“Which guy?”
“He’s wearing red tennis shoes.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t see anyone like that.”
Labiche turned slowly, his arms over his chest. He stared at the square, his lips a tight button. “There’re a lot of weirdos around. This guy looked like a perv.”
“Are you talking about the man who stole the ice cream truck and killed Maximo Soza?”
His face blanched. “Yeah. We got an all-points on him.”
“I don’t see anybody in red tennis shoes.”
“Let’s go inside. I’ll buy you something cool to drink. Or maybe you want something stronger.”
“There’re some people down by the bayou. You don’t want to check them out?”
He put a fresh cigarette into his mouth and lit it. He shook the front of his shirt with his fingers as though ridding it of the heat rising from the sidewalk. “I got to quit these. No, there’s nothing down by the bayou. About the movie—”
“Two things,” she said. “Don’t be giving my father nicknames. I’m surprised he hasn’t broken your jaw by this time. Second, stay away from me. It’s not your fault that you’re ignorant and stupid. In fact, you give the lie to the notion of white racial superiority, and for that reason, society owes you a debt. But please stop bothering me.”
He stepped into the shade. He widened his eyes, his profile as jagged as broken glass, his teeth showing. “Maybe you’ll need a friend down the track. That friend could be me. But I won’t be there. Think about that.”
“You’d better rephrase your words, trash.”
Two people walking by looked over their shoulders.
“I might put something in that smart-ass mouth you’re not expecting,” he said.
“What did you say?”
He opened the door of his cruiser. Before he shut it, he turned toward her and squeezed his phallus, his lust and iniquity undisguised.
That evening she told me what had happened.
Chapter 25
The sunset was like pools of fire inside clouds that were turning into rain. The crowd at the bar-and-grill up the bayou was a happy one. Before going inside, I stood at the deck railing and gazed at the live oaks on the lawn of the old convent, the people of color who were pole-fishing on the bank, the raindrops chaining the bayou’s surface. Then I went inside. People who knew me glanced away, either out of embarrassment or in fear.
Babette, the young Cajun woman who had told me she’d seen Labiche with Kevin Penny, was working behind the bar. She was serving a highball to Spade Labiche. In the shadows at the end of the bar, Clete Purcel was eating a bowl of étouffée and drinking from a mug of beer caked with ice. He looked straight into my eyes but didn’t stop eating.
“Hi, Miss Babette,” I said.
“Hello, Mr. Dave,” she replied. “You want to order some food, suh? If that’s what you’re having, I mean.”
“Not right now. Just a diet drink. Any kind is fine.”
“You here to talk to me, Robicheaux?” Labiche said. “If you are, that’s a mistake.”
“Why is that?”
“You got a beef, do it by the numbers, at the office. That’s what offices are for.”
I took a glass of iced Diet Coke and lime slices and cherries from Babette’s hand. I had not asked for the lime and the cherries, but she had put them in just the same. I sat down next to Clete.
“Care to tell me why you’re in here?” he said.
“Thought you might be here,” I lied.
He looked at Labiche but spoke to me. “You want to eat?”
“Nope.”
“You just like slop chutes? Like memories of past boom-boom?”
I glanced up at the TV screen. “I want to watch the ball game.”
“Yeah? Who’s playing?”
I placed my hand on his shoulder. It felt like concrete. “Think we’re too old for this?”
“Old for what?”
“All this crap.”
“Don’t buy in to that. Most people are dead inside at forty.” He snapped his fingers. “Look at me.”
“I am looking at you.”
“You’re looking at Labiche. What gives?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Are you trying to have another slip? Because if you are, I’m leaving.”
“You worry too much. Miss Babette, can I have another one of these, please?” I handed her my empty glass.
But I could not say liquor wasn’t on my mind. I could not only smell it, I was drawn to it the way a bee is drawn to flowers. The bottles on the back counter rang with light. I could almost taste the foam and brassy bead of the beer splashing from the spigot into a big ice-crusted mug, the whiskey brimming on the edges of a shot glass, the Collins mix and shaved ice and mint leaves in tropical drinks made with vodka and rum and gin. I could not explain the metabolic craving that had brought me nothing but sickness and misery, not to mention a murderous rage that was often the surrogate for the booze I couldn’t get enough of.
I looked at Labiche’s profile and the way he positioned himself at the bar, one foot on the brass rail, shoulders back, half a head taller than those around him. He could see everyone coming in or leaving; he could see down a woman’s blouse, particularly the women behind the bar. He could see a tryst beginning in the parking lot. He could eyeball a parolee who wasn’t allowed to keep company with other ex-felons or enter establishments where alcohol was sold. He was Polonius eavesdropping on the rest of the world.
I saw Babette bend over to pick up a napkin from the duckboards. I saw Labiche’s eyes follow her breasts down.
“Where you going?” Clete said.
“To tell Spade whom he reminds me of.”
“Whom?”
I stood behind Labiche but couldn’t bring myself to touch him. I remember seeing Babette look at me, her brow furrowed. I remember Labiche turning around as though he heard the bell at a rail crossing.
“Want something?” he asked.
“Repeat what you said to my daughter earlier today.”
“I didn’t say anything to her. ‘Top of the morning’ or something like that. You drunk?”
“Think carefully. You asked her if she saw a guy in red tennis shoes. Then you said something else.”
“You’re a sick man, Robicheaux. Everybody knows it except you. In regard to your daughter, I wouldn’t wipe my ass with her.”
A quietness settled on the bar.
“Did you hear me?” he said.
I nodded. I picked at my nails.
“You just going to stand there?” he said.
“You’re not hard to read, Spade.”
“Have a drink. I’ll put it on my tab. I’ll drive you home. You and your daughter quit your bullshit.”
“You didn’t make your case on the Dartez homicide. So you thought you’d go all in.”
“I can’t take this,” he said to no one. He slipped a credit card from his wallet and dropped it onto the bar. “I’m heading out, hon,” he said to Babette. “I’ll pick you up at closing time.”
Babette picked up the card, her face coloring.
“Look at me, Spade,” I said.
“Jeez, what does it take?” he said, turning toward me.
I caught him with my right, putting my shoulder and hip into it, driving my fist straight into his mouth, snapping his face sideways as though he had been dropped from a hangman’s rope. I saw blood fly against the back mirror and heard a stifled cry rise from his throat. I hooked him twice with my left hand and caught him again with my right, knocking his head against the bar as he went down.
I should have pulled the plug. But I knew I wasn’t going to. The simian that had lived in me since I was a child was back in town. A cloud that was red and black and without shape seemed to explode inside my head and destroy my vision, although I was able to see my deeds from somewhere outside my body. Labiche was on the floor and I was stomping his face, hanging on to the bar for purchase, his blood stippling my loafers. The image reminded me of the blood on the grass where T. J. Dartez had been beaten to death. A woman was screaming. Someone was on a cell phone. Labiche’s eyes were filled with terror. I kicked at his face and lost my balance. I felt the desire to kill him slip away from me, like ash dying on a dead fire.