James Burke - Last Car to Elysian Fields

“Un-huh,” she said vaguely.

“That was Leadbelly’s song. The Midnight Special was a train he rode into the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. According to the prison legend, the convict who saw the headlight on the locomotive shining at him in his sleep was going to be released in the coming year.”

But I saw she had still not made the connection.

“Your father didn’t want to answer questions about Junior Crudup, Theo,” I said. “Crudup was Leadbelly’s friend inside Angola. They probably composed songs together. I think Crudup was a convict laborer on your father’s plantation.”

She continued snapping her guitar case shut and never looked at me while I spoke. But I could see what I thought was a great sadness in her eyes. She reached over and petted the cat good-bye, then turned toward me. “You have an enormous reservoir of anger inside you, Dave. I guess I feel sorry for you,” she said.

The next morning events kicked into overdrive, beginning with a phone call from Clotile Arceneaux, the black patrolwoman who Helen said was an undercover state trooper.

“We’ve got Father Jimmie Dolan in custody,” she said.

“Are you serious?” I said.

“As a material witness. He won’t give up Max Coil’s whereabouts.”

“Which administrative moron is behind this?” I said.

She paused before she spoke again. “Coll tried to kill the priest but he won’t press charges. So a couple of detectives figured Father Jimmie is not a friend of N.O.P.D. and decided to put the squeeze on him. Look, the word on the street is there’s an open contract on Max Coll. We need this guy out of town or in lock-up. We also don’t need trouble from Catholic priests.”

“Can’t help you,” I said, and hung up the phone.

She called back three hours later. “Guess who?” she said.

“Same answer as before,” I said.

“Try this. We just heard from Miami-Dade P.D. Max Coll flew into Ft.

Lauderdale, whacked two grease balls who were getting laid on a yacht, then caught the last flight back to New Orleans. At least that’s what they think. Get Dolan out of Central Lock-Up. Better yet, get him out of the state,” she said.

But I didn’t have to spring Father Jimmie. The bishop and Father Jimmie’s conservative colleagues at his church came through for him, evidently making trouble from the mayor’s office on down through the chain of command at N.O.P.D.

Father Jimmie called me at home that evening. “You know the story of Typhoid Mary?” he said.

“A nineteenth-century cook or kitchen helper who caused problems everywhere she went?” I replied.

“The bishop is recommending I travel somewhere that’s quiet and rustic.

Maybe do a little bass fishing. I think anywhere outside of New Orleans would be fine with him,” he said.

I shut my eyes and tried not to think about what he was obviously suggesting. “Straight up, Jimmie. Do you know where Max Coll is hiding?”

“Absolutely not,” he said.

“Why didn’t you file charges against him?”

“The cops need a Catholic minister to tell them Coil’s a killer?”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Want to entertain the bass?” I asked.

Father Jimmie moved into a back room of my house and the weekend passed uneventfully. On Monday Clete called the department and asked me to meet him for lunch at Victor’s Cafeteria.

It was crowded with noontime customers, the wood-bladed fans turning high above us on the stamped-tin ceiling, the steam tables arrayed with Friday specials featuring shrimp or catfish or étouffée. Clete’s plate was piled with dirty rice and brown gravy, kidney beans, and two deep-fried pork chops. He wore an electric blue shirt and white sports coat, his face red with sunburn from a tarpon-fishing trip out on the salt. “Dolan’s at your place, huh?” he said.

I nodded, waiting for him to begin one of his lectures. But he surprised me.

“There’s an N.O.P.D. snitch I pay a few bucks to. He called me this morning about a bail skip who’s hid out in Morgan City. Then he mentions this guy Max Coll. He says Coll capped two high-level Miami grease balls and there’s a fifty thou open whack on him. Which means every street rat in New Orleans is crawling out of the sewer grates.”

“Yeah, I heard about it.”

“Right,” Clete said, feeding a half piece of bread into his mouth.

“Well, tell me if you’ve heard this. At seven this morning either Frank Dellacroce or his clone was in the donut shop by the railway tracks.”

“Here, in New Iberia? The guy you saw shooting pool in Fat Sammy’s house?”

“He came out of the donut shop just when I was going in. At first he couldn’t believe his bad luck. Then he puts on a wise-ass grin and says, “You fish for green trout over here, Purcel?” I go, “No, I’m looking for a needle dick who puts his own child in a refrigerator.

Know anybody like that, Frank?”

“He goes, “That story is a lie my wife’s lawyer spread about me during our divorce. So why don’t you either pull your head out of your ass or mind your own fucking business?””

People around us were quietly picking up their plates and trays and moving to tables farther away from us.

“Just then two more grease balls come out of the donut shop. One used to be a shooter for the Giacanos. The other one I don’t know.”

“How do you read it?” I asked.

“They think Dolan knows where Coll is hiding. Any way you cut it, big mon, you’ve let Dolan piss in your shoe.”

“Can we take our food to the park?” I said. “What’s the problem?”

“I think we’re about to get thrown out of here.”

“What for?” he said, still chewing, his face filled with puzzlement.

After I returned from lunch I went into Helen’s office. She was talking on the phone, standing up, a pair of handcuffs pulled through the back of her belt. Before she hung up I heard her say, “You don’t have to tell me.” Then she looked at me blankly. “What is it?” she said.

“Clete says three New Orleans wiseguys are in town. They’re after a rogue button man by the name of Max Coll,” I said.

“They’re staying at the Holiday,” she said.

“How do you know that?”

“The manager called earlier. The grease balls have hookers in their rooms and are scaring the shit out of the staff. I was about to tell you about it but I got a call from a guy at the chamber of commerce. He says you and Clete Purcel had a conversation in Victor’s Cafeteria that made a third of the room move their tables.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Dave, I’ve told you before, we have enough problems of our own. What does it take to make you understand that?”

The room was silent. I heard a warning bell clanging at the railroad crossing and a freight train clattering down the tracks. “You want the wiseguys out of town?” I said.

“I hate to tell you what I want,” she said.

“Just say it, Helen.”

She spit a hangnail off her tongue. “Meet you outside,” she said.

We arrived in four cruisers at the Holiday Inn out by the four-lane. My experience with the Mob or its members had never been one that possessed any degree of romance. In fact, my encounters with them always made me feel as though I had walked inside the drabness and urban desperation of an Edward Hopper painting. Although it was Monday and the motel was almost empty, Frank Dellacroce and his two friends had taken a row of rooms in back, facing the highway, where road noise echoed off the windows and doors of their building. Their cars were brand new, waxed and shining, but were parked by an overflowing Dumpster, out of which trash feathered in the wind and scudded across the asphalt. The sun was barely distinguishable in the sky, the air close with an odor like fish roe that has dried on a beach; the only sign of life in the scene was a palm tree whose yellowed fronds rattled dryly in the wind.