I say “we” questioned Leslie. That’s not quite right. When Carroll and I went to her cottage, he didn’t get out of the cruiser.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“My stomach,” he said. “You mind going in by yourself?”
“No problem.”
I knocked on the door. Leslie opened the screen and let me in but continued to stare at the cruiser. “Who’s that with you?”
“Carroll LeBlanc.”
“A vice cop?”
“No, he’s Homicide. He was a vice cop at NOPD.”
“I remember him. He tried to grab my ass.”
“He’s a different guy today,” I said.
“I’ll send a few bucks to Franklin Graham. I got to pick up the sitter and get to work. Is this about Father Julian and the guy who got splattered on the two-lane?”
“Yeah, we’ve had a hard time catching up with you.”
“I don’t like to be used,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“I talked with Father Julian. You already know what happened. Nobody is going to believe any of us. Why be a pincushion?”
“Did you see Gideon Richetti?”
“I saw him last night. Outside my window.”
“Not the night of the assault? Last night?”
“That’s what I said. He’s changing.”
I was afraid to ask what she meant.
“His skin, his pigmentation,” she said. “He has hands, not claws.”
“I’d like for LeBlanc to hear this.”
“He’s not coming in this house.”
“What does Richetti want from you?”
“Nothing. He says I’m already a spirit, so his apology to me is too late. He wants your friend.”
“Clete Purcel?”
“You said it, not me.”
“You have to talk to this guy, Leslie.”
“My ass.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“God, are you weird,” she said.
“I thought you might think better of me.”
She stepped closer to me, her eyes six inches from mine. Her face was unlined, her teeth white. Her breath smelled like marinated strawberries. “Maybe I do. But I’m bad news.”
“In what way?”
“I wasn’t burned because I was a Jew. I was burned because I was a witch. I didn’t get on a pole on Bourbon Street because a bunch of drunk dimwits raped me; I loved every minute of it. I got high watching those fat shits drool on the bar.”
“Yesterday’s box score,” I said.
“Great metaphor. I’m fucked up, honey-bunny. I always will be. Spirit or not, that’s why I’m attracted to guys like you.”
I could not believe I had just had a conversation of this kind. Who needs hooch and dope? I’ll take the natural world anytime.
Carroll Leblanc and I headed back toward New Iberia. The tide was coming in on the Teche, and the wind was pushing waves up on the banks. There had been tornado warnings before sunrise.
“I really don’t feel good, Dave,” Carroll said.
“Want to go to the ER?”
“Maybe to City Park for a few minutes. They got a Coca-Cola machine in the rec hall.”
“Sure.”
“What’d Rosenberg tell you?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “We can talk later.”
“I got a problem.”
I looked at the side of his face. His eyes were half-lidded, as though he were nodding off or on downers. “You got a daughter,” he said. “You know how they get in trouble.”
Alafair didn’t get in trouble. Or at least she didn’t look for it. But I didn’t correct him. “She’s at Reed in Portland.”
“I let my daughter talk me into sending her to the University of Texas. I had to borrow the out-of-state tuition.”
I didn’t want to talk about money and college debt. You borrow it for your kids or you don’t. As I mentioned, Alafair had an academic scholarship. “You sure about the ER, Carroll?”
“Yeah, just get us to the park. I got to tell you something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know, man. I can’t think straight.”
I was becoming more and more uncomfortable with Carroll’s behavior. We drove down East Main, through the tunnel of oaks that ends at the Shadows, and crossed the drawbridge and pulled under the shade trees by the rec building in the park. Carroll opened the passenger door and vomited. I went inside and bought an ice-cold Coke from the soda machine and handed it to him. He drank from the can, then wiped his mouth with a handkerchief.
“I don’t want to hear about people’s finances,” I said. “Mine are bad enough.”
“A masseur knocked up my daughter and gave her herpes. She had an abortion. Now she’s using cocaine. How can this much shit happen in six months?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m broke and I got to get her in rehab.”
I didn’t know where the conversation was going or why Carroll had chosen me to unload on. “Can I do anything?”
“I think maybe this is punishment for all the things I did in vice at NOPD. That kid I killed, the freebies from the hookers, all the flake I packed up my nose.”
“You’re not being punished for anything, Carroll. A bad guy hurt your daughter. He’s the issue, not you, not her. Tell the Man on High you’re sorry for your mistakes and you need some help down here. One day your daughter will be all right.”
He blew his nose. “Sorry I got to talking so personal.”
“I don’t think you heard me.”
“About what?”
“Talking to the Man.”
“You’re probably right, but how do you handle all this stuff in the meanwhile? Anyway, thanks for the Coke. You didn’t tell me what Rosenberg said back there?”
“Gideon Richetti is at the center of all this.”
His face turned the color of a toadstool.
Chapter Thirty-four
Clete called me on my landline that night. The moon was up, the clouds torn like strips of black cotton, leaves and broken tree limbs floating in the Teche. A tornado had touched down outside Lake Charles. I had brought in the cats and my raccoon, Tripod. All of them were lying down on the throw rug, tails flipping, as though they were observing the events of the evening. When Alafair was home, they got on the furniture, including the breakfast table, which they covered with seat smears. Why do I mention these little guys at this juncture? Because at that moment they were the only aspects of normalcy in my life.
I picked up the phone on the third ring. “What’s the haps, Cletus?”
“I’m on the bottom of Terrebonne Parish. I could use some backup in the next twelve hours or so. I think a pile of shit is about to go down.”
“What kind of shit?”
“Adonis and his old lady are over here. I saw them at a restaurant in Houma. Mark Shondell has a house on stilts south of here. This insider guy I know says Johnny and Isolde got kidnapped by some dickheads, guys who used to run with Delmer Perkins. Guys who carry blowtorches and pliers.”
“Mark Shondell is behind the kidnapping?”
“He wants to control their careers and screw up the Balangies. But the bigger deal is political. All these cocksuckers are. They’ve been with us since the German Bund. They’ve just been waiting for their time in history.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“The cocksuckers I was just talking about.”
A conversation with Clete could be the equivalent of driving a nail into your skull. “Where are you staying?”
He gave me the name of a motel in a small settlement on the south end of Terrebonne Parish, almost to the salt water.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I said.