The Glass Rainbow (Dave Robicheaux 18)

I started the cruiser and drove us out of the park, over the drawbridge, and back onto Main Street. One of Layton’s eyes bulged from his head, like a prosthesis that didn’t fit the socket.

CHAPTER

13

IT WAS STILL raining when Clete Purcel went to sleep that night. He slept peacefully in his cottage at the motor court on the bayou, his air conditioner turned up full blast, a pillow on the side of his head, a big meaty arm on top of the pillow. Inside his sleep, he could hear the rain on the roof and in the trees and hear it tinking on the air conditioner inset in the window. At a little after five A.M. , he heard a key turn in the lock. Without removing the pillow from his head, he slipped his hand under the mattress and worked his fingers around the grips of his blue-black snub-nose .38.

In the glow from the night-light in the bathroom, he saw a figure enter the room and close the door softly and relock it. He removed his hand from the pistol and shut his eyes. He heard the sounds of someone undressing; then he felt a person’s weight next to him and a hand tugging the pillow loose from his face.

Emma Poche bent down over him and put her mouth on his and touched him under the sheet and then slid her tongue over his teeth. “How you doin’, honey-bunny?” she said.

He pulled back the covers and took her inside them and held her close against his body. He could feel the heat in her skin and the weight of her breasts against his chest. “I didn’t think you got off till oh-six-hundred,” he said.

“Somebody is covering in the log for me,” she said.

“That’s a good way to get in trouble.”

“No, oh-four-hundred to oh-seven-hundred is all dead time. The drunks are either under arrest or home, and normal people haven’t left for work yet.”

“You got it figured out,” he said.

“Always,” she said, and bit him on the ear. She placed her knee across his thigh and touched him again and blew on his cheek and neck and chest and ran her tongue down his stomach. Then she mounted him and lifted his phallus and placed it inside her, her eyes closing and her mouth opening. “Did you miss me?”

“Oh, boy,” he said, more to himself than to her.

“No, tell me. Did you miss me? Did you have dreams before I got here?”

“You bet,” he said, his voice as thick as rust in his throat.

“You like me, Clete? You like being with me?”

“Don’t talk.”

“No, tell me.”

“You’re great,” he said.

“You’re my big guy. Oh, Clete, keep doing this to me. Just do it and do it and do it.” Then she said “Oh” and “Oh” and “Oh” and “Oh,” like the rhythm of waves hitting on a beach.

When it was over, his heart was pounding and his loins felt drained and weak and empty and his skin was hot to his own touch. She curled against his side and put her fingers in his hair and placed the flat of her hand on his chest. He could hear her breath rising and falling. Outside, the rain was ticking in the leaves, and through a crack in the curtains, he could see that the sky was still dark with thunderclouds, a tree of lightning blooming without sound on the horizon.

“I have to ask you something,” he said.

“You heard stories about my time at NOPD?”

“Who cares about NOPD? They almost sent me up on a homicide beef.”

“Then what is it?”

“I had a gold pen. I’m pretty sure it was in my dresser. No, I’m not just pretty sure. I know it was in my dresser.”

“Yeah?” she said.

He turned on his side so that his eyes were only a few inches from hers. Her face was heart-shaped, her pug nose tilted upward, her eyes crinkling. She lowered her hand and squeezed him inside the thigh. But he removed her hand and held it in his. “Dave is bugging me about this pen. I mean, in a good way. He wants to clear me in the Herman Stanga shooting.”

“I don’t get what you’re saying.”

“A maintenance guy found my pen in Stanga’s swimming pool.”