Burning Angel dr-8

by James Lee Burke

  “Moleen, you dear,” she said. “How good of you to come. Is something bothering you? Oh, what shall we do, dear boy?”

  She used one sharpened fingernail to draw vertical red lines in the skin under his eyes, as though she were imprinting tears on a clown.

  * * *

  At dusk that same evening Clete Purcel's rust-eaten Caddy, with its mildewed and tattered top folded back at a twisted angle, throbbed into the drive and died like a sick animal.

  He wore his porkpie hat and a tropical shirt with tiny purple sea horses printed all over it. He was eating an oyster po'-boy sandwich with one hand, tuning the radio with the other.

  “Take a ride with me,” he said.

  “What's up?”

  “I need to talk, that's all.”

  “Turn the radio down,” I said.

  “Hey, you listen to Dr. Boogie and the Bon Ton Soul Train?”

  “No.”

  He started the engine again and kept feeding it the gas while the Caddy's gutted muffler vibrated and rattled against the frame.

  “Okay!” I said, above the noise, and got in beside him. A few minutes later we were approaching the drawbridge. “Do you realize you always end up driving the same kind of cars grease balls do?” I said.

  “That's because I buy them off grease balls I'm lucky I can afford grease ball hand-me-downs.”

  I waited for him to get to it. We turned into New Iberia, then headed out toward Spanish Lake. He bit down softly on his thumbnail, his face reflective and cool in the wind.

  “I heard about Sonny. The guy didn't deserve to die like that,” he said. We were on the old two-lane road now. The azaleas and purple wisteria along the roadside were still in bloom and you could see the lake through the trees. Clete's voice was hoarse, down in his throat.

  “Something else bothers me, too.” He turned and looked at me. “I told you, when I hit Sonny, I got a red bruise on my knuckles, it looked like strawberry juice under the skin, it wouldn't go away?”

  He shook his head, without waiting for me to answer.

  “I was always pissed off at Sonny, I can't even tell you why. When I heard he got clipped, I felt really bad the way I treated him. I was in the can at Tujague's last night, washing my hands, and that strawberry bruise was gone.”

  He held up the back of his hand in the sun's red glow off the dashboard.

  “This stuff's in your mind, Clete.”

  “Give me some credit, mon. My hand throbbed all the time. Now it doesn't. I think Johnny Carp used both of us to set up the whack.”

  He turned left off the two-lane, drove past a collapsed three-story house that had been a gambling club in the sixties, then followed a dirt road to a woods where people had dumped raw garbage and mattresses and stuffed chairs in the weeds. Clete backed the Caddy into the gloom of the trees. The sun was below the horizon now, the air thick with birds.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  “Helen Soileau got the warrant on Sweet Pea's house. Guess what? He'd ripped the carpet out of his Caddy.”

  The radio was off now, and when he cut the engine I heard movement in the trunk, a shift of weight, the scrape of shoe leather against metal.

  “This is a mistake,” I said.

  “Watch the show. He's a geek. Geeks get off on being the center of attention.”

  Clete took a can of beer from the Styrofoam cooler in the backseat and popped the trunk. Sweet Pea Chaisson's long body was curled between the tire wells, his webbed eyes glistening in the enclosed heat, his tin-colored silk shirt swampy with sweat. He climbed out over the bumper, his small mouth compressed as though he were sucking a mint.

  “Hey, Dave. What's the word, babe?” he said.

  Clete shoved him backward across a log, onto the ground.

  “Streak lost his shield, Sweet Pea. We're operating on different rules now. Bad time to be a wiseass, know what I'm saying?” Clete said.

  Sweet Pea inserted his little finger into an empty space in his teeth, then looked at the blood on the tip of it and spit in the weeds. He grinned up at Clete.

  “I got to go to the bat' room he said.

  ”Do it in your clothes,“ Clete said. Then to me, ”I found our man behind a colored juke joint. He was beating the shit out of one of his chippies with a rolled newspaper.“

  ”That was my wife,“ Sweet Pea said.

  Clete pitched the can of beer into his lap.

  ”Rinse your mouth out. Your breath's bad,“ he said.

