James Burke - In The Electric Mist With Confederate Dead

He swayed slightly. The woman, Kelly Drummond, caught him by the arm. I walked back down the slope.

"I'm afraid I was just going in to take a shower and eat supper," I said.

"We want to take y'all to dinner," he said. "There's this place called Mulate's in Breaux Bridge. They make gumbo you could start a new religion with."

"Thanks, anyway. My wife's already fixed supper."

"Bad time of day to knock on doors, El," Kelly Drummond said, but she looked at me when she said it, her eyes fixed directly on mine. She wore tan slacks, flats, and a yellow blouse with a button open that exposed her bra. When she raised her hand to move a blond ringlet off her forehead, you could see a half-moon sweat stain under her arm.

"We didn't mean to cause a problem," Elrod said. "I'm afraid a drunk-front blew through the area this afternoon. Hey, we're all right, though. We took a cab. Did you notice that? How about that? Look, I tell you what, we'll just get us some liquids to go down at the bait shop yonder and call us a cab."

"Tell him why you came out, El," Kelly Drummond said.

"That's all right. We stumbled in at a bad time. I'm real sorry, Mr. Robicheaux."

"Call me Dave. Would you mind waiting for me at the bait shop a few minutes, then I'll shower and drive y'all home."

"You sure know how to avoid the stereotypes, don't you?" the woman said.

"I beg your pardon?" I said.

"Nobody can ever beat up on you for showing off your southern hospitality," she said.

"Hey, it's okay," Elrod said, turning her by the arm toward the bait shop.

I had gone only a short distance up the slope when I heard the woman's footsteps behind me.

"Just hold on a minute, Dick Tracy," she said.

Behind her I could see Elrod walking down the dock to the shop, where Batist, the black man who worked for me, was drawing back the canvas awning over the tables for the night.

"Look, Ms. Drummond-"

"You don't have to invite us into your house, you don't have to believe the stuff he says about what he sees and hears, but you ought to know that it took guts for him to come out here. He fucks up with Mikey, he fucks up with this film, maybe he blows it for good this time."

"You'll have to excuse me, but I'm not sure what that has to do with the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Department."

She carried a doeskin drawstring bag in her hand. She propped her hand on her hip. She looked up at me and ran her tongue over her bottom lip.

"Are you that dumb?" she asked.

"You're telling me a mob guy, maybe Baby Feet Balboni, is involved with your movie?"

"A mob guy? That's good. I bet y'all really send a lot of them up the road."

"Where are you from, Ms. Drummond?"

" East Kentucky."

"Have you thought about making your next movie there?"

I started toward the house again.

"Wait a minute, Mr. Smart Ass," she said. "Elrod respects you. Did you ever hear of the Chicken Ranch in LaGrange, Texas?"

"Yes."

"Do you know what it was?"

"It was a hot-pillow joint."

"His mother was a prostitute there. That's why he never talks about anyone in his family except his gran'daddy, the Texas ranger. That's why he likes you, and you'd damn well better be aware of it."

She turned on her heel, her doeskin bag hitting her rump, and walked erectly down the slope toward the bait shop, where I could see Elrod opening a beer with his pocket knife under the light bulb above the screen door.

Well, you could do a lot worse than have one like her on your side, Elrod, I thought.

I TOOK A SHOWER, DRIED OFF, AND WAS BUTTONING ON A FRESH shirt in the kitchen when the telephone rang on the counter. Bootsie put down a pan on the stove and answered it.

"It's Batist," she said, and handed it to me:

"Qui t'as pr'estfaire?" I said into the receiver.

"Some drunk white man down here done fell in the bayou," he said.

"What's he doing now?"

"Sittin' in the middle of the shop, drippin' water on my flo'."

"I'll be there in a minute," I said.

"Dave, a lady wit' him was smokin' a cigarette out on the dock didn't smell like no tobacco, no."

"All right, podna. Thanks," I said, and hung up the phone.

Bootsie was looking at me with a question mark in the middle of her face. Her auburn hair, which she had pinned up in swirls on her head, was full of tiny lights.

"A man fell in the bayou. I have to drive him and his girlfriend home," I said.

"Where's their car?"

"They came out in a cab."

"A cab? Who comes fishing in a cab?"

"He's a weird guy."

"Dave-" she said, drawing my name out in exasperation.

"He's one of those actors working out at Spanish Lake. I guess he came out here to tell me about something."

"Which actor?"

"Elrod Sykes."

"Elrod Sykes is out at the bait shop?"

"Yep."

"Who's the woman with him?"

"Kelly Drummond."

"Dave, I don't believe it. You left Kelly Drummond and Elrod Sykes in the bait shop? You didn't invite them in?"

"He's bombed, Boots."

"I don't care. They came out to see you and you left them in the shop while you took a shower?"

"Bootsie, this guy's head glows in the dark, even when he's not on chemicals."

She went out the front door and down the slope to the bayou. In the mauve twilight I could see her touching at her hair before she entered the bait shop. Five minutes later Kelly Drummond was sitting at our kitchen table, a cup of coffee balanced in her fingers, a reefer-induced wistfulness on her face, while Elrod Sykes changed into dry clothes in our bedroom. He walked into the kitchen in a pair of my sandals, khaki trousers, and the Ragin' Cajuns T-shirt, with my name ironed on the back, that Alafair had given me for Father's Day.

His face was flushed with gin roses, and his gaze drifted automatically to the icebox.

"Would you like a beer?" Bootsie said.

"Yes, if you wouldn't mind," he said.

"Boots, I think we're out," I said.

"Oh, that's all right. I really don't need one," he said.

Bootsie's eyes were bright with embarrassment. Then I saw her face set.

"I'm sure there's one back in here somewhere," she said, then slid a long-necked Dixie out of the bottom shelf and opened it for him.

Elrod looked casually out the back door while he sipped from the bottle.

"I have to feed the rabbits. You want to take a walk with me, Elrod?" I said.

"The rice will be ready in a minute," Bootsie said.

"That's all it'll take," I said.

Outside, under the pecan trees that were now black-green in the fading light, I could feel Elrod watching the side of my face.

"Boy, I don't know quite what to say, Mr. Robicheaux, I mean Dave."

"Don't worry about it. Just tell me what it is you had on your mind all day."

"It's these guys out yonder on that lake. I told you before."

"Which guys? What are you talking about?"

"Confederate infantry. One guy in particular, with gold epaulets on his coat. He's got a bad arm and he's missing a leg. I think maybe he's a general."

"I'll be straight with you. I think maybe you're delusional."

"A lot of people do. I just didn't think I'd get the same kind of bullshit from you."

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't use profanity around my home."

"I apologize. But that Confederate officer was saying something. It didn't make sense to me, but I thought it might to you."

I filled one of the rabbit bowls with alfalfa pellets and latched the screen door on the hutch. I looked at Elrod Sykes. His face was absolutely devoid of guile or any apparent attempt at manipulation; in fact, it reminded me of someone who might have just been struck in the head by a bolt of lightning.

"Look, Elrod, years ago, when I was on the grog, I believed dead people called me up on the telephone. Sometimes my dead wife or members of my platoon would talk to me out of the rain. I was convinced that their voices were real and that maybe I was supposed to join them. It wasn't a good way to be."