I tried to hold his stare but I couldn't. I looked across the bayou at the dust blowing out of a cane field.
"Button man?" Val said.
"A contract killer, a guy who pushes the 'off button on people. Jericho Johnny is a mean motor scooter, Val. He and another dude took out Bugsy Siegel's cousin with a shotgun."
"Bugsy Siegel? This gets better all the time. And you've come here as a police officer to tell me that a friend of yours has aimed this person at me?"
"Yeah, I guess that sums it up."
"Have some strawberry cake, Dave. Maybe a glass of non-alcoholic champagne, too. Back at your AA meetings, are you?" he said.
I walked back up the slope to my truck and used my cell phone to make an animal cruelty report on Val Chalons to the St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Department. I waited for their cruiser to show up before I left, to ensure as best I could that Chalons and his friends would kill no more pigeons that day. But more disturbing than his cruelty was his apparent indifference to the fact that a man like Johnny Wineburger might be in town to break his wheels. That one definitely would not slide down the pipe.
I got back to the office by 1:30 p.m., drinking a Coca-Cola packed with ice and lime slices, my heart rate up, my shirt peppered with sweat. Even in the air-conditioning, I couldn't stop perspiring. I washed my face in the lavatory and went up front for my mail. "Been running up and down the stairs?" Wally said from the dispatcher's cage.
"How'd you know?" I replied.
But it wasn't funny. I could feel the blood veins tightening in the side of my head again and unconsciously I kept pushing at my scalp with my fingers, like a man who fears his brains are seeping out of his skull. Therapists call it psycho-neurotic anxiety. The manifestation is obvious but the cause is not, because the cause keeps itself armor-plated somewhere in the bottom of the id. I know of only one other experience that compares with the syndrome. Your combat tour is almost over.
You're "short," counting days until you catch the big freedom bird home. Except your private calendar doesn't change the fact you're on a night trail in a Third World shithole, wrapped in your own stink, your skin crawling with insects, your toes mushy with trench foot, and out there in the jungle you're convinced Bedcheck Charlie is writing your name on an AK-47 round or a trip-wired 105 dud.
At 1:47 p.m. my Vice cop friend at Lafayette P.D. called. His name was Joe Dupree. Joe had worked Homicide for years before he had gone over to Vice, claiming he had burnt out on blood-splattered DOAs. But some said Joe simply wanted to be closer to a cheap source of narcotics. Sometimes I saw him at AA meetings. Other times I saw him wasted in a baitshop or by himself in his boat, out at Whiskey Bay, doing his own kind of time inside his own head.
"I busted a couple of lowlifes in North Lafayette last night. They say the word on the street is a husband-wife team out of Florida are setting up a new escort service," he said.
"Lou and Connie Coyne?"
"That's who it sounds like."
"Why now?" I asked.
"Oil is supposed to hit fifty dollars a barrel this year. You know a better local aphrodisiac?" he replied.
So much for the altruism of Ida Durbin, I thought.
Another half hour went by. I went into Helen's office. "I've got to get off the desk," I said.
She pulled on an earlobe. "Really?" she said.
"Chalons is about to make a move. Against me or Molly or Clete. I saw this televangelical character Alridge out at his place. Jericho Johnny Wineburger is around, too. I can't figure any of it out."
I thought she would be angry or at least irritated and dismissing. I knew I looked and sounded like a man waving his arms on the street, prophesying doom to anyone who would listen. Instead, she stood up and, just for something to do, arranged a floating flower in a glass bowl on her desk. "The D.A. is going ahead with felony assault charges against you, Dave. Also, there's that molestation issue. Maybe we ought to count our blessings."
"Roust Wineburger. I think he's got a contract on somebody. But I don't know who."
"Give me an address," she said, picking up a pen.
"I saw him fishing at Henderson Swamp."
She clicked the button on her pen several times, staring wanly into space, afraid to speak lest she hurt me in ways she couldn't repair.
I went back to my office and tried to think. But long ago I had learned that my best thinking usually got me drunk. Through the window I saw a truck sideswipe a car at the train crossing, smashing it into a telephone pole, and was glad for the diversion. I dumped my incoming baskets of accident and domestic dispute reports and payroll requests and time sheets into a large paper sack, stapled it at the top, and dropped it in a corner like a load of bagged-up Kitty Litter.
Then my phone rang. "I just had lunch with Ida," Jimmie's voice said. "There's something real weird going on with Valentine Chalons."
"He wouldn't see Ida?" I said.
"No, she visited him at Iberia General. He was overjoyed. They were supposed to have supper in Lafayette last night. Lou Kale dropped her off under the porte cochere at the restaurant. But Chalons takes one look at her, turns to stone, and has the valet bring up his car. Ida was pretty shook up. What a prick."
"Did Kale try to come in with her?"
"No, he just drove her there."
"Did Chalons see him?"
"I guess. Why?"
"Get away from them."
"What's going on?"
"Val Chalons is behind everything that's been happening. The old man wasn't even an adverb."
"Behind what?" he said. "Are you drinking again?"
But I had no moral authority on the subject of the Chalons family and I didn't try to answer Jimmie's question. At quitting time, I called Molly and told her I'd be late for supper and drove to Clete Purcel's motor court.
"You're saying Valentine Chalons is the son of Lou Kale?" Clete said.
"That's been the engine the whole time," I said.
"No, the engine's money. It's always money, no matter what they say."
"Same thing," I said. "Val Chalons has spent his whole life lying about who he is. What happens to his credibility as a TV broadcaster if he admits he's always known his real father is a pimp? Imagine Lou Kale showing up at Chalons's country club."
Clete studied my face. "You want to salt the mine shaft?" he said.
"You doing anything else?" I asked.
The two of us sat down at Clete's old Smith-Corona portable and composed the following letter. Actually, most of it was Clete's work and in my estimation a masterpiece Ring Lardner would have tipped his hat to.
Dear Mr. Chalons,
A hooker I happened to know by the name of Big Tit Flora Mazaroni just gave me some interesting information about a pimp who is now in Lafayette, one Lou Coyne, a.k.a. Lou Kale. After packing too much flake up his nose, he told Flora he's got an illegitimate son in Jeanerette, a famous TV guy who just inherited between eighty and one hundred million dollars. Guess who this famous TV guy is?
Guess what else? Kale says this TV guy is not only a liar and a phony but also a horny sex freak who is so hard up he had to bop his space-o sister. Flora says Kale is going to milk this particular TV dude for every cent he's got.
I happen to be in the P.I. business. I got a personal score to settle with Kale, but I can also protect your interests if the above material seems to describe anyone in your acquaintance. If you need references, call Nig Rosewater at Bimstine's Bonds in New Orleans. Nig will vouch for my confidentiality and total professionalism.
Have a nice day,
Clete Purcel
But masterpiece or not, Clete and I decided we should not neglect Lou Kale. Clete rolled another sheet of paper into the Smith-Corona and started typing, his porkpie hat cocked at an angle, his stomach hanging over a pair of boxer shorts that were printed with sets of blue dice.