The Tin Roof Blowdown

by James Lee Burke

  “He’s Bledsoe’s kind of guy. Bledsoe has left no trail, but how many of his friends can have the same kind of luck? Doing anything tonight?”

  “Not a thing,” I replied.

  “Let’s use two vehicles. I’ll stay with them for now. Leave your cell on,” he said.

  I was about to hang up when he added, “You won’t believe the jugs on the broad who’s sitting in his convertible. I’m getting a boner just looking through the blinds.”

  “Will you act your age and stop talking like that?”

  “You’re right. There’s nothing funny about this bunch. Somebody is going to pay for what they did to Courtney. It’s been a while since the Bobbsey Twins from Homicide were under a black flag.”

  I wished I hadn’t said anything.

  An hour and a half later, while Molly and I were washing the dishes, Clete called again. “I’m about a quarter of a mile behind Bledsoe and his friend and the broad with Elsie-the-Cow bongos. I think they’re headed for the casino. Unless I call you back, we ROA there,” he said.

  Roger that, I thought, more casually than I should have.

  “Where are you going?” Molly asked.

  “Clete has a lead on Bledsoe.”

  “I want to go with you.”

  “It’s just surveillance. It’s pretty boring stuff.”

  “That doesn’t matter. He broke in our home. He urinated in Alafair’s bedroom. My stomach turns when I think about it. She told me he tried to get on as a volunteer at the shelter.”

  “He’s going off the board, Molly. It’s a matter of time.”

  She stepped closer to me. “You think I have to be protected from reality? I had maryknoll friends who were raped and murdered in El Salvador. Our government didn’t do a goddamn thing about it. Dave, I’m not going to sit around while this man brings his evil into our lives.”

  “I understand how you feel.”

  “Do you?”

  I looked at the earnestness in her face and wanted to hold her. I put my arms around her back, cupping one hand on her neck. She was wearing a sundress and her skin felt cool and warm at the same time under the wood-bladed ceiling fan. I rubbed my cheek against her hair and squeezed her tighter. “I promise I won’t let him hurt us again,” I said.

  She lowered her head and I felt her hands slide off my back. “Why do you think it’s all up to you? Why is it only about you?”

  “It isn’t,” I said. “You have to trust me when I say that. For once, just trust me.”

  I went outside and started the truck, my face hot, my ears ringing with the harshness of our exchange. The yard had fallen into shadow and cicadas were droning in the trees, like a bad headache that won’t go away. Just as I was backing into the street, regretting my words, trying to accept Molly’s anger and hurt feelings, she came out on the gallery and waved good-bye.

  That’s what happens when you marry nuns.

  THE CASINO WAS located on reservation land, down Bayou Teche, in what used to be a rural slum. Now the reservation is prosperous and the people there live in neat homes not far from the confluence of the Teche and another waterway which together form into a bay. The house lots have no fences and contain persimmon and pecan trees, live oaks and slash pines. It’s a lovely piece of topography that hides certain economic realities that few care to dwell on.

  The patrons of the casino are the working poor, the uneducated, the compulsive, and the addicted. The booze is free as long as the patron continues to gamble. The interior glitters and charms; the restaurant is first-rate. The bands that play there do Cajun and zydeco and shitkicker, too. Inside the hermetically sealed environment, one that has no clocks or windows, all the problems of the outside world disappear.

  After Katrina and Rita, the profits at Louisiana ’s casinos soared to all-time highs. If you have already lost most of the ranch, what does it matter if you lose the basement?

  Clete was standing by his car in the parking lot, smoking a Lucky Strike, his features taut with anticipation. A thermos rested on his car hood. I parked next to him, took the cigarette from his mouth, and flipped it sparking on the asphalt. “They’re inside?” I said.

  “Yeah, they put in their names for a Texas Hold ’ Em table. They ’re at the buffet table now.” He unscrewed the top of the thermos and drank from it but offered me none.

  “Did you get anything on Bledsoe’s bud?”

  “Joe Dupree at Lafayette PD ran his tag for me. The car is registered to a Bobby Mack Rydel in Morgan City. Joe’s description of the ID photo fits the guy driving the car. I don’t know who the broad is. How do you want to play it?”

