to crush down on his shoulders like a cross that could have been fashioned from railroad ties.
Main Street was still partially in shadow, the steel colonnades beaded with moisture, the air smelling of flowers and coffee and hot rolls and the odor of fish spawning in the Teche. He saw a white Mustang convertible pull to the curb in front of the Gouguenheim bed-and-breakfast. The driver got out and stepped up on the sidewalk and dropped his cigarette on the concrete, exhaling his last puff into the breeze. He mashed the cigarette with his foot and fixed the collar on his pleated white shirt, one that was unbuttoned halfway down his chest. He wore black trousers and a gold watch with a black face. With his neatly clipped dark hair and clear skin, he reminded Clete of a Spanish matador who had started to go soft around the edges. Clete turned the Caddy out of the traffic and parked a short distance from the Mustang just as Robert Weingart, combing his hair as he walked, went inside the Gouguenheim.
Clete lounged against the front fender of his Caddy and watched the customers going in and out of Victor’s cafeteria, then a tug passing on the bayou, his gaze shifting sideways through the front door of the bed-and-breakfast, where Weingart was speaking with a woman at the registration desk. It was cool and breezy in the shadows, but Clete’s skin was hot, as though he had experienced a severe sunburn and the heat was radiating through his clothes. He could also feel a pressure band threading itself across the side of his head. When he adjusted his hat, hoping that somehow the pressure would go away, he felt the veins in his scalp tighten like pieces of kite twine.
The Gouguenheim was a restored nineteenth-century building with iron-scrolled balconies, tall windows, ventilated storm shutters, high ceilings, wood-bladed fans, glowing hardwood floors, and plaster walls painted with pastel colors that, along with the potted palms inside the entranceway, gave the visitor the sensation that he was stepping inside a historical artwork. The view in the morning from the balconies was not unlike looking out over the rooftops and canopy of trees in a Caribbean city at the end of the colonial era. Clete bit on a thumbnail and studied Robert Weingart’s back. Why did the Robert Weingarts of the world always manage to find and appropriate the last good places? Sometimes it took a while, but sooner or later they emerged from the weeds and slithered their way up the trunk of a tree heavy with fruit or, at the least, more prosaically, left fecal prints on everything they touched. Clete folded his arms across his chest, opening and closing his hands, breathing through his mouth, a sodden crescent of perspiration forming inside his porkpie hat. He straightened his back and lowered his hands to his sides when Weingart walked out from the building. “How’s your swizzle stick hanging, Bob?” he said.
“Patrolling the sidewalks today, are we?” Weingart said.
“That’s why I’m called the mayor of Main Street. You checking in to the Gouguenheim?”