DR08 - Burning Angel

by James Lee Burke

  Delia Landry had been murdered, in all probability, because of her association with Sonny. The first remark out of Johnny's mouth had been a slur about Sonny's misuse of women, as if to say, perhaps, that the fate of those who involved themselves with him was Sonny's responsibility and not anyone else's.

  But maybe I was simply in another cul-de-sac, looking for meaning where there was none.

  As I got into my truck three of Johnny Carp's hoods were standing by the back of his Lincoln. They wore slacks with knife creases, tasseled loafers, short-sleeve tropical shirts, gold chains on their necks, and lightly oiled boxed haircuts. But steroids had become fashionable with the mob, too, and their torsos and arms were thick with muscle like gnarled oak about to split the skin.

  They were taking turns firing a .22 revolver at tin cans and the birds feeding along the dirt road that led between the trash heaps. They glanced at me briefly, then continued shooting.

  “I'd like to drive out of here without getting shot,” I said. There was no response. One man broke open the revolver, shucked out the hulls, and began reloading. He looked at me meaningfully. “Thanks, I appreciate it,” I said. I drove down the road, tapping my horn as cattle egrets on each side of me lifted into the air. In my rearview mirror I saw Johnny Carp walk out of his office and join his men, all of them looking at me now, I was sure, with the quiet and patient energies of creatures whose thoughts you never truly wish to know.

  Friday night I went to the parish library and began to read about Jean Lafitte. Most of the material repeated in one form or another the traditional stories about the pirate who joined forces with Andrew Jackson to defeat the British at the Battle of New Orleans, the ships he “robbed on the high seas, the gangs of cutthroats he lived with in Barataria and Galveston, his death somewhere in the Yucatan. He had been considered a romantic and intriguing figure by New Orleans society, probably because none of them had been his victims. But also in the library was an article written by a local historian at the turn of the century that did not treat Lafitte as kindly. His crimes did not stop with piracy and murder. He had been a blackbirder and was transporting African slaves into the country after the prohibition of 1809. He sold his stolen goods as well as human cargo on the banks of the Teche. Milton and Shakespeare both said lucidity and power lay in the world of dreams. For me, that has always meant that sleep and the unconscious can define what daylight and rationality cannot. That night, as a wind smelling of salt and wet sand and humus blew across the swamp, I dreamed of what Bayou Teche must have been like when the country was new, when the most severe tool or weapon was shaped from a stone, the forest floor covered with palmettos, the moss-hung canopy so thick and tall that in the suffused sunlight the trunks looked like towering gray columns in a Gothic cathedral. In the dream the air was breathless, like steam caught under a glass bell, an autumnal yellow moon dissected with a single strip of black cloud overhead, and then I saw a long wood ship with furled masts being pulled up the bayou on ropes by Negroes who stumbled along the banks through the reeds and mud, their bodies rippling with sweat in the firelight. On the deck of the ship were their women and children, their cloth bundles gathered among them, their eyes peering ahead into the bayou's darkness, as though an explanation for their fear and misery were somehow at hand.

  The auction was held under the oaks at the foot of the old Voorhies property. The Negroes did not speak English, French, or Spanish, so indigenous histories were created for them. The other property did not offer as great a problem. The gold and silver plate, the trunks filled with European fashions, the bejeweled necklaces and swords and scrolled flintlocks, all had belonged to people whose final histories were written in water somewhere in the Caribbean.

  In a generation or two the banks of Spanish Lake and Bayou Teche would be lined with plantations, and people would eat off gold plate whose origins were only an interesting curiosity. The slaves who worked the sawmills, cane fields, and the salt domes out in the wetlands would speak the language and use the names of their owners, and the day when a large sailing ship appeared innocuously on a river in western Africa, amidst a green world of birds and hummocks, would become the stuff of oral legend, confused with biblical history and allegory, and finally forgotten.

  I believed the dream. I remembered the oak trees at the foot of the Voorhies property, when lengths of mooring chain, driven with huge spikes into the trunks, grew in and out of the bark like calcified rust-sheathed serpents. Over the years, the chains had been drawn deeper into the heart of the tree, like orange-encrusted iron cysts in the midst of living tissue or perhaps unacknowledged and unforgiven sins.

