A Private Cathedral (Dave Robicheaux 23)

“He looks like the guy named Gideon,” I said.

“Looks like?”

“Maybe he’s a relative of our guy,” I said.

“Right, there’re lots of people around who resemble pythons,” Adonis said. “I’ve got another question for you. Why is Gideon the only man on the platform who seems unsure if he got on the right bus?”

Again I refused to agree with him. I guess that was a foolish way to be. But I sincerely believed he was an evil man

and served no one’s interest except his own. “That’s the whole show?” I said.

He clicked the control button on the projector several times. “This next one is V-J Day 1945, on Bourbon Street. I wasn’t around then, but I hear it was a real blast.”

Yes, it was. On the day the Japanese surrendered, America was joyous from the East to the West Coast, and people in the Quarter poured into the streets, Dixieland bands blared on the balconies, and the dancers from the burlesque bars climbed on car tops and stripped off their clothes.

The footage on the screen had been taken at night not far from Tony Bacino’s gay joint at Bourbon and Toulouse. Maybe because of the late hour and the amount of alcohol consumed by the revelers, the faces in the crowd were grainy and stark, as though drawn with charcoal, their glee besotted and grotesque, more like a celebration of the fire-bombing of Dresden than the liberation of the earth. I don’t know why I felt this way. I know it seems unfair to the poor souls who were happy the war was over and that they or their family members would not have to die in it. All GIs who had seen the tenacity of the Japanese in the Pacific theater had ceased arguing with the doleful projection of “Golden Gate in ’48.” But the photos and newsreels that showed the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not easy to look at.

Adonis froze the frame again. “What do you see?”

“People getting loaded and having a fine time,” I said.

“Check the guy standing in the doorway at Tony Bacino’s.”

It was Gideon Richetti, if that indeed was his name. Except he had not aged from the 1927 newsreel; nor was he any older than the man I’d encountered at Henderson Swamp.

“How do you explain this, Mr. Robicheaux?” Adonis said.

“I can’t.”

“Look at his expression.”

“I don’t need to,” I said. “They’re all alike.”

“Who is?”

“Psychopaths. They’re unknowable. It’s a mistake to put yourself inside their head. If you do, you might not come back.”

“It looks as though the light is trembling on his face.”

“Yeah, I know. He looks like a ghoul.”

“But he’s bothered by something, isn’t he?”

“How would I know?” I lied.

“You don’t want to believe he’s a tormented spirit,” Penelope said.

“I’m signing off on this,” I said. “I’ve seen Confederate soldiers in the mist. Maybe they were born out of my imagination, or maybe they have a message for us. But both of you betrayed your daughter. That’s real. Playing around with voodoo in your home theater isn’t going to change that.”

“You’d better leave,” Adonis said.

“I want a word with you outside,” I said.

“Say it right here.”

“Stay away from Leslie Rosenberg,” I said. “She’s trying to live a decent life. Find another playground.”

“You son of a bitch,” he said.