“What you’re gonna do is clean up this mess. What you’re also gonna do is put anything you found back where you got it.”
Clete scratched the back of his neck as though an insect had just bitten him. “No, I don’t think that’s on the table today.”
“Did you come out here to get beat up or drug off in handcuffs? You just like to walk into buzz saws? You get off on pissing in the punch bowl? Which is it?”
“See, I just found what looks to be a ligature. Or maybe it’s just a strip of plastic used to hang pipe. What’s your opinion, Mr. Swan?”
“I’m supposed to be impressed because you got somebody to run my tag?”
“No, there’s nothing interesting about me. But you, that’s a different deal. You were a member of the execution team at Raiford back when they were still using the chair. You were one of the guys who shaved their head and put a diaper on them so they wouldn’t mess themselves in front of the witnesses. That’s major-league impressive. Is it true y’all packed cotton and lubricant up their anus before you put on the diaper? That’s what I’ve always heard. Y’all have to train much for that?”
“I usually try to stay objective about my job and not get personalities mixed up in it. But for you, I think I’m gonna make an exception,” Andy Swan said.
Clete lifted his arms away from his sides. “No piece, no slapjack, no cuffs, no shank, no weapons of any kind. I’m no threat to you, Mr. Swan.”
“I know. You’re just a jolly fat man, probably a guy who got kicked off the force somewhere for taking freebies from crack whores or going on a pad for greaseballs. Now you carry a badge anybody can buy in a pawnshop and stick your dick in Bourbon Street skanks and pretend you’re still a player. Maybe I didn’t get it all exactly right, but I’m close, aren’t I?”
“Take your hand out from under the seat and step back from your vehicle,” Clete said.
“Or?”
“I’ve got enough room to get my Caddy out,” Clete said. “When I’m gone, you can call the locals or go about your business. No fuss, no muss.”
“You asked about stuffing cotton up their ass. I never did that. I shaved their head and put the electrode paste on and strapped the mask on their face. I strapped it so tight they couldn’t breathe. I think some of them suffocated before the electricity cooked their insides. I know for sure blood ran out of their nose and mouth and sometimes their eyes. And I hope every one of them suffered. Why? Because they deserved it. What do you think of that?”
Clete didn’t answer. Andy Swan straightened up and turned around, the stun gun in his hand buzzing with a blue-white arc. “Let’s trim a little of that fat off you,” he said.
“Why don’t we do this instead?” Clete said. With all his weight, he rammed the branch he had been using as a rake into Andy Swan’s face, the dried, sun-hardened tips spearing into the man’s eyes and nostrils and mouth and cheeks. Andy Swan crashed against the side of his truck, dropping the stun gun, pressing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. Clete grabbed him by the back of the collar and spun him around and drove his face against the truck cab. Then he did it again and again, his fingers sunk deep into the back of Swan’s neck, Swan’s nose bursting against the metal. When Clete stopped, Andy Swan could barely stand.
Walk away, walk away, walk away, a voice kept repeating in Clete’s head.
He stepped back, his hands at his sides. The blue Dumpster, the garbage on the ground, the persimmon trees and the Caddy and the pickup truck were all spinning around him now. Andy Swan’s face resembled a red-and-white balloon floating in front of him.
“I’m done,” Swan said. He tried to cup the blood running from his nose. “I take back what I said. I don’t want any more trouble.”
“Who killed the girls?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who tried to kill Dave Robicheaux?”
Andy Swan shook his head and spat a broken tooth into his palm.
“Are you deaf? Do you think I enjoy this? Answer me,” Clete said.
“I don’t know anything, man. I just do security.”
“You dissing me again? You think I’m stupid? You think I get off knocking around gumballs?”
“Suck my dick.”
Clete drove his fist into Swan’s stomach, doubling him over, dropping him to his knees. Strings of blood and saliva hung from Swan’s mouth. His back was shaking. He raised his left hand in the air, signaling Clete not to hit him again. “I got here three days ago from Florida. Check me out. I work for a security service in Morgan City. I’m just an ex-cop. I’m no different from you.”
“You ever say that last part again, you’re going to have some serious problems.”
Clete picked up the stun gun, walked out into the trees, and threw it into a pond. When he returned to the Dumpster area, Andy Swan was still on his knees. Clete lifted him up by one arm.
“What are you doing?” Swan said.