  At breakfast Saturday morning Bootsie said, ”Oh, I forgot, Dave, Julia Bertrand called last night. She invited us out to their camp at Pecan Island next Saturday.“

  The kitchen window was open, and the sky was full of white clouds.

  ”What'd you tell her?“ I said. ”I thought it was a nice idea. We don't see them often.“

  ”You told her we'd come?“

  ”No, I didn't. I said I'd check to see if you had anything planned.“

  ”How about we let this one slide?“

  ”They're nice people, Dave.“

  ”There's something off-center out at Moleen's plantation.“

  ”All right, I'll call her back.“ She tried to keep the disappointment out of her face. ”Maybe it's just me, Bootsie. I never got along well in that world.“

  ” That world?“

  ”They think they're not accountable. Moleen always gives me the impression he lives in rarefied air.“

  ”What are you talking about?“

  ”Nothing. Call Julia up and tell her we'll be out there.“

  ”Dave“ she said, the exasperation climbing in her voice. ”Believe me, it's part of a game. So we'll check it out.“

  ”I think this is a good morning to work in the garden,“ she said. It rained hard that night, and when I fell asleep I thought I heard a motorboat pass by the dock. After the rain stopped, the air was damp and close and a layer of mist floated on the bayou as thick as cotton. Just after midnight the phone rang. I closed the bedroom door behind me and answered it in the living room. The house was dark and cool and water was dripping off the tin roof of the gallery. ”Mr. Robicheaux?“ a man's voice said. ”Yeah. Who is this?“

  ”Jack.“

  ”Jack?“

  ”You found a dog tag. We tried to get your friend out. You want to hear about it?“ There was no accent, no emotional tone in the voice. ”What do you want, partner?“

  ”To explain some things you probably don't understand.“

  ”Come to the office Monday. Don't call my house again, either.“

  ”Look out your front window.“ I pulled aside the curtain and stared out into the darkness. I could see nothing except the mist floating on the bayou and a smudged red glow from a gas flare on an oil rig out in the swamp. Then, out on the dock, a tall, angular man in raincoat and hat flicked on a flashlight and shined it upward into his face. He held a cellular phone to his ear and the skin of his face was white and deeply lined, like papier-mache that has started to crack. Then the light clicked off again. I picked the phone back up. ”You're trespassing on my property. I want you off of it,“ I said. ”Walk down to the dock.“ Don't fall into it, I thought. ”Put the light back on your face and keep your hands away from your sides,“ I said. ”That's acceptable.“

  ”I'm going to hang up now. Then I'll be down in about two minutes.“

  ”No. You don't break the connection.“ I let the receiver clatter on the table and went back into the bedroom. I slipped on my khakis and loafers, and removed my holstered .45 automatic from the dresser drawer. Bootsie was sleeping with the pillow partially over her head. I closed the door quietly behind me, pulled back the slide on the .45 and chambered a round, eased the hammer back down, set the safety, then stuck the barrel inside the back of my belt. I picked up the receiver. ”You still there, partner?“ I said. ”Yes.“

&nb
sp; ”Turn on your flashlight.“

  ”What an excellent idea.“ I went out the front door and down the slope through the trees. He had moved out on the dirt road now and I could see him more clearly. He was well over six feet, with arms that seemed too thin for the sleeves of his raincoat, wide shoulders, a face as grooved and webbed with lines as dried putty. His left coat pocket sagged with the weight of the cellular phone and his left hand now held the flashlight. His lips were purple in the beam of the flashlight, like the skin of a plum. His eyes watched me with the squinted focus of someone staring through smoke. ”Put your right hand behind your neck,“ I said. ”That's not dignified.“

  ”Neither are jerk-off games involving the death of a brave soldier.“

  ”Your friend could still be alive.“ He raised his right hand, hooked it above his lapel, and let it rest there. I watched him and didn't answer. ”Sonny Marsallus is a traitor,“ he said. ”I think it's time we look at your identification.“

  ”You don't listen well.“

  ”You made a mistake coming here tonight.“

  ”I don't think so. You have a distinguished war record. Marsallus doesn't. He's for sale.“

  ”I want you to turn around, walk back to the dock, and place your hands on the rail .. .

