The New Iberia Blues (Dave Robicheaux 22)

“Every girl has a soft spot.” She held his eyes.

Clete blushed. I couldn’t believe it.

• • •

THE NEXT DAY, Helen called the detective who had hooked up Clete, and he emailed her the video from the security camera at the motel. She and Bailey and I watched it in her office. Bailey said little and didn’t look in my direction. Even though I was watching Smiley Wimple sling blood on the walls, I couldn’t get my mind off Bailey Ribbons. What a fool I was, I thought. I longed to touch her, to hold her, to smell her skin and hair, to be inside her. To be honest, I don’t see how any man on earth can live without a woman. Women are the perfect creation. I don’t care who hears that. Even before I hit puberty, they lived nightly in my dreams, and I have the feeling they’ll live with me in the grave.

“You with us, Dave?” Helen said.

“Sure.”

“What do you think?”

“About what?”

She froze the screen. “About what you just watched, for Christ’s sake.”

“O’Banion’s ticket got punched. So did the woman and the guy who has a face like a speedbag. Who are they?”

“We don’t know yet,” she said. “Boy, you’re a ball of sunshine.”

“The issue is the guy in the mask,” I said.

“Duh,” she said.

“He’s an amateur,” I said.

“Amateur how?” Bailey said.

“He messed up with the spray can,” I said. “Rather than admit he messed up, he tried to hide the can and let the others be identified. Eventually, they would have given him up.”

“Maybe they weren’t going to be alive much longer,” Bailey said.

“Maybe,” I said.

“What’s with the sign language?” she asked.

“That and lip reading are invaluable in prison,” I said.

“So the guy in the mask doesn’t care about loyalties?” Bailey said. “Somebody with no feelings? A hard case, a real piece of shit?”

“You don’t have to use that language,” I said.

Helen was looking at both of us now. “What is this?”

“Just making an observation,” Bailey said.

“Whatever is going on with you two, leave it at the door,” Helen said.

The room was quiet.

Bailey coughed under her breath. “Everyone is sure that’s Wimple who climbed out of the laundry cart?”

“He left his brass,” Helen said. “The prints on them are his.”

“I thought he was a pro,” Bailey said. “Why wouldn’t he pick up his casings?”

“He was wounded,” I said.