In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead (Dave Robicheaux 6)

"Balboni's people. They're all over the set. They killed Kelly to keep me in line."

His facial skin high up on one cheek crinkled and seemed almost to vibrate.

"Take it easy, El."

"They made her an object lesson, Mr. Robicheaux."

I touched his arm with my hand.

"Maybe Julie's involved, maybe not," I said. "But if he is, it's not because of you. You've got to trust me on this one."

He turned his face away and pushed at one eye with the heel of his hand.

"When Julie and his kind create object lessons, they go right to the source of their problem," I said. "They don't select out innocuous people. It causes them too many problems."

I heard his breath in his throat.

"I made them keep the casket closed," he said. "I told the funeral director in Kentucky, if he let her parents see her like that, I'd be back, I'd—"

I put my arm over his shoulder and walked back through the cemetery with him.

"Let's go back to town and have something to eat," I said. "Like somebody said to me this morning, it's no good to kick ourselves around the block, is it? What do you think?"

"She's dead. I cain't see her, either. It's not right."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I see those soldiers but I cain't see her. Why's that? It doesn't make any sense."

"I'll be honest with you, partner. I think you're floating on the edge of delirium tremens. Put the cork in the jug before you get there, El. Believe me, you don't have to die to go to hell."

"You figure me for plumb down the road and around the bend, don't you? I don't blame you. I got my doubts about what I see myself."

"Maybe that's not a bad sign."

"When we were driving through that canebrake, I said to Murph, the security guy, 'Who's that standing behind Mr. Robicheaux?' Then I looked again and I knew who it was. Except I've never seen him in daylight before. When I looked again, he was gone. Which isn't the way he does things."

"I'm going to an A A meeting tonight. You want to come?"

"Yeah, why not? It cain't be worse than having dinner with Mikey and the greaseballs."

"You might be a little careful about your vocabulary when you're around those guys."

"Boy, I wonder what my grandpa would say if he saw me working with the likes of that bunch. I told you he was a Texas ranger, didn't I?"

"You surely did."

"You know what he once told me about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow? He said—"

"I have to get back to the office. How about I pick you up at your place at seven-thirty?"

"Sure. Thanks for coming out, Mr. Robicheaux. I'm sorry about my bad manners on the phone. I'm not given to using profanity like that. I don't know what got into me." He picked up his soda can off the hood of his Cadillac and started to drink out of it. "It's just Coca-Cola. That's a fact."

"You'd better drink it then."

He smiled at me.

"It rots your teeth," he said, and emptied the can into the dirt.