  Just do it, partner. It's not up for debate.“ But he didn't move. I could feel sweat running down my sides like ants, but the face of the man named Jack, who wore a hat and coat, was as dry as parchment. His eyes remained riveted on mine, like brown agate with threads of gold in them. Then I heard a sound out in the shadows. ”Hey, Jack, what's shakin'?“ a voice said. Jack twisted his head sideways and stared out into the darkness. ”It's Sonny,“ the voice said. ”Hey, Dave, watch out for ole Jack there. He carries a sawed-down twelve-gauge on a bungee rope in his right armpit. Peel back your raincoat, Jack, and let Dave have a peek.“ But that was not in Jack's plan. He dropped the flashlight to the ground and bolted past me up the road. Then I saw Sonny move out from under the overhang of a live oak, a Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter gripped at an upward angle with both hands. ”Get out of the way, Dave!“ he shouted. ”Are you crazy? Put that down!“

  But Sonny swung wide of me and aimed with both arms stretched straight out in front of him. Then he began firing, crack, crack, crack, crack, fire leaping out of the barrel, the empty brass cartridges clinking on the road. He picked up the flashlight the man named Jack had dropped and shined it down the road. ”Look at the ground, Dave, right by that hole in the bushes,“ he said. ”I think Jack just sprung a leak.“ Then he called out into the darkness, ”Hey, Jack, how's it feel?“

  ”Give me the gun, Sonny.“

  ”Sorry, Streak .. . I'm sorry to do this to you, too .. . No, no, don't move. I'm just going to take your piece. Now, let's walk over here to the dock and hook up.“

  ”You're going across the line, Sonny.“

  ”There's just one line that counts, Dave, the one between the good guys and the shit bags He worked a pair of open handcuffs from the back pocket of his blue jeans. “Put your hands on each side of the rail. You worried about procedure? That guy I just punched a drain hole in, dig this, you heard the Falangist joke down in Taco Tico country about the Flying Nun? This isn't a shuck, either. Some of the junta fucks in Argentina wanted a couple of nuns, human rights types, turned into object lessons. The guy who threw them out of a Huey at a thousand feet was our man Jack. ”See you around, Streak. I'll make sure you get your piece back.“ Then he disappeared through the broken bushes where the wounded man had fled. I raked the chain on the cuffs against the dock railing while mosquitoes droned around my head and my eyes stung with sweat and humiliation at my own failure and ineptitude.

  Chapter 10

  I HAD gone down to the office Sunday morning and made my report, a mail clerk at the post office called the dispatcher and said that during the night someone had dropped an army-issue .45 automatic through a post office mail slot. The .45 had been wrapped in a paper bag with my name written on the outside. It was hot and bright at noon, with a breeze blowing out of the south, and Clete Purcel walked with me along the dirt road to the spot where Sonny and the man named Jack had entered the brush and run down the bayou's bank toward the four corners. The blood on the leaves was coated with dust from the road. ”It looks like Sonny really cored a hole in the guy. He didn't show up at a hospital?“

  ”Not yet.“ We walked through the brush and down to the bank. The deep imprints in the mud left by Sonny and the man named Jack were now crisscrossed with the shoe prints of the deputies who had followed Jack's blood trail to a break in the cattails where the bow of a flat-bottomed boat had been dragged onto the sand. Clete squatted down heavily, slipped a piece of cardboard under one knee, and looked back up the bank toward the dock. He wore a pair of baggy, elastic-wasted shorts with dancing zebras printed on them. He took off his porkpie hat and twirled it on his index finger. ”Did you ever see the sawed-down twelve?“ he asked. ”No.“

