Light of the World (Dave Robicheaux 20)

ON SUNDAY MORNING Molly and I went to Mass at a small church by the university. When we got back, Clete was standing on the porch of the guest cabin, waiting for me. “I found a bug,” he said.

“Where?”

“Above the door to Gretchen’s room.”

“Have you told Albert?”

“Yeah, he said, ‘What else is new?’ I’m going to get a guy out here to sweep the place.”

“How long do you think it’s been there?”

“There’s no way to tell. I’d say it’s state-of-the-art. We need to stop pretending, Dave.”

“About what?”

“Somebody has us in their sights. It started with somebody shooting an arrow at Alafair. Now both Gretchen and I are part of a homicide investigation. It’s time we take it to these cocksuckers.”

“Have any idea who these cocksuckers are?”

I thought he would give me a facile answer, but Clete was the most prescient cop regarding human behavior whom I ever knew. “I think we’re dealing with multiple players, maybe guys with different objectives. The best place to start is with the money. Always. Come inside. I want to show you some information I dug up.”

For years he had chased down bail skips for two bondsmen named Wee Willie Bimstine and Nig Rosewater. The conventional portrayal of a PI’s life is a romantic and noir excursion into a world of intrigue, with wealthy female clients swathed in veils and overweight villains sweating under a fan in a saloon on the Pacific Rim. The real world of a PI, and the clientele of Willie and Nig, could be compared to the effluent running through an open sewer. Anyone who thinks otherwise knows nothing about it. Criminality and narcissism are not interchangeable terms, but they are closely related. The checkbook of a narcissist or a recidivist is always balanced, but at someone else’s expense. With rare exceptions, anyone working on his second or third jolt is looking for an institutional womb. Most of them have no feeling about the pain they cause other human beings, either inside or outside the system. The culture of cruelty inside a prison makes you wonder if there is not a genetic flaw in all of us, like an embryonic lizard waiting to crack free from its shell.

Clete hated his job. The NOPD pulled his shield in 1986, and ever since, he had tried to pretend that the loss of his career was of no consequence. Occasionally, I would see him bending over the lavatory in his office, his sleeves rolled up, his wristwatch on the edge of the basin, scrubbing Ajax into his pores, and there would be a level of regret and loss in his eyes that had nothing to do with the face Clete Purcel showed the world.

Working for Wee Willie and Nig had one advantage only: They were anachronisms, but they knew everything about everyone in the city of New Orleans, at least everyone who went against the grain or was a half-bubble off or was part of a sybaritic culture that celebrated its own profligacy.

“I told you Love Younger’s daughter-in-law, Felicity Louviere, was from New Orleans, didn’t I?” Clete said. “She grew up by the old Prytania Theatre. Not far from where I did. Did you know Lillian Hellmann grew up on Prytania?”

“Yeah, I did,” I said, waiting for him to get to the point.

“It’s the accent. That’s how I knew.”

“Yeah, I got that. What I don’t get is why you’re homing in on her and not her husband or father-in-law.”

“Give me some credit, Streak. The woman’s in grief. You think I’d try to put moves on her?”

I let my eyes go empty. “No,” I said. But you’re a sucker for a woman who’s in trouble.

“What was that?” he asked.

“I said no, you wouldn’t take advantage of a woman who just lost a child, for God’s sake.”

He gave me a look and picked up a handful of printouts sent to him through Albert’s computer by a reference librarian who worked for Willie and Nig. “Felicity Louviere’s old man was Rene Louviere. Remember him?”

I remembered the name in the way you remember high school friends who never had a category, people who floated hazily on the edge of your vision and whose deeds, for good or bad, never seemed memorable. You may think of them with fondness, as compatriots with whom you shared a journey. You’re sure they were good at something, but never sure exactly what. “He was in the department for a while?” I said.

“Yeah, for about three years. In community outreach, over by the Desire Project. He got canned for cutting too much slack to the local pukes. He was a nice guy. He just wasn’t a cop.”

In my mind’s eye, I saw an indistinct image of a man who was too thin for his clothes and went a long time between haircuts and was uncomfortable with the coarseness common during morning roll call. “What became of him?”

“He was a social worker in Holy Cross and got fired for giving welfare money to illegals. He ended up roughnecking in a rain forest in South America. Get this. The local Indians burned the bones of their dead relatives and mixed the ashes in the food to keep the family line going. They also shot blowguns at the Americans on the drilling rigs. Some geologists decided to do some payback and flew over the village in a single-engine plane and dropped a couple of satchel charges on them. They killed and wounded a bunch of people, including children.”

He set the printouts on the breakfast table and pinched his eyes, a look of weariness if not soul sickness stealing into his face. I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t.

“What is it, Clete?” I said.

“You know the drill. The motherfuckers who start wars have never heard a shot fired in anger, but they wave the flag and make speeches at Arlington and run up the body count as high as they can. I hate them, every one of them.”