Purple Cane Road (Dave Robicheaux 11)

“You know a New Orleans cop named Axel?”

“No.”

“When I was chained up in that car, that cop Burgoyne, the one who got smoked? He kept telling that other cop not to worry, that Axel was gonna be on time. He said, ‘No fuss, no muss. Axel’s an artist.’ ”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I found out Burgoyne partnered with a guy named Axel. He’s a sharpshooter, the guy they use for, what do they call it, a barricaded suspect. He’s got two or three kills.”

“Maggie Glick says you used to come to her bar.”

“I never heard of her. I don’t even drink. Does everybody down here lie?”

“Don’t call here again unless you want to surrender yourself. Do you understand that? Repeat my words back to me.”

“You saved my life. I owe you. It’s a matter of honor, Mr. Robicheaux. You got a cell phone in case I can’t reach you at home?”

After I‘d hung up on him I punched in Clete’s apartment number.

“You know anybody named Axel?” I asked.

“Yeah, Axel Jennings. He’s Don Ritter’s buddy, the one who hit me in the back of the head with a set of brass knuckles.”

“Johnny Remeta just called me again. Maybe Jennings is the shooter who did Burgoyne by mistake.”

“I’ve got some plans about this guy Jennings. Worry about Remeta. He’s got you mixed up with his father or something.”

“What do you mean you’ve got plans for Jennings?” I asked.

“How about I take y’all to dinner tonight? Dave, Remeta’s a head case. Ritter and Axel Jennings are windups. Don’t lose the distinction.”

17

A storm had moved into the Gulf and the morning broke gray and cool and shrouded with mist, then it began to rain. I glanced out my office window and saw Passion Labiche get out of a car and step over the flooded curb and run up the front walk of the courthouse. Her hair and skin were shiny with water when she knocked on my office glass. Under her right arm she carried a scrapbook or photo album wrapped in a cellophane bag.

“You want to dry off?” I asked.

“I’m sorry for the way I talked to you at my house. I have days I don’t feel too good,” she said.

“It’s all right. How about some coffee?”

She shook her head. “I found that picture of Ms. Deshotel. The one I told her about when she came to my club. It was in the attic. My parents kept all the pictures of the places they lived and visited.”

She sat down in front of my desk and took a handkerchief from her purse and touched at her face.

“Why’d you decide to bring it in?” I asked.

“ ’Cause you axed about it. ’Cause you been good to us.”

Passion turned the stiff pages of the album to a large black-and-white photo taken in a nightclub. The bar mirror was hung with Santa sleighs and reindeer and Styrofoam snowballs, and a group of five people, including Passion’s parents, sat on stools looking back at the camera, their drinks balanced on their knees, their faces glowing with the occasion.

Someone had inked “Christmas, 1967” in the corner of the photo, but there was no mistaking Connie Deshotel. She was one of those women whose facial features change little with time and are defined by their natural loveliness rather than by age or youth. She wore a black, sequined evening dress with straps and a corsage, and her champagne glass was empty and tilted at an angle in her hand. She was smiling, but, unlike the others, at someone outside the picture.

“Why should this picture be important to anybody?” Passion asked.

“Your folks were in the life. Connie Deshotel is attorney general.”

“They owned three or four dance halls. All kinds of people came in there. The governor, Earl K. Long, used to go in there.”