  “What are you drinking?” I asked.

  “Vodka Collins. You mind?”

  “How big a gambler is Rydel?”

  “The Hold ’Em table is a hundred-dollar buy-in. I’ve seen him buy a grand’s worth with the bills in his shirt pocket.”

  “What about Bledsoe?”

  “I haven’t seen him in action. There’s one thing about creeps, though. They want to be treated like they’re normal. Particularly in public.”

  I thought about it. “Let’s spit in the punch bowl. Where’s their car?”

  “It’s the Saab ragtop a couple of rows over.”

  “Think it might have a vehicle violation or two?”

  “I’ll check it out,” he replied.

  Clete walked through the parked cars and looked down at the rear tag on a black Saab. Then he removed his Swiss Army knife from his pants pocket and squatted down below eye level. He was gone from sight longer than I expected. When he returned he was folding a knife blade back into the knife’s casing. “You were right. The guy’s tag is missing. A couple of his tire valves are busted, too. What a shame,” he said.

  We entered the casino and walked past banks of slot machines that rippled with color and rang with the sound of coins cascading into metal trays. Hard by the rows of slots were dozens of Hold ’Em card tables, each seating nine players. The game was so popular the players had to get on a waiting list in order to buy a hundred-dollar chair. While the players waited for a vacancy, they fed the slots. When they got tired of waiting, they had another drink on the house and fed the slots some more.

  Clete nodded in the direction of two men and a statuesque woman with white-gold hair who were being seated at one of the far tables. Bledsoe was wearing powder-blue slacks, a matching vest, a bolo tie, and a long-sleeved shirt with silver stripes in it. His elongated, polished head and the vacuous smile painted on his face seemed to float like a glistening white balloon above the people around him. His friend, Bobby Mack Rydel, if that was his name, was a heavy, swayback man dressed in brown jeans with big brads on them. He also wore a wide cowboy belt, maroon suede boots, and a dark red shirt with pearl snap buttons. He had long sideburns that flared on his cheeks and a fleshy sag under his chin. He wore an Australian bush hat, the brim turned down all around the crown, the leather chin cord flopping loose on his throat. While he was being seated, he kept his hand in the small of the woman’s back.

  A security guard was drinking a cup of coffee at the end of the bar, glancing at his watch, occasionally yawning. “What’s happenin’, Dave?” he said.

  “On the job, you know how it is,” I replied.

  “Overtime is overtime,” he said.

  Clete put a mint in his mouth and snapped it between his molars. “See that dude in the Digger hat?” he said.

  “The what?” the guard asked.

  “The guy in the Australian flop hat. You might check your Griffin book,” Clete said.

  “He’s a regular,” the guard said.

  “All griffins are regulars. That’s how they end up in the Griffin book,” Clete said.

  The guard looked at me for confirmation. I raised my eyebrows and shrugged.

  “Thanks for the tip,” the guard said.

  “No problem, noble mon,” Clete said.

  We worked our way closer to the table where Bledsoe and Bobby Mack Rydel and the woman
with white-gold hair were playing Texas Hold ’Em. Bledsoe had just received his second hole card and was peeling it up with his thumb to peek at it.

  “Hey, Dave, look, it’s Ronnie Bledsoe, you know, Ole Ronald McDonald from the motor court,” Clete said. “Ronnie, how’s your hammer hanging?”

  Bledsoe turned in his chair, his face uplifted, his mouth puckered, like a guppy at the top of a tank. His eyes seemed to radiate serenity and goodwill. He continued to look up into Clete’s face without speaking.

  “Sorry, you’re busy. Catch you later,” Clete said. He pointed at the top of Bledsoe’s hole cards. “Stomp ass with that hand.” He gave him a knowing wink that everyone at the table could see.

  Then he went to the bar and ordered a double Jack straight up and a beer back.

  “Slow it down, Cletus,” I said.

  “No, no, big mon. We take it to them with tongs,” he said. “We need Rydel in custody. Just go with the flow.”

  He knocked back the rest of his Jack and finished his glass of beer. He touched at his mouth with a paper napkin, his face blooming, his eyes lit with a dangerous alcoholic shine.

