Last Car to Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux 13)

Max depressed was Max out of control. He would telephone sports books all over the country and lay down fifty thousand dollars in bets without blinking an eye. Then he would dress in a pair of pressed pink pajamas and lie spreadeagled on his back in the center of his hotel bed, the world spinning around him, his heartbeat decreasing, a strange serenity washing through him, as though he had descended to the bottom of a vortex and was no longer at its mercy or required to control it.

Usually his sports-book binges were harmless and his wins canceled out his losses. But contrary to all his wisdom he went in heavy on an insider tip at the jai alai front on in Dania and took a bath for a hundred large he couldn't pay. Not only was the sports book in Miami unsympathetic with Max's financial situation, they sold his debt to shylocks who informed him the vig was four thousand a week, none of which applied to the principle.

Or he could take out a Catholic priest.

So he had come to Louisiana on a gray, rain-swept, cold day, trudging through flooded streets floating with garbage, himself no different in aspect than a poor sod on his way to work in the peat bogs. But there had been an upside to it all. He'd found out he didn't have it in him to shoot a priest, which meant perhaps part of his soul was still intact. Secondly, he had discovered a new identity and gambling ambiance.

Wearing Father Dolan's black suit and rabat and collar, he had entered a bingo parlor on an Indian reservation in south-central Louisiana and had suddenly found himself a celebrity. People smiled at him, shook his hand, offered him their chairs at the tables patted him affectionately, brought him beer and sandwiches from the cafe. He began to feel like a mascot being trundled from hand to hand by five hundred people. In fact, he was pinched and pulled and squeezed so many times and places he couldn't concentrate on his bingo board and finally gave it up.

Then he was asked to stand on the stage and call out the bingo numbers. Why not? he thought. It was a grand evening. The weather had turned balmy again; palm trees strung with colored lights were rustling in the breeze outside the windows; the faces of the people around him were warm and filled with goodwill. Maybe his clerical role was a bit cosmetic, but it was still a fine way to be.

Then at 10:00 P.M. he went into the bar and ordered a cup of coffee and sat down to watch the nightly news.

The lead story was the arrest of one Father James Dolaji, charged with sexual solicitation in a public rest room that was located close by a children's playground.

The arresting officer, Dale Louviere, was interviewed on camera. "We had this area under surveillance because of previous complaints," he said.

"Regarding the children?" the reporter asked.

"Yes, that's exactly correct," Louviere replied.

"Regarding this particular suspect?" the reporter asked.

"I'm not at liberty to say that. We're currently involved in a deep background investigation," Louviere replied.

If I ever saw a bull carrying around its own china shop, Max thought. Oh well, it was the good father's cross to bear, not Max's. Maybe Father Dolan would have a little more empathy for professional criminals now that he'd gotten himself jammed up by coppers on a pad, Max told himself.

He finished his coffee and went back to the bingo game. But the fun was gone and the clothes on his body suddenly felt foreign on his skin, superheated, sticky, smelling of the priest.

He found himself biting his knuckle, oblivious to the stares around him. What was it that bothered him? The priest was a hardhead, determined to see himself buggered with a posthole digger. Max had nothing to do with it, no obligations to him.

Wrong, he thought, lowering his eyes, staring into his lap.

He had set out to murder an innocent, decent man, something he had prided h

imself on never having done. In addition, the priest had bested him at every turn; that thought didn't go down well, either. In fact, all of Max's thoughts were like thongs on a flag rum whipping down on his head.

It was depressing.

He walked outside into the wind and the sweep of stars overhead and the glow of Christmas lights strung around palm trees and started up his rental Honda. He removed a .45 automatic wrapped in an oily cloth from under the seat and set it beside him. As he drove down the two-lane road toward the interstate, he rested his right hand on the .45 and felt his heart rate decrease and his breath grow quiet in his chest.

Then he looked up through the windshield at the stars and for the first time in years found himself addressing an ancient deity with whom he had once had a relationship.

Sir, if you're going to drop problems of conscience on a man like me at this time in his career, he prayed, would you mind doing so in a gentler manner so I don't have to feel Vm being crunched inside the iron maiden? I would very much appreciate it. Thank you. Amen.

It rained the next morning and Jimmie Dolan was still in jail, waiting to be arraigned at 11:00 A.M. I had just sat down at my desk when I saw an unmarked vehicle of the kind used by N.O.P.D. pull to the curb and Clotile Arceneaux, wearing Levis, a knit sweater, and blue-jean jacket, get out and run through the rain to the courthouse entrance, her hand raised in front of her brow.

She came into my office, out of breath, her denim jacket streaked with rainwater. She sat down without being invited and said, "Wow! You're a hard man to catch!"

"I don't follow you," I said.

"I left three messages yesterday afternoon," she said.

"I was in Franklin. Father Dolan is in jail," I replied.

"Yeah, I know all about it. Guy really walks into wrecking balls, doesn't he? Look, what have you got on the death of Sammy Fig-orelli?"

"Nothing."