A Private Cathedral

by James Lee Burke

  “I like your shirt,” I said. “What was that about popping me?”

  “I gave you a break because you’re a recovering drunk and twice a widower. When the wife of a notorious mobster comes into my department and asks about one of my detectives, I get curious.”

  “I can’t blame you, Carroll. I don’t know what Ms. Balangie wants.”

  “This isn’t the first time. You were seen walking with her at the Shadows.”

  “You’re following me around?”

  “Right or wrong, you were at the Shadows with her?”

  “Yes.”

  He tapped his finger on the air. “When I was in vice, I never took juice. But you hang with Clete Purcel, a guy who made a living out of it. Tell me who has the problem. I catch you playing sticky finger while you’re on the job, I’ll have you cleaning toilets.”

  “You’re a heck of a guy, Carroll,” I said.

  After he left the room, my head was a Mixmaster. Yes, Carroll LeBlanc was a misogynist, a homophobe, and a racist, but he saw a weakness in me that I could not deny. The mention of Penelope Balangie had caused a quickening in my heart, the kind every man remembers from his youth. For me it happened when I was seventeen and I pitched a perfect game against Lafayette in the American Legion finals at the old Brahman Bull Stadium. Fans and players alike were jumping up and down and pounding me on the back as we walked off the field, the electric lights iridescent in the sunset. But the only person in my ken was a girl from Spanish Lake waiting for me by the dugout, her heart-shaped face glowing with the lights of love and adoration, her mouth aching to be kissed.

  A moment of that kind never goes away. You take it to the grave. Tell me I’m blowing smoke.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THAT SAME DAY, at 6:47 exactly, I returned to my house from Winn-Dixie and saw a Ferrari by the curb, the left rear tire on the rim, Penelope Balangie struggling with the spare. I pulled in behind her. She dropped the tire and dusted off her hands. Her face looked hot, her hair damp on her cheek. “I just discovered you have no Triple A,” she said.

  “We’re purists in that regard,” I said. “As few services as possible. Let’s see if I can help.”

  It seemed too much of a coincidence that her tire would go completely flat in front of my home. The air loss was the kind you associate with a sliced valve. I squatted down and ran my hand over the casing. A two-inch piece of angle iron, its edges knife-sharp, was embedded in one of the grooves.

  “I had to special-order the spare,” she said. “I just noticed it’s smaller than the others. Is that going to be a problem?”

  Yeah, it is. In more ways than one.

  “There’s a guy in Lafayette who sells used Ferraris,” I said. “You can give him a call.”

  “I can’t get service on my cell phone here.”

  “Yeah, that’s another problem we have,” I said. “Miss Penelope…”

  “What?” she said.

  “A very nasty plainclothes named Carroll LeBlanc says you were looking for me at the department. LeBlanc would like to take my skin off. I wish you wouldn’t help him do that.”

  “Would you please explain how I’m impairing your career?”

  “You’re the wife of a notorious gangster. Your father-in-law may have been involved with the assassination of John Kennedy.”

  “These things are not true.”

  “The Balangies made their money peddling bananas?”

  “There are many things you think you know about me, Mr. Robicheaux. Most of them are wrong.”

  “You want me to put on your spare?”

  The light was dying in the trees. Down the street, flocks of swallows were descending on the Shadows.

  “If you would be so kind,” she said.

  Her lipstick was purple, the mole by her mouth sensuous in a way I didn’t understand. I wanted to reach out and touch it.

  “After I change your tire, I have to be somewhere else,” I said.

  “As you like.”

  I saw the disappointment in her face. I did not think it was feigned. “What is it you want to talk to me about?”

  “Everything. That is, everything I am and everything I am not. But if you’re busy, I understand.”

  * * *

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, I had the spare tire on. Because of the spare’s small size, the Ferrari was canted on one side. Our best hotels and motels were out by the four-lane, several miles away. The Ferrari would probably have problems all the way there.

