Creole Belle (Dave Robicheaux 19)

“Purcel, ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I don’t care’ don’t flush.”

“It’d better, because that’s as good as it’s going to get. What’s Waylon doing here?” Clete said.

“He works for me. Why do you ask?”

“He killed a four-year-old child, is why,” Clete replied.

“That was during a robbery. Waylon was the victim, not the guy doing the robbery,” Bix said.

“He backed up over a kid and made the parents testify that a carjacker did it,” Clete said.

“That’s news to me,” Bix said, looking at his friend. “What’s this stuff about intimidating the parents, Waylon?”

“You got me,” Waylon Grimes said. He was a small-boned man with a concave chest and a wispy red pencil mustache and hair that hung like string over his ears. He wore his shirt outside his slacks, the sleeves buttoned at the wrists the way a 1950s hood might, a chain hooked to a wallet in his back pocket. He lit a cigarette, his hands cupped around his lighter. “Want me to go downstairs?”

“No, stay where you’re at,” Bix said. “Purcel, I’m not greedy. I checked out your finances. You got about fifty grand equity in this place. You can borrow on the equity and give the check to me, since I know you don’t have any cash. But no matter how you cut it, I want thirty large from you. I want it in seven working days, too. Don’t try to stiff me on this, man.”

“I want a retroactive patent on the wheel, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get one,” Clete replied.

“Can I use your bathroom?” Waylon said.

“It’s broken,” Clete said.

“You got a broad back there?” Waylon said.

Clete stepped forward, forcing the two visitors backward onto the landing, a brass marching band coming to life in his head. “You listen, you little piece of shit,” he said. “If you ever come here again, I’m going to start pulling parts off you. That’s not a metaphor. I’m going to rip your arms and legs off your body and kick them up your ass. You want to crack wise? I hope you do, because I’m going to bust your spokes right now, head to foot.”

Waylon took a deep puff off his cigarette, letting the smoke out slowly, like balls of damp cotton rising from his mouth. He dropped the cigarette on the landing and ground it out flatly under his shoe and glanced at Bix Golightly, his expression contemplative. “I’ll be down at the Vietnamese grocery,” he said.

“No, we’re gonna iron this out,” Bix said. “You don’t talk to my employees like that, Purcel. Besides, we got a lot of commonalities. Did you know we used to ball the same broad, the one with the king-size jugs?”

“This guy is a jerk and a welcher, Bix,” Waylon said. “Why waste your time talking to him? You know how it’s gonna play out.” He walked down the stairs, as indifferent to his employer as he was to Clete’s threat. He paused at the bottom, the wind blowing through the brick foyer, ruffling his clothes. He looked up the stairs at Clete. “About that kid who got himself crunched under the car? He was a Mongoloid and still wearing diapers, even though he was four years old. The only reason his parents kept him around was the state aid they got. He was also playing in the driveway, where he wasn’t supposed to be, primarily because his parents weren’t watching him. If you ask me, he’s better off now.”

Before Clete could respond, Bix Golightly stepped closer to him, blocking Clete’s view of the foyer, his body heat and the astringent smell of his deodorant rising into Clete’s face. “Can you read my ink?” he said.

“What about it?”

“Tell me what it says.”

“The teardrops mean you popped three guys for the A

ryan Brotherhood. The red star on your carotid tells ambitious guys to give it their best shot. You’re a walking fuck-you to every swinging dick on the yard.”

“You think you’re a tough guy because you ate a couple of bullets on the bayou? ‘Tough’ is when you got nothing to lose, when you don’t care about nothing, when you don’t even care if you’re going to hell or not. Are you that tough, Purcel?”

“I’m not following you.”

“I’m gonna send an appraiser out to look at your property. We got a small window of opportunity here. Don’t let this thing get out of control.”

“Don’t blow your nose too hard, Bix. I think your brains are starting to melt.”

Bix took a folded piece of lined notebook paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Clete. “Check out the addresses there and see if I got them right.”

Clete unfolded the piece of notebook paper and stared at the letters and numbers penciled on it, his scalp shrinking. “What if I shove this down your throat?” he said.

“Yeah, you can do that, provided you don’t mind Waylon knowing where your sister and your niece live. Smells like you’re cooking gumbo in there. Have a nice evening. I love this neighborhood. I always wanted to live in it. Don’t get your dork stuck in the lamp socket on this.”

AFTER THE SHOOTING behind my house on Bayou Teche in New Iberia, I underwent three surgeries: one that saved my life at Our Lady of Lourdes in Lafayette; one at the Texas Medical Center in Houston; and the third in New Orleans. A solitary .32 bullet had struck me between the shoulder blades. It was fired by a woman neither Clete nor I had believed was armed. The wound was no more painful and seemed no more consequential than the sharp smack of a fist. The shooter’s motivation had been a simple one and had nothing to do with survival, fear, greed, or panic: I had spoken down to her and called her to task for her imperious treatment of others. My show of disrespect enraged her and sent her out my back screen door into the darkness, walking fast across the yellowed oak leaves and the moldy pecan husks, oblivious to the dead men on the ground, a pistol extended in front of her with one arm, her mission as mindless and petty as they come. She paused only long enough to make a brief vituperative statement about the nature of my offense, then I heard a pop like a wet firecracker, and a .32 round pierced my back and exited my chest. Like the dead man walking, I stumbled to the edge of the bayou, where a nineteenth-century paddle wheeler that no one else saw waited for me.