Clete Purcel came out of nowhere and clenched me from behind and locked his hands on my chest and wrestled me out the door. We were out on the deck, the stars bright, the drawbridge at Burke Street lifting into the air. I pushed him away.
“He played you, big mon,” Clete said. “Why’d you let him do it?”
I felt like I was coming off a drunk or getting off a ship without my sea legs. “What happened?”
“Who cares? It’s done. Get in the Caddy.”
“Where are we going?”
“How about another galaxy?” he said.
We walked into the parking lot and got into the car. He started the engine. “You got it together?”
“Tell me what happened.”
He exhaled loudly. “You don’t know?”
“He put his hand on me?”
“No, he didn’t do anything. You laid him out.”
We drove down the street and over the steel grid on the drawbridge.
“I didn’t kill Dartez,” I said.
He looked at me oddly, but I didn’t try to explain.
At six the next morning, I put sardines on the spool table in the backyard for Mon Tee Coon, then showered and dressed and went to work as though nothing had happened the previous night. No one in the building treated me differently than they would have any other day. Helen seemed preoccupied with the paperwork on her desk. I made some calls to cops I knew in Fort Lauderdale and Miami. I drove to the convenience store and again interviewed the clerk who had sold Ding Dongs to the man in red tennis shoes. When I returned, my mailbox was full of messages, and at least half a dozen had been slipped under my door, all from my colleagues. Below is a sampling:
Way to go, Robicheaux.
Rip ass, big Dave.
Fucking A, Streakus.
Tell Purcel to finish the job.
Next time cap the cocksucker.
Helen tapped on my door.
“Come in,” I said.
She sat sideways in a straight-back chair. She was wearing dark blue slacks and a white shirt with her gold badge on the pocket. I felt like I was in a filmstrip that had just shifted into slow motion. Her face was composed, her eyes neutral.
“Labiche isn’t pressing charges,” she said.
“I see.”
“You’re not surprised?” she said.
“He wants to look stand-up.”
“Why’d you do it?”
I told her what he had said to Alafair.
“You should have come to me,” she said. “I would have done something about it.”
“How bad is Labiche hurt?”
“It’s probably not felony assault. That doesn’t mean it’s acceptable.”
She waited for me to say something. I didn’t.
“I talked to the barmaid,” she said.
“Babette?”
“She said you backed off. That Purcel didn’t need to drag you outside.”
“Could be.”
“Were you drinking?”
“No, ma’am.”
“You think Labiche set you up?”
“Probably.”
“The prosecutor’s office will be looking at you again. You know that, don’t you?”
“Here’s the rest of it,” I said. “In front of Victor’s, he told Alafair there was a guy wearing red tennis shoes down by the bayou. Alafair said Labiche seemed spooked, but he didn’t want to check the guy out.”
“Like he already knew who the guy was?” she said.
“That was Alafair’s opinion.”
Helen gazed into space. “What’s your take on all this?”
“Labiche was probably on a pad for some dealers in Miami. He had ties there to Penny. I talked to a retired detective in Dade County. He said Penny got out of Raiford on appeal after some drugs disappeared from an evidence locker. The detective said Labiche was a suspect in the disappearance of the drugs.”
“So maybe our man in the red tennis shoes is a hitter from Florida who knows Labiche?”
“Or Labiche knows him.”
“But what’s the agenda of the guy in the red shoes?” she asked.
“Pookie Domingue told Clete the guy’s a cleaner.”
“Pookie the Possum?”
“Clete said he was about to dump in his pants.”
“Can I get a promise from you?” she said.
“What?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. “Forget it.”
“What is it?”
She stood up to go. “Don’t get into it with Labiche again. Got it, bwana? Bwana not have time to evolve. Bwana clean up brain with vacuum now or get thrown through window.”
Surprises never end. Just after work on Wednesday afternoon of the following week, Spade Labiche walked into my backyard while I was washing my boat. Mon Tee Coon was high up in a tree, looking down at us. Labiche was dressed like a sport in two-tone shoes and a panama hat and a tropical shirt that hung outside his slacks, as though he were trying to transform himself from one identity to another, like people do when they can no longer bear their own mistakes and the lives they lead. The swelling had gone out of his face, but the bruises and scrapes were still there. I never thought I could feel sorry for a guy like Labiche, but I did. There was another element in his face, namely, systemic fear, the kind that eats through your stomach and your entrails or the kind you see in people who know the Great Shade is waiting for them.
“Before you tell me to get lost, let me make my case,” he said.
I squirted the hose on the boat’s bow and ran a sponge along its surface. “I don’t think we have much to talk about.”
“Here’s my situation,” he continued, undaunted. “You don’t work undercover in Miami without getting dirty. I crossed lines. I’ve been in situations where I had to either let a guy get smoked or get smoked myself. You ever have a gig like that?”
“Close.”
“You let it play out? You let the guy go down?”
“I popped the guys who were going to pop him.”
“I got it. Mr. Moral Superiority.”
“Your meter is running, Spade.”
“I know things nobody else knows. Something is going on that doesn’t make sense. I got to have a deal.”
“See Helen.”
“She listens to you like she’s got a thing.”
“Lose it,” I said.
“Screw that. I got the key to your head. I got the key to your soul.”
“Are you crazy?”
He stepped closer to me, even though the spray from the hose drifted onto his clothes. He must have smeared himself with deodorant rather than taking a shower before coming to the house. “The guy who clipped the St. Mary deputy and cooked the guy in the ice cream truck probably has a list. But the list doesn’t make sense. Maybe Tony Squid put out the contracts. I think this is political. That means Jimmy Nightingale.”
“Who killed Penny?”
“With an electric drill? A sadist for hire.”
“Maximo Soza was a sadist.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“The guy in the ice cream truck,” I said.
“Ask me about Miami, I know all the names. I don’t know all the names around here.”
“I thought you were an expert on New Orleans.”
His cheek, yellow and blue from my knuckles, quivered like jelly. “This is the deal I need. I keep my badge. Nothing goes in my jacket on this. You help me with Helen, I’ll give you some information you can’t get from anybody else.”