  The streetlamps clicked on. A car went by, blowing leaves and carbon monoxide in its wake.

  “There’s a bed-and-breakfast on the next block, but they’re probably full up,” I said.

  “I’ll manage,” she said.

  “Why don’t you call your husband and ask him what he wants you to do?”

  “Adonis is not my husband,” she said.

  “Did I just hear you right, or is one of us crazy?”

  She looked at my humble house, with its boxcar-like design and peaked tin roof that was stained with lichen and rust, the gutters impacted with Spanish moss. “I promise I’ll only take a few minutes of your time. Then, if you tell me you never want to see me again, I’ll abide by your wishes.”

  “Come in,” I said. I parked my truck in the porte cochere and carried my groceries through the back door and placed them on the drain board, refusing to accept that I was trying to hide her presence on my property. “You want a Dr Pepper or a glass of lemonade?” I said.

  “Nothing, thank you.”

  “What was that about Adonis not being your old man?”

  “Why are you using that kind of language?”

  “I didn’t give it any thought.”

  “Don’t lie. You’re trying to be someone you’re not. You’re a gentleman, Mr. Robicheaux, so act like one. Don’t let fear turn you into a dolt.”

  I felt my face shrink. “Miss Penelope, I’m a widower and a drunkard. My relationship with the sheriff’s department is tenuous. My stepdaughter and a half brother are my only family. Clete Purcel is my best friend. That is the sum of my time on earth. There’s a shorter version. I’m bad news, and I don’t have answers for myself, much less others.”

  “Adonis and I were never married,” she said. “I was part of a business deal. Or at least that’s what you would call it here. The custom goes back five hundred years in our families. I’m talking about the Shondells and the Balangies.”

  “So how about eighty-sixing tradition and living your own life?” I said.

  “In my way, I try to do that.” She was standing closer to me than was proper in the culture of New Iberia. “When I say I’m not married to Adonis, I mean I’m not married on any level and never have been. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah, I’d say that’s clear enough. But this isn’t information I necessarily want or need.”

  “Faux marriages have existed since the beginnings of civilization. So just stop it, Mr. Robicheaux.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Acting like you’re shocked. It doesn’t become you.”

  I took an ice tray and two cans of Dr Pepper from the refrigerator and knocked the ice against the sink and began filling two glasses with it, my hands uncoordinated, even shaking. She stepped closer so I could see her at the corner of my vision. “Don’t be so emotional.”

  I propped my arms on the sink’s rim. “I don’t care if you’re married or not,” I lied. “You cannot deny the source of your wealth, Miss Penelope.”

  “Would you please not use that servile form of address to me?” she replied. “Where are your pets?”

  “My pets?”

  “You have pet bowls inside and outside. There’s a rabbit hutch under your tree.”

  “I have a pet coon and a number of cats. In fact, the lady next door and I feed most of the cats in the neighborhood.”

  “See? You’re a kind man. Why do you try to hide your qualities?”

  I dried my hands. I turned and looked down at her. I thoug
ht of that twilight evening when I’d pitched the only perfect game in my baseball career. “I’m not your guy, Ms. Balangie.”

  She circled my wrist with her thumb and forefinger. “Look at me.”

  “Nope. No more gamesmanship.”

  Her eyes jittered as they searched mine. “You think I’m immoral? You think I’m a liar. You think I don’t weep for my daughter? You look me in the eye and say that.”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t think any of that.”

  “Then maybe think of someone other than yourself.”

  “Pardon?” I said.

  “Damn you,” she said. “Damn you to hell.”

  Then she beat my face with her little fists, cutting and bruising my lip and cheek and the edge of my eye. I stood with my hands at my sides and let her do it and never blinked. I stood like that until her fingers knitted themselves in my hair and tears leaked from her eyes, and I did not move even when she pulled my face down to hers and kissed my eyelids and my mouth and smeared my blood on her hair. Nor did I defend myself when she stood on top of my shoes and opened my shirt and kissed and bit my chest.