  He went into the men’s room and minutes later came back out, a paper towel folded in his right hand. He located himself behind Bobby Mack Rydel and the woman with white-gold hair. While the dealer put down the flop, Clete placed the folded paper towel between Rydel and his girlfriend, deliberately dropping the two shiny purple-and-black square packets it contained on the floor.

  “Oh, gee, I’m sorry,” he said. He bent over and picked up the packets, then replaced them under the paper towel, first making sure that everyone saw them. “I think they’re what you wanted-those hard-ribbed ones, right?”

  Rydel used his elbow to rake the two packs of condoms off the table, back onto the floor, never even looking at Clete. Even more dumbfounding was the fact that hardly anyone else at the table paid attention to Clete’s behavior.

  Clete shifted gears and went into another mode. He studied the three communal cards that were faceup on the felt, his thumb and forefinger on his chin. “That’s too bad. You should have gotten out before the flop. Looks like you’re screwed, Bobby Mack,” he said.

  That did it. Rydel removed his hat and hung it by its leather chin cord on the back of his chair. Then he twisted around so he could see Clete more clearly. His eyes were lead-gray, his sideburns neatly etched, the skin around his mouth drained of blood. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “You don’t remember me?” Clete said.

  “No, I never saw you before in my life.”

  “You remember Courtney Degravelle?”

  “No, I don’t. You got me mixed up with someone else.”

  The head of security had walked up behind Clete. He was a retired St. Mary Parish sheriff’s detective by the name of Tim Romero. He had salt-and-pepper hair and was dressed in a blue sports coat, knife-crease gray slacks, and shined loafers. “Is there a problem here?” he said.

  “Not with me,” Clete said. “But this guy here is on the grift. I already reported him at the door. If he hasn’t switched out cards on you yet, he will.”

  “Do you mind stepping over to the bar with me?” Romero asked.

  “No, I don’t mind. But that guy is a griffin and his partner there, the guy with the waxed head, is a pervert.”

  “That’s it, Mr. Purcel, you either come with me or you’ll be escorted from the casino.”

  Clete raised his palms. “You want creeps at your tables, that’s your choice. Tell you what, call your colleagues in Atlantic City or Vegas about these two guys and see what kind of feedback you get.”

  I cupped one hand on Clete’s shoulder and looked at Romero. “He’s okay. We’re going to get a cup of coffee,” I said.

  “If you say so, Dave. But don’t make me regret I took this job,” Romero said.

  Clete and I went to the bar and immediately he ordered a Jack and a beer back.

  “Clete-”

  “Trust me,” he said. “We’re going to nail those guys. We just need to twist the screw a little tighter.”

  “I think we’re firing in the well,” I said.

  “Wrong,” he said.

  He sipped from the shot glass and touched at his mouth with the back of his wrist, his stare riveted on Rydel’s face. Rydel glanced up at him, then back at his cards. Then he looked up again. Clete’s stare stayed on his face. Rydel fitted his hat back on and slanted the brim down like a man keeping the sun’s glare out of his eyes.

  I got out my cell phone and walked to a quiet place at the end of the bar. I scrolled down to Betsy Mossbacher’s cell number and punched the “Call” button.

  Please pick up, Betsy, I thought.

  “Dave?” she said.

  “Can you run a dude by the name of Bobby Mack Rydel? I need it right now.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Come on, Betsy, help me out. I think I’ve got a house fire here.”

  I don’t know how she did it but she did. My suspicion was she or a colleague dipped into an intelligence file. By my watch, it took less than four minutes for her to call back.

  “You’ve got a live one,” she said. “Rydel was in Force Recon in the Marine Corps, attended jump school at Benning, and was kicked out with a dishonorable discharge after he was charged with rape in Japan.”

  Clete had walked over to the slot machines, not far from the card tables, and had positioned himself where he could look directly into Rydel’s face. Each time Rydel looked up, Clete was grinning at him, smacking his gum, his big arms folded on his chest.

