James Burke - Robicheaux

It was Alafair. “Clete called. He says you’re in trouble.”

“I’ll get out of it.”

“He said you were in the bag.”

“No,” I said. “I mean I’m not drinking now.”

“You stopped going to meetings?”

“I went last night.”

“What’s this about the guy who hit Molly’s car?”

“I was in a blackout. The guy was beaten to death out by Bayou Benoit. Maybe I did it.”

The phone went silent. In the backyard, the sun and the smoke from meat fires in the park looked like spun gold in the trees. In my mind’s eye, I saw Alafair at age five, after I pulled her from a submerged plane piloted by a Maryknoll priest who was helping illegals escape the death squads in Central America. I thought about the wonderful life we’d had on the bayou.

“You never hurt anyone except in defense of yourself or someone else,” she said. “I’m flying into New Orleans tomorrow.”

“That’s not necessary, Alfenheimer.”

“Don’t call me that stupid name.”

“How’s your screenplay coming?”

“I’m writing it for people who think William Shakespeare was too wordy. How do you think it’s coming?”

“What time does your flight come in?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll rent a car. Just hold tight till I get back to New Iberia.”

“I owned up at a meeting. I’m fine.”

“That’s when people slip, isn’t it? When they say they’re fine. Why’d you drink, Dave?”

“The same reason as everyone who goes out. I wanted to.” The line was silent. I felt my heart stop. “Alafair?”

“You don’t know how much it hurts when you say something like that.”

My ear felt as though it had been stung by a wasp.

Victor’s cafeteria on Main Street, right across from Clete’s office, opened at six A.M. every weekday. It was a grand place to eat and start the day, and usually crowded with businesspeople and tourists and cops and parish politicians. If there was any better food on earth, I hadn’t found it. Clete and I went in at seven on Tuesday, and Clete loaded up with his healthy breakfast of four biscuits, scrambled eggs sprinkled with grated cheese, green onions, and bacon bits, a pork chop smothered in milk gravy, orange juice, a bowl of stewed tomatoes, and multiple cups of coffee.

Helen was two tables from us; it was obvious she didn’t want to acknowledge us.

“What’s wrong with her ?” Clete said.

“You didn’t talk to anyone in Jefferson Davis Parish about an incident there, did you?”

He stopped eating. “Involving you?”

“Involving a graduate of Raiford and Angola and Quentin we both know.”

“Something happened to Penny?”

“You could say that.”

He took his cell phone from his pocket and looked at the screen. “I’ve got four missed calls from the Jeff Davis Sheriff’s Department.”

“Better answer them.”

“This isn’t funny, big mon.”

“Penny didn’t think so, either.”

He started eating again, then put down his knife and fork and drank his coffee cup empty. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“To the park.”

“How about your office?”

“You know how many times I’ve been bugged?”

We walked to the drawbridge at Burke Street and crossed the bayou and went into City Park and sat in one of the picnic shelters by the water, a few feet from a row of camellia bushes, the petals still wet with dew. I told him everything.

“You almost drowned him in the toilet?”

“Yep.”

“He’ll come at you.”

“No, he won’t. He’s a gutless shit.”

“You’re letting your past distort your thinking, Streak. The people who hurt you and me as kids are nothing compared to Penny.”

“They’re all cut out of the same cloth.”

“My old man wasn’t. He was just a drunk who figured himself a failure and didn’t know where to put his anger.”

People make peace with themselves in different ways, sometimes being more generous than they should. But you don’t pull life preservers away from drowning people or deny an opiate or two to those who have taken up residence in the Garden of Gethsemane.

“Did you get enough to eat?” I asked.

“No.”

I looked at my watch. “We have time for a refill.”

Clete had alluded to my childhood experience with a man named Mack. I didn’t argue with him about the influence of Mack on my life. In fact, I don’t think about Mack anymore. Eventually, he turned into a specter who drifted off into the mist, a dirty smudge not worth remembering. But there was never a man I hated as much, and I carried my hatred to Indochina and put his face on many an enemy solider, none of whom deserved to be a surrogate for this evil man. For that reason alone I did not willingly discuss my experience in the Orient, or the deeds I committed there, or the ribbons and wounds I brought home. Evil is evil, and you don’t give the son of a bitch a second life.

At 10:41 A.M., Helen came into my office and looked out the window on the bayou. She had a manila folder clamped under her arm. “Rowena and Levon Broussard just left,” she said.

“Were they here for what I think?”

“I took her statement. He says he talked with you late yesterday.”

“That’s right.”

“What’s your opinion?” she asked.

“I didn’t get many details. Alcohol seemed to be involved. No medical report. What’d they tell you?”

“She and Nightingale went to a lounge. They had four rounds of Manhattans. Then he wanted to show her his boat down at Cypremort Point. That’s where he did it.”

“What time of day?”

“About ten P.M.”

When I didn’t answer, she said, “Not good, huh?”

“I wonder if it’s going to be prosecutable. She’s married. It sounds like a tryst.”

“I pushed her on that. She said she and her husband had a fight and she used bad judgment.”

“Where was her car?”

“At the supermarket.”

“How’d she get back to it?”

“Nightingale drove her. Don’t make that face.”

“The defense will put a scarlet letter on her brow,” I said.

“We won’t let that happen, though,” Helen said. “Will we?”

“We?”

She put the folder on my desk.

“No,” I said.

“I’ve got the video in my office. Let’s get started.”

“I’m not right for this,” I said.

“How about you go on leave without pay instead?”

“I know all the involved parties, Helen.”

“Like everybody in this building doesn’t?”

I flipped open the folder and flipped it closed again. “What’s her emotional state?”

“Like a vase somebody dropped on a concrete floor,” she said.

“I never heard of Jimmy Nightingale abusing women.”

“His casinos clean out the pockets of pensioners and poor people. He hangs with Bobby Earl. He’s business partners with Tony the Nose. Remember when Tony and Didoni Giacano used to stick people’s hands in an aquarium full of piranhas?”

“Those were the good old days,” I said.

“Time to kick butt and take names, Streak.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I watched the video. As in most interviews with sexual assault victims, the dialogue, the violation of privacy, and the demeanor of the victim were excruciating. For anyone who has a cavalier attitude about predation, he need only watch its influence on the victims in order to change his attitude. They cannot scrub the stain out of their skin. Over and over again, the assault flickers like a sado-porn film on a screen inside their heads, sometimes for months, sometimes years. This goes on until they turn over the fate of their assailant to a power greater than they are. I’ve known nine or ten rapists who beat the system. I was convinced every one of them carried an incubus that eventually pissed on their graves.