  ”T'anks, Purcel,“ Sweet Pea said, ripped the tab, and drank deeply from the can. His face was covered with pinpoints of sweat and dirt. ”Where we at?“ He looked off into the purple haze above the cane fields. ”Oh yeah, my mother's grave was right across them railway tracks.“

  ”Who put the whack on Sonny?“ Clete said.

  ”I live in Breaux Bridge now. A crawfish getting run over on the highway is big news there. How do I know?“

  Sweet Pea tipped the beer can to his mouth. Clete kicked it into his face. Sweet Pea's lips were suddenly bright red, his eyebrows dripping with beer foam, his face quivering with the force of the blow. But not one sound came from his throat. I pushed Clete away from him.

  ”No more,“ I said.

  ”Take a walk down the road. Enjoy the evening. Stroll back in ten minutes,“ he said. His blue-black .38 one-inch hung from his right hand.

  ”We take him back to wherever you got him. That's the way it is, Cletus.“

  ”You're screwing it up, Streak.“

  Behind me, I heard Sweet Pea stirring in the weeds, getting to his feet.

  ”Stay where you are, Sweet Pea,“ I said.

  He sat on a log with his head between his legs and let the blood and saliva drain out of his mouth. When he looked up at me again, his face was changed.

  ”You're a pair of white clowns playing big shit out in the wood,“ he said. His sharp, tiny teeth looked like they were stained with Mercurochrome.

  Clete stepped toward him. I put my hand on his chest.

  ”What the fuck y'all know?“ Sweet Pea said. ”Yall ever hear there's a glow hanging over the ground at night on the Bertrand place? Where all them convicts was killed and buried in their chains. You t'ink you shit vanilla ice cream?“

  ”You're not making much sense, Sweet Pea,“ I said.

  ”The juke where I bring my broads, how's it stay open? It's Bertrand's.“

  ”That's not true, partner. I've seen the deeds on all the land around here.“

  ”It's part of a con … a cons or… something… what do you call it?“ he said.

  ”Consortium.“

  ”Yeah,“ he said. ”Hey, Purcel, you look like you need an enema. Why don't you shove that gun up your ass?“

  Clete took a Lucky Strike out of his pocket and lit it. Then he pulled a strand of tobacco off his lip and dropped it in the air. The lighted windows of the Amtrak streamed by on the train tracks across the cane field. Sweet Pea sat on the log and looked at the train and scratched his cheek as though we were no longer there.

  ”You got a lot of luck, Sweet Pea,“ I said.

  ”Yeah? Tell your wife I got an opening. For an older broad like that, I'll make an exception, too. Just straight dates, no sixty-nines,“ he said.

  * * *

  I dream that night of people who live in caves under the sea. Their arms and shoulders are sheathed in silver feathers; their abalone skins dance with fiery sparks.

  I once knew a helicopter pilot from Morgan City whose Jolly Green took an RPG right through the door. He had been loaded with ammunition and wounded civilians, and when they crashed in the middle of a river, most of the civilians burned to death or drowned. He became psychotic after the war and used to weigh and sink plastic statues of Jesus all over the waterways of southern Louisiana. He maintained that the earth was wrapped with water, that a bayou in the Atchafalaya Basin was an artery that led to a flooded rice plain in the Mekong Delta, that somehow the presence of a plastic statue could console thos
e whose drowned voices still spoke to him from the silt-encrusted wreckage of his helicopter.

  When he hung himself, the wire service story made much of his psychiatric history. But in my own life I had come to believe in water people and voices that can speak through the rain. I wondered if Sonny would speak to me.

  * * *

  It was a blue-gold morning, the sky clear, the wind balmy out of the south, when the sheriff parked his cruiser by the boat ramp and walked down the dock. I was shirtless, sanding dried fish scales out of the guardrail, the sun warm on my back, the day almost perfect. I didn't want to hear about someone else's troubles, their guilt, or even an apology for wrongs real or imagined.

  ”We've got Patsy Dapolito in lockup,“ he said.

  ”That seems like a good place for him.“

  ”He says somebody stole the tip he left in the motel restaurant. He made quite a scene. Scared the shit out of everybody in the place. This guy is probably as close to Freddy Kruger as New Iberia will ever get.“

  I drew the sandpaper along the grain of the wood and brushed the dust out into the sunlight.