  “I’m sorry for the pain you feel, Ms. Balangie,” I said. “I just don’t know what I can do about it.”

  She pressed the side of her face against my heart. I placed both hands between her shoulder blades. Her hair smelled like the Caribbean. I felt a throbbing inside me I could barely restrain, and I could think of no words to say to my Higher Power other than I’m sorry for this.

  * * *

  FOUR DAYS LATER, Clete Purcel was back from New Orleans. He called in the early morning and asked me to meet him for breakfast at Victor’s Cafeteria on Main. “Something happen in the Big Sleazy?” I said.

  “I’m feeling a lot better, that’s all,” he replied. “I’ll tell you about it.”

  Victor’s was right across the street from Clete’s office, not far from the drawbridge. He was waiting for me by the front entrance. The air was cool and damp, the pavement still in shadow, the buildings dripping with moisture. He was wearing a soft wool suit with a crisp dark brown shirt and a shiny thin brown belt and brown alligator loafers. His eyes were clear, his cheeks rosy. “You look sharp,” I said.

  “Let’s get some eats,” he said.

  Inside, he stacked his tray with ham and scrambled eggs and grits and gravy and laid in to it, bending forward each time he put a fork-load in his mouth. “What’d you get into while I was gone?” he said.

  “I’m back at the department.”

  “Your face.”

  “A lady got emotional. It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “What’s the lady’s name?”

  “I already forgot. You said you were feeling better and you were going to tell me about it.”

  He glanced up at the stamped tin ceiling, his eyelids fluttering. I could hear his shoes tapping up and down under the table. “Okay, here it is,” he said. “I figured out some of those things that happened in the Keys.”

  I should have been happy about his resilience. But I wasn’t. I knew the syndrome too well. Denial, as we call it today, is the brain’s anodyne and far less harmful in most situations than the booze that people like me soak their heads in. In this instance, I believed my best friend was not only lying to himself but setting himself up for another disastrous fall.

  “See, I was hitting the sauce as soon as I got to Lauderdale, then I really turned on the spigot down in Key West and got sapped by that cop who was probably working for Eddy Firpo. They dosed me up with purple acid, and I started having hallucinations about my childhood, and I imagined this guy in the hoodie was my father or something like that.”

  “How do you explain the galleon out on the salt?”

  “I told you, I had a dream about a galleon earlier.”

  “Right, the same dream I had,” I said. “What are the chances of that?”

  “Dave, think about it. You’re always talking about slave ships and the Middle Passage. How about that place on the bayou where you say Jean Lafitte used to moor his boat and sell slaves and loot to the locals? The mooring chains are still in the tree, right up the bayou from the old Burke house, right or wrong? How many times have you told me those stories about digging for Lafitte’s treasure when you were a kid?”

  “You’re right,” I said.

  “See?” he said, pointing his fork at me. “There’s always an answer to these things.”

  “I’ve got another question for you,” I said. “How does a kid like Johnny Shondell run off the guy in the hoodie as well as the guy’s friends?”

  “Maybe the guy in the hoodie was by himself. Maybe the guy is a freak and a meltdown and a sack of shit and didn’t want to cap Mark Shondell’s nephew and decided to get lost.”

  I gave up. But in so doing, I knew what was coming next. “So what happened when I was gone?” he said, gazing at the cut on my lip and the scratch and bruise next to my eye.

  “Nothing.”

  “Penelope Balangie came to town?”

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  He stopped eating. “I don’t believe this. You’re telling me y’all got it on?”

  “I don’t ask you questions like that. Why don’t you show me the same respect?”

  “You plowed the wife of Adonis Balangie?”

  “Why don’t you write it on the wall?”

  “Did you or didn’t you?”

  “They’re not married. They’ve never had marital relations, either.” I could feel my voice starting to break. “Or at least that’s what she said. And I didn’t say I did anything.”

  “Are you out of your mind? You cuckold a greaseball and he’ll come at you with a blowtorch. It doesn’t matter if the wife looks like the bride of Frankenstein.”