  “He ran a training school for mercenaries in the Florida Panhandle and was probably mixed up with mercs in Mozambique in the eighties,” Betsy said. “He has a seventh-degree belt in karate. He beat a man to death in Miami and got off because the victim was armed and Rydel was not. Are you getting this?”

  “Yeah, I’m right here,” I said.

  Rydel had just bet heavily into a large pot, trying to ignore Clete and keep his eyes focused on the game, waiting for the final cards to be turned up by the dealer.

  “Rydel is on a watch list in France. Interpol thinks he may be involved with arms smuggling. He may have been with the Contras briefly, but for sure he’s worked all over Africa,” Betsy said.

  Rydel raised the bet, pushing three stacks of chips into the center of the felt. A black man in a purple suit with rings on all his fingers called and raised. Rydel called and raised again, pushing out the last of his chips. The black man shrugged and called the raise, yawning either out of confidence or perhaps acceptance that he had gotten in over his head.

  “Here’s the last of it,” Betsy said. “He’s been a contract security employee for several companies operating in the Mideast. His specialty is thought to be interrogation. Don’t ask me to do this again.”

  The communal cards the dealer had dealt faceup in the center of the felt included an ace of spades and an ace, king, and jack of hearts. Rydel turned over his hole cards, an ace of diamonds and an ace of clubs. The two aces from the flop gave him four of a kind, an almost guaranteed winner.

  The black man grimaced as though he had just bitten down on an abscessed tooth.

  “I catch a hand like that about once every six months,” Rydel said.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. Me, too,” the black man said.

  He turned over his hole cards, a ten and queen of hearts. With the ace, jack, and king from the communal cards, he was holding a royal flush, the best hand in poker.

  Clete began wheezing with laughter, his folded arms bouncing up and down on his chest. He passed by Rydel’s chair, slapping him hard on the back. “Tough luck,” he said. “If you need a credit line, forget it. This is a class joint. They don’t take food stamps.”

  You could hear him laughing all the way to the men’s room.

  Rydel sat for about thirty seconds staring into space, his hands splayed on his thighs, perhaps counting up the number of instances his attention had been distract
ed from the game by Clete’s ridicule.

  He said something in the ear of the woman with the white-gold hair. She wore a white knit dress full of eyelets and her breasts hung as heavy as cantaloupes in her bra. Her eyes were lifted toward the ceiling, fluttering as Rydel spoke. I had a feeling this was not the kind of evening she had bargained for. I also realized I had seen her before.

  Rydel got up from the table and followed Clete into the men’s room.

  “Hello? Are you still there?” Betsy said.

  “I’m here,” I said.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “In deep shit,” I replied.

  CLETE WAS READY for Bobby Mack Rydel when he came through the door. Or thought he was.

  “What’s your name, Gordo?” Rydel asked.

  “Clete Purcel, the friend of Courtney Degravelle, the woman you and your friends tortured to death.”

  “No, your name is Gordo Defecado, a guy who’s both nuts and seriously in need of a tune-up. Think of me as your Mr. Good-wrench.”

  “I can see it in your eyes. I can smell it on your skin. You did it to her, you bastard.”

  For a heavy man, Rydel was surprisingly agile. He spun on one foot and nailed Clete in the throat with the other one. Then he kicked Clete in the face and knocked him down in front of the urinals. The men who had been inside the stalls or at the lavatories or about to use the urinals began pushing through the door into the concourse. Clete tried to get up and Rydel kicked him in the ribs, then against the side of the head. He stomped Clete’s hand and raised his foot to drive a blow into the back of Clete’s neck.

  That was his mistake.

  Clete locked his hands behind Rydel’s knees, then came up off the floor, lifting as he did, toppling Rydel backward so that the back of Rydel’s head split on the edge of a lavatory as he went down.

  Images that Clete believed he had dealt with long ago seemed to release themselves like red blisters popping on a black screen in his head. He heard a razor strop whooshing down on his naked buttocks. He saw a grass hooch shrink to nothing inside the flame of a Zippo track. He saw a black woman clutching a baby to her breast, standing on top of a flooded church bus, screaming for help that didn’t come. He saw a white woman taped in a chair, a plastic bag cinched over her head, her eyes terrified, her lungs sucking the plastic into her mouth.