“We don’t like people wasting our time. You want wit pro, talk to the feds.”
“Wit pro is for snitches.”
“It beats the boneyard.”
I got up from my chair and used my handcuff key to unlock the bracelet on his left wrist, then locked it on a table leg.
“What are you trying to do to me?” he said.
“You’re afraid of Mark Shondell. The question is why.”
“I tried to tell you once before.”
“You saw lights flashing in his face during an electrical storm. That doesn’t mean he has supernatural powers.”
“Two days ago I was working in the garden and he was on the patio when he got a call from Eddy Firpo. Firpo’s a lawyer and a music promoter or some shit. Maybe he’s mixed up with Nazis, too.”
“I know who Firpo is. What about him?”
“He must have told Shondell his nephew and Isolde Balangie are releasing a music album. Shondell went nuts. The girl ain’t supposed to get near Johnny. Now they got an album out.”
“What does any of this have to do with you?”
“When he got off the phone, he knew I’d heard everyt’ing.”
“Heard what? Say it. Specifically.”
“He said to Firpo, ‘This is on you. I’m sending Gideon.’ ”
My mouth went dry.
“I’ve seen this guy. He doesn’t look human,” Marcel said. He began jerking the bracelet against the table leg. “Put me in lockdown or let me go. You hear me, Dave?”
“You saw Gideon Richetti?”
“I don’t know about his last name. But a guy named Gideon was in Shondell’s backyard. His skin was green. His neck looked like it was dripping scales into his shirt. I t’ought it was because of the light in the trees. Then I saw his fingers. I never seen fingers that long.”
“I’m going to get us a couple of cold drinks from the machine,” I said. “I think you need to talk to Father Julian.”
“How’s Father Julian gonna get rid of a guy like that?” he said. “Dave, I was in lockdown wit’ the worst people in the world. What we’re looking at now is different. You got to believe me.” Both his hands were shaking, the bracelet rattling against the table leg. “I heard somet’ing that don’t make sense. About a Jewish woman. Shondell said to the guy on the phone, ‘Drown her. Or gut her and weigh her with stones.’ ”
“I take back what I said about your alcohol content,” I said. “I think you left the dock too early today, partner.”
But in truth I was unnerved, and my show of incredulity was hypocritical. “What was the woman’s name, Marcel?”
“I can’t t’ink.”
“How do you know she’s Jewish?”
He stared as though seeing an image inside his head. “The name was Rosenberg. Leticia Rosenberg.”
“Go on,” I said.
He blinked. “I take that back. The first name was Leslie. Yeah, that’s it. Ever hear of somebody named Leslie Rosenberg?”
Chapter Twenty-one
I couldn’t sleep that night. I thought about the late afternoon when I’d stood on the dock not far from the amusement pier and watched the waves swell in the sunset and boom on the beach and fill the air with a spray that was like the healing power of water from a baptismal font. Considering the present gravity of my situation, these were probably foolish thoughts to muse upon. But what recourse did I have in my dealings with either wicked men or unseen forces whose origins I didn’t want to think about?
Clete and I had the same problem. Telling others what we had seen or what we knew about the man named Gideon served only one purpose: Our listeners wanted to flee our presence. In effect, we were collaborating with the enemy and destroying ourselves. Somehow we had to turn our situation around.
Stonewall Jackson was an eccentric and improbable military figure, homely and unkempt, simplistic and doctrinaire. He paused to pray before an attack, giving the enemy more time to prepare, and galloped in battle with his right hand in the air because he believed there was an imbalance of blood in his body. He was also one of the greatest tacticians in the history of warfare. His most quoted tactical advice is “Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy.”
This was the opposite of everything Clete and I had done in our confrontations with the Shondell and Balangie families. It was not entirely our fault. The events I have described so far were frightening because they seemed born from a separate dimension and, more disturbing, they had no connection to the world as we know it or the physical sciences on which we daily rely to explain our origins. It was like waking up one day and speculating that the spirits haunting the massive forests of pre-Christian Europe were indeed real and the Druids who hung ornaments on trees to seek their favor were not superstitious after all.
I feared for Clete more than for myself. The pain of his childhood, his memories of an accidental killing in Vietnam, the loss of his career as a detective were the invisible crown of thorns that sat always on his forehead. He already had enough weight on his shoulders without having to hump my pack.
Tuesday morning I went into Carroll LeBlanc’s office and told him I was going to New Orleans.
“To do what?” he said.
“Investigate the dismemberment of the two guys in the barrel.”
“That’s Vermilion Parish’s case.”
“That’s where they were dumped,” I said. “The homicide started here.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Cut it out, Carroll. Mark Shondell had somebody put a meat saw to those poor bastards, and you know it.”
He had both feet on his desk. He picked up the yellow legal tablet from his blotter and stared at it. “I just got a call from Dana Magelli. He said Isolde Balangie showed up in a homeless shelter on Airline Highway, stoned out of her head.”
“Where is she now?”
“At her house. With Penelope and Adonis Balangie.”
I thought about the implications of that simple statement. LeBlanc caught it. “Yeah, exactly,” he said. “Mark Shondell just got his nose rubbed in it. You’re not going to New Orleans about the two guys in the barrel, are you?”
“No.”
“So why are you going?”
“A woman named Leslie Rosenberg.”
“You’re kidding,” he said.
“You know her?”
“She was a stripper on Bourbon,” he said. “I heard she hooked up with Adonis Balangie.”
“Past tense,” I said.
He let his feet drop to the floor. “What does Leslie Rosenberg have to do with anything?”
“You wouldn’t believe me,” I said.
“Try.”
“Mark Shondell wants her disemboweled.”
He rubbed his face.
“What is it?” I said.
“That spot where you found the slave marbles? I heard that was part of a barracoon owned by the Shondell family. You know, one of those slave pens? I heard awful things got done there.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“Probably coincidence?” he said, his face lowered, one hand twitching on his thigh.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Like hell,” he replied.
I checked out a cruiser, turned on the flasher, and drove straight to Adonis Balangie’s home on Lake Pontchartrain. Out on the lake, I saw the boat with black sails that I had seen on my last visit to the Balangie home. Its sails were swollen with wind, the nylon shiny and wet from the waves bursting on the bow. I rang the doorbell. When I looked back at the lake, the sailboat was gone.
Adonis pulled open the door. He was wearing brown dress trousers with a stripe in them and thin suspenders and a yellow shirt that looked as soft and smooth as butter. “What do you want, Robicheaux?”
“What’s with the sailboat that has black sails?” I replied.