  People were starting to look at us. “I’ll see you outside.”

  “Sit down,” he said, lowering his voice. “Just tell me the truth. Your plunger took over your brain or it didn’t. It happens. Just don’t lie about it.”

  “I’m not going to talk about her on that level,” I said.

  “She says she lives with a gash hound like Adonis but she doesn’t come across? Dave, you’re not that stupid.”

  “I believe what she said.”

  “I’m going back to my office and see if I can get you admitted to the state asylum. I thought I had problems.”

  “She had a flat in front of my house and an inadequate spare. She stayed over.”

  “An inadequate spare? That’s great. Anything else inadequate? Did the neighbors get an eyeful?”

  My scalp felt tight, my face hot. He got up and put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. “Don’t answer that. I didn’t mean to be hard on you. But you’ve gotten us into a pile of it, big mon, and you know it.”

  He went out the door, the sunlight from outside splintering through the room, most of his breakfast uneaten.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT THE weather was rainy and cold in New Orleans, with few tourists on the sidewalks by the French Market and the Café du Monde, and no one paid particular attention to the tall, slender man in a hooded slicker crossing Jackson Square. He paused in front of St. Louis Cathedral and looked up at the towering spires and the rain spinning out of the sky, his mouth open like a supplicant’s. He continued his journey down Pirate’s Alley, past the small bookstore that was once the residence of William Faulkner, past the piked iron fence and live-oak trees behind the cathedral, and finally to a walled courtyard where the man had rented a room in a guesthouse.

  He entered the courtyard but was studying the philodendron and elephant ears and caladiums and rosebushes and banana plants in the flower beds when a couple with children passed him with umbrellas over their heads. After they were gone, he unlocked the door to his room and went inside. Down the block, a band was blaring from a strip club, the front doors open, while topless women danced on a stage.

  The man removed his raincoat and hung it on the showerhead in the bathroom, then sat on the bed and looked
at himself in the mirror. His head was shaped like a snake’s and his skin was the pale green of latex, his nose little more than a bump. He stared at the floor with his hands pinched between his knees.

  He opened a small address book and dialed a number on the telephone by the night lamp. “Sea Breeze Escort Service,” a woman’s voice said.

  “I need a girl,” the man said.

  “Where are you located?”

  The man gave her the address of the guesthouse.

  “Is that in the Quarter?” the woman asked.

  “Yes.”

  “The Sea Breeze doesn’t serve the Quarter anymore.”

  “Give me the number of somebody who does.”

  There was a pause. “Tell them Dora gave it to you. They owe me one.”

  Twenty minutes later, there was a knock on the door. He put on the night chain and eased open the door and looked at the profile of a young black woman who was staring through the gate at a taxi parked by the curb, its headlights tunneling in the rain. He turned off the lights inside the room, unhooked the night chain, and pulled the black woman inside.

  “Hello,” he said. “I’m Gideon. I hope you’ll forgive me for bringing you out on such a bad night.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  SHE WAS SHORT, probably not more than twenty-five, her black hair flowing like paint, her skin smooth and dark and free of scars. She wore a white blouse and a pink wool jacket and a skirt that exposed her knees. Her hands were locked on top of her purse; her eyes were bright with fear as she stared into Gideon’s face.

  He took a plate of beignets from the refrigerator and set them on the table. “I got these at the Café du Monde. I thought you might like some.”

  “I ain’t hungry.”

  “I have a bottle of wine, too.”

  “The man in the cab needs seventy-five dol’ars. That’s for one hour. More than that, you pay it to me.”

  “I see,” Gideon said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He draped his raincoat over his head and went through the courtyard and jumped into the front seat of the cab, slamming the door before the driver could react. In seconds, the driver started the cab and drove down the street and turned a corner. Ten minutes later, Gideon returned to the room on foot, out of breath, his face peppered with rain. “Well, we have that out of the way,” he said.