  ”It doesn't concern you anymore, huh?“ the sheriff said.

  ”Not unless he comes around here.“

  ”I wish I could tell you it's that easy, Dave.“

  I started sanding again, my eyes on his.

  ”The FBI called yesterday. They thought you were still with us.“

  He shrugged off the discomfort of his own remark.

  ”They've got a tap on some of Johnny Carp's people. Your name came up in a conversation.“

  ”I'm not a player anymore, Sheriff. Maybe it's time you and the Feds got the word out.“

  ”The grease balls think you know something you shouldn't. Or you're trying to queer their action over here.“

  ”They're wrong.“

  ”One of them said, ‘Let the Rambo fucks take care of it.’ They laughed, and another guy said, ‘Yeah, let 'em send in Charlie.’ Does that mean something to you?“

  ”Yeah, it does. I was fired. Y'all clean up your own mess.“

  ”I don't think anger will help us, Dave.“

  ”When a drunk gets eighty-sixed out of a bar, he's not supposed to buy drinks for the people still inside. You want a cup of coffee, Sheriff?“

  * * *

  Clete came by at noon, drank a beer under the awning on the dock, then insisted I drive into New Iberia with him.

  ”I've got to work,“ I said.

  ”That's my point,“ he said, crushing his beer can, his porkpie hat cocked over his scarred eyebrow, his face full of fun.

  We drove down East Main, past the old Burke home and the Steamboat House, into the shade of live oaks, past the city library and the stone grotto dedicated to Christ's mother, which was the only remnant of the old Catholic elementary school and which in antebellum days had been the home of George Washington Cable, past the law offices of Moleen Bertrand and the Shadows into the full sunlight and practicality of the business district.

  Clete parked by the side of a small office on the corner. The backs of the buildings were old, redbrick, still marked with nineteenth-century lettering. Fifty yards away a tugboat moved down Bayou Teche toward the drawbridge.

  Two men in tennis shoes who were too slight to be professional movers were carrying furniture from a U-Haul van into the office.

  ”Clete?“ I said.

  ”Your licenses will be a breeze. Till we get the paperwork done, I'll put you down as my associate or some bullshit like that.“

  ”You should have asked before you did this.“

  ”I did. You weren't listening,“ he said.

  ”Who're these guys?“

  ”Uh, a package deal from Nig Rosewater Bail Bonds. Nig owes me for a couple of skips I ran down, in fact, it was these two guys right here, and the guys owe Nig for their bonds, so Nig threw in some furniture and everybody wins.“

  ”Clete, I really appreciate this but-“

  ”It's a done deal, big mon. Tell the guys where you want your desk and file cabinets. Make sure they don't walk out of here with any keys, either.“ He looked at his watch, then glanced up the street. ”Here she comes. Look, take my car back to your house when you get finished, okay? Helen's taking me to lunch.“

  He saw the look in my eyes.

  ”So she bats from both sides of the plate. Who's perfect?“ he said.

  The two of them drove away, waving out the windows as I stood on the sidewalk between Clete's junker Caddy and an office window that had already been lettered with the words ROBICHEAUX, PURCEL, AND ASSOCIATES INVESTIGATIVE AGENCY.

  * * *

  At twilight I drove out to the Bertrand plantation and parked by the grove of gum trees. I didn't have permission to be there, and didn't care. I had wanted to believe my involvement with Sonny Boy, Julia and Moleen, Luke and Ruthie Jean and Bertie Fontenot was over. But I knew better. Even Sweet Pea Chaisson did.

  This piece of land was our original sin, except we had found no baptismal rite to expunge it from our lives. That green-purple field of new cane was rooted in rib cage and eye socket. But what of the others whose lives had begun here and ended in other places? The ones who became prostitutes in cribs on Hopkins Street in New Iberia and Jane's Alley in New Orleans, sliced their hands open with oyster knives, laid bare their shin bones with the cane sickle, learned the twelve-string blues on the Red Hat gang and in the camps at Angola with Leadbelly and Hogman Matthew Maxey, were virtually cooked alive in the cast-iron sweat boxes of Camp A, and rode Jim Crow trains North, as in a biblical exodus, to southside Chicago and the magic of 1925 Harlem, where they filled the air with the music of the South and the smell of cornbread and greens and pork chops fixed in sweet potatoes, as though they were still willing to forgive if we would only acknowledge their capacity for forgiveness.