  ”You think he was carrying one?“

  ”I don't know, Clete.“

  ”But you know a guy like that was carrying a piece of some kind? Right?“ We looked at each other. ”So the question is, why didn't he try to pop Sonny with it? He could have waited for him in the dark and parked one in his brisket,“ he said. ”Because he dropped it,“ I said. Then I said, ”And why didn't anyone find it last night?“ He was spinning his hat on his finger now. His eyes were green and full of light. ”Because it fell in the water,“ he said, and lumbered to his feet. It didn't take long. Seventy feet back down the bank, where the water eddied around a sunken and rotted pirogue that was green and fuzzy with moss, we saw the barrel of the twelve-gauge glinting wetly among the reeds and the wake from a passing boat. The barrel was sawed off at the pump and impacted with sand. The stock had been shaved and shaped with a wood rasp and honed into a pistol grip. A two-foot length of bungee cord, the kind you use to strap down luggage, was looped and screwed into the butt. Clete shook the sand out of the barrel and jacked open the breech. Yellow water gushed out of the mechanism with the unfired shell. Then he jacked four more rounds out on the ground. I picked them up and they felt heavy and wet and filmed with grit in my palm. ”Our man doesn't use a sportsman's plug,“ Clete said. He looked at the shells in my hand. ”Are those pumpkin balls?“

  ”Yeah, you don't see them anymore.“

  ”He probably loads his own rounds. This guy's got the smell of a mechanic, Streak.“ He peeled a stick of gum with one hand and put it in his mouth, his eyes thoughtful. ”I hate to say this, but maybe dick-brain saved your life.“ Down by the dock a teenage kid was holding up a stringer of perch for a friend to see. He wore a bright-chrome-plated watchband on his wrist. ”You don't think this guy's a button man, he's mobbed-up?“ Clete asked. ”I was thinking about Sonny .. . the handcuffs .. . the way he took me down.“ Clete blew into the open breech of the shotgun, closed it, and snapped the firing pin on the empty chamber. He studied my face. ”Listen, Sonny's a walking hand-job. Stop thinking what you're thinking,“ he said. ”Then why are you thinking the same thing?“

  ”I'm not. A guy like Sonny isn't born, he's defecated into the world. I should have stuffed him down a toilet with a plumber's helper a long time ago.“

  ”I've seen federal agents with the same kind of cuffs.“

  ”This guy's no cop. You buy into his re bop and he'll piss in your shoe,“ he said, and put the shotgun hard into my hands. Clete ate lunch with us, then I went down to the bait shop and picked up a Styrofoam cooler that I had filled with ice Friday afternoon. The corner of a black garbage bag protruded from under the lid. I walked back up the incline through the shade and set the cooler in the bed of my truck. Clete was picking up pecans from under the trees and cracking them in his hands. ”You want to take a ride to Breaux Bridge?“ I asked. ”I thought we were going fishing,“ he said. ”I hear Sweet Pea Chaisson has rented a place out by the old seminary.“

  He smiled broadly. We took the four-lane into
Lafayette, then drove down the road toward Breaux Bridge, past Holy Rosary, the old Negro Catholic school, a graveyard with tombs above the ground, the Carmelite convent, and the seminary. Sweet Pea's rented house was a flat-roofed yellow brick building shielded by a hedge of dying azalea bushes. The lot next door was filled with old building materials and pieces of iron that were threaded with weeds and crisscrossed with morning glory vines. No one was home. An elderly black man was cleaning up dog feces in the yard with a shovel. ”He taken the ladies to the restaurant down on Cameron in Lafayette, down by the fo' corners,“ he said. ”Which restaurant?“ I said. ”The one got smoke comin' out the back.“

  ”It's a barbecue place?“ I said. ”The man own it always burning garbage out there. You'll smell it befo' you see it.“ We drove down Cameron through the black district in Lafayette. Up ahead was an area known as Four Corners, where no number of vice arrests ever seemed to get the hookers off of the sidewalks and out of the motels. ”There's his Caddy,“ Clete said, and pointed out the window. ”Check this place, will you? His broads must have rubber stomach liners.“ I parked in a dirt lot next to a wood frame building with paint that had blistered and curled into shapes like blown chicken feathers and with a desiccated privy and smoking incinerator in back. ”We're not only off your turf, big mon, we're in the heart of black town. You feel comfortable with this?“ Clete said when we were outside the truck. ”The locals don't mind,“ I said. ”You checked in with them?“

  ”Not really.“ He looked at me. ”Sweet Pea's a pro. It's not a big deal,“

  I said. I reached inside the Styrofoam cooler and pulled the vinyl garbage bag out. It swung heavily from my hand, dripping ice and water. ”What are you doing?“ Clete said.

  ”I think Sweet Pea helped set up Helen Soileau.“