James Burke - The Glass Rainbow

“I’m sorry,” he said, as though the event were yesterday.

I waited for Kermit to introduce Clete, but he didn’t. “Miss Jewel, would you get Pa’pere ready to go to Lafayette? He’s having dinner with friends this evening. I’ll have the car brought around.”

“Yes, suh,” the nurse said.

“Come on, Dave, let’s go out here on the porch,” Kermit said, jiggling his fingers at me, using my first name now, showing some of the imperious manner that I associated with his background. I was beginning to wonder if my earlier sympathies with him had been misplaced.

Entering the sunporch was like stepping into another environment, one that was as different from the interior of the house as a sick ward is from a brightly lit fairground on a summer evening. The windows on the porch were paneled with stained-glass designs of bluebirds and parrots, kneeling saints, chains of camellias and roses and orchids, unicorns and satyrs at play, a knight in red armor impaling a dragon with a spear. The western sunlight shining through the panels created a stunning effect, like shards of brilliant color splintering apart and re-forming themselves inside a kaleidoscope.

“Sorry to be late for our little repast,” Robert Weingart said behind me.

He was wearing sandals and a terry-cloth robe that was cinched tightly around his waist, his hair wet and freshly combed, his small mouth pursed in an expression that I suspected was meant to indicate sophistication and long experience with upscale social situations. Kermit introduced Clete to him, but Clete did not shake hands. Nor did I.

A confession is needed here. Most cops do not like ex-felons. They don’t trust them, and they think they got what they deserved, no matter how bad a joint they did their time in. In the best of cases, cops may wish an ex-felon well, even help him out with a job or a bad PO, but they do not break bread with him or ever pretend that his criminal inclinations evaporated at the completion of his sentence.

By no stretch of the imagination could Robert Weingart be put in a best-case category.

The glass-topped table was set with place mats and tiny forks and spoons and demitasse cups and bowls of crawfish salad, hot sauce, veined shrimp, dirty rice, and soft-crusted fried eggplant. Two dark green bottles of wine were shoved deep in a silver ice bucket, alongside two cans of Dr Pepper. Neither Clete nor I sat down.

“Well, time waits on no man,” Robert Weingart said, sitting down by himself. He dipped a shrimp in red sauce and bit into it, then began reading a folded newspaper that had been in the pocket of his robe as though the rest of us were not there.

“You know Herman Stanga?” I asked Weingart.

“Can’t say I’ve heard of him,” he replied, not looking up from his paper.

“That’s funny. Herman says he’s working for the St. Jude Project,” I said. “That’s your group, isn’t it?”

Weingart looked up. “No, not my group. It’s a group I support.”

“I’m familiar with Herman Stanga, Dave,” Kermit said. “He doesn’t work for St. Jude, but I’ve had conversations with him and tried to earn his trust and show him there’s a better way to do things. We’ve gotten two or three of his girls out of the life and into treatment programs. You see a problem in that?”

“Down on Ann Street, I met this sawed-off black kid named Buford. He was slinging dope on the corner. He was probably twelve years old at the outside. He’s Herman Stanga’s cousin,” Clete said. “I guess Herman’s outreach efforts don’t extend to children or his relatives.”

“Does Herman know this boy is dealing drugs?” Kermit asked.

“It’s hard to say. I broke Herman’s sticks at the Gate Mouth club in St. Martinville. He’s in the hospital right now. You could drop by Iberia General and chat him up.”

“Your sarcasm isn’t well taken, Mr. Purcel,” Kermit said. “You attacked Herman?”

“Your man spat in my face.”

“He’s not my man, sir.”

“Is he your man?” Clete said to Robert Weingart.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, my friend,” Weingart replied.

“There’s something wrong with the words I use? You can’t quite translate them? How about taking the corn bread out of your mouth before you say anything else?”

Weingart put away his paper and unfolded a thick linen napkin and spread it on his lap. His robe had fallen open, exposing the thong he was wearing. “Have you ever tried writing detective stories, Clete? I bet you’d be good at it. I could introduce you to a couple of guys in the Screenwriters Guild. Your dialogue is tinged with little bits of glass that would make Raymond Chandler envious. Really.”

Clete looked at me, his face opaque, his hands as big as hams by his sides, his facial skin suddenly clear of wrinkles. Don’t do it, Cletus, don’t do it, don’t do it, I could hear myself thinking.

Clete sniffed again, as though he were coming down with a cold. He looked back at the doorway into the interior of the house. “You have rats?”

“No, not to my knowledge,” Kermit said. “Mr. Purcel, no one meant to offend you. But what we’re hearing is a bit of a shock. The St. Jude Project isn’t connected with Herman Stanga, no matter what he’s told you.”

“We’re glad to hear that, Kermit,” I said. “But why would you be talking with a man like Stanga to begin with? You think he’s going to help you take his prostitutes off the street?”

“I’ve spoken with Alafair regarding some of these things. I thought maybe she had talked with you. She’s expressed a willingness to help out.”

“You’re trying to involve my daughter with pimps and hookers? You’re telling me this to my face?”

Kermit shook his head, nonplussed, swallowing. “I’m at a loss. I respect you, Mr. Robicheaux. I respect your family. I’m very fond of Alafair.”

I could feel my moorings starting to pull loose from the dock. “You’re almost ten years older than she is. Older men don’t have ‘fond’ in mind when they home in on younger women.”

“Why don’t I walk outside with Mr. Weingart and let y’all talk?” Clete said. “How about it, Bob ? Can you hitch up your robe and tear yourself loose from that fried eggplant? What do you say, Bob ?”

Inside my head I saw an image of hurricane warning flags flapping in a high wind.

Weingart rested his fingertips on the tabletop, his lips pursed, his cheeks slightly sunken, every hair on his head neatly in place. He seemed to be thinking of a private joke, his eyes lighting, a smile flickering at the corner of his mouth. “What would you like to do on our little stroll?”

“Robbie, don’t do this,” Kermit said.

“I just wondered what the big fellow had in mind. He looks like a gelatinous handful.”

I saw the crinkles around Clete’s eyes flatten, the blood draining from the skin around his mouth. But he surprised me. “Time to dee-dee, Streak,” he said.

Weingart repositioned his newspaper and began reading again, detached, wrapped in his narcissism and contempt for the world, indifferent to the embarrassment flaming in Kermit’s face.

“Thank your grandfather for his hospitality,” I said to Kermit.

“Mr. Robicheaux, I want to apologize for anything inappropriate that may have occurred here.”

“Forget the apology. Don’t take Alafair anywhere near Herman Stanga or his crowd. If you do, I’d better not hear about it.”

Kermit blanched. “Absolutely. I wouldn’t-”

“Mr. Weingart?” Clete interrupted.

“Yes?” Weingart said, reading his paper.

“Don’t ever call me by my first name again.”

“How about ‘Mr.’ Clete? Do come back, Mr. Clete. It’s been such a pleasure,” Weingart said. “Absolutely it has.” He lifted his gaze to Clete, his eyes iniquitous.