  Tolstoy asked how much land did a man need.

  Just enough to let him feel the pull of the earth on his ankles and the claim it lays on the quick as well as the dead.

  CHAPTER 23

  EVEN THOUGH MY name was on the window, I didn't go to the office and, in fact, didn't formally accept the partnership, even though Bootsie and I needed the income.

  Not until three days later, when Clete called the bait shop.

  ”Check this. Johnny Carp says he wants another sit-down. Eleven o'clock, our office,“ he said.

  ”Tell him to stay out of town.“

  ”Not smart, big mon.“

  ”Don't try to negotiate with these guys.“

  ”The guy's rattled about something.“

  ”Who cares?“ I said.

  ”Wake up, Dave. You got no radar anymore. You read the street while you got the chance or it eats you.“

  * * *

  I waited until almost eleven, then drove into New Iberia. John Polycarp Giacano's white stretch limo with the charcoal-tinted windows was double-parked in front of the office. A back window was partially lowered and two women with bleached hair and Frankenstein makeup were smoking on the backseat, looking straight ahead, bored, oblivious to each other. Three of Johnny's crew, wearing shades and boxed haircuts, stood on the sidewalk, looking up and down the street as though they were Secret Service agents.

  I parked around the corner and walked back to the front door. One of them looked at me from behind his glasses, his expression flat, his hands folded in front of him. He chewed on a paper match in the corner of his mouth, nodding, stepping back to let me pass.

  ”Is that you, Frankie?“ I said.

  ”Yeah. How you doing, Mr. Robicheaux?“ he answered.

  ”I thought you were away for a while.“

  ”This broad's conscience started bothering her and she changed her testimony. What're you gonna do?“ He shrugged his shoulders as though a great metaphysical mystery had been placed on them.

  ”It might be a good idea to move the limo, Frankie.“

  ”Yeah, I was just going to tell the chauffeur that. Thanks.“

  ”When did Ch
arlie start working with you guys?“ I asked.

  He held the tips of his fingers in the air, touched his cheek, gestured with his fingers again.

  ”Who?“ he said. His mouth pursed into a small O the size of a Life Saver.

  * * *

  Inside the office, Clete sat behind an army-surplus metal desk, his hands hooked behind his neck. Johnny Carp sat across from him, his arms and legs set at stiff angles, his eyes filled with a black light, his knurled brow like ridges on a washboard. He wore a yellow shirt with the purple letter G embroidered on the pocket and a gray suit with dark stripes in it, a yellow handkerchief in the pocket. His shoes were dug into the floor like a man about to leap from a building.

  ”Dave, help me convince Johnny of something here,“ Clete said. He smiled good-naturedly.

  ”What's happening, Johnny?“ I said, and sat down on the edge of another metal desk.

  ”You guys tried to cowboy Patsy Bones,“ he said.

  ”Wrong,“ I said.

  ”Somebody put a nine-millimeter round six inches from his head. He thinks it come from me,“ Johnny said.

  ”I can see that would be a problem,“ I said.

  ”Don't crack wise with me, Dave.“

  ”I always treated you with respect, Johnny. But I'm out of the game now. You've got the wrong guy.“

  ”Hear what I'm saying.“ His close-set eyes and mouth and nose seemed to shrink into an even smaller area in the center of his face. ”Don't try to scam us. You want something, you got a hard-on, bring it to the table. But you lay off this voodoo bullshit or whatever it is. I'm talking about Sonny here.“

  I looked at Clete. He shook his head and turned up his palms.

  ”You've lost me, Johnny,“ I said.

  ”A hooker says she saw him going by on the streetcar. Last night Frankie and Marco out there swear either him or his twin brother was walking into Louis Armstrong Park. What white person goes into Louis Armstrong Park at night? Then my wife tells me a redheaded guy was standing in our side yard, looking through our window.“ A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. ”What, y'all hire an actor or something?“