James Burke - Dixie City Jam

'Have you got any registration on the Ruger?' I asked.

'The serial numbers are burned off,' Motley said.

'Sounds like the greaseballs,' Clete said.

'The greaseballs don't send speed freaks on a hit,' Motley said.

'How about ties to the AB?' I said.

'Maybe. But these guys don't have much organization outside the joint. Most of them are more worried about their cock than politics, anyway,' Motley said. 'Reverend, why don't you go ahead and play your tape?'

Flat snapped the Play button down on his recorder, then set the recorder on the desktop. Once again, I heard the heated voice of Jack Pelley, like a disembodied hiss rising with gathering intensity out of the din of jailhouse noise.

'You got mud people coming out of your sewer grates, you got 'em eating dogs out of the city parks, fucking like minks in the projects, queers spreading AIDS in the blood banks, you think I'm kidding, you ever heard of Queer Nation, it ain't an accident half of them got kike names, how about that mud person over there in New Iberia thinks he's gonna deliver up the gift to a Jew, you think we come this far to let that happen, the sword ain't gonna allow it, no way, motherfucker, tell the screw to send down some toilet paper, they didn't leave none when they fed me, hey, you put that on that tape, what the fuck you think you doing, man-'

The recording ended with a brittle, clattering sound.

'That's when he knocked hit out of my hand,' Flat said. 'I never saw a man in so much torment.'

'Run it again,' Clete said.

We listened once more. I saw Clete put a breath mint on his tongue, then crack it between his molars and stare thoughtfully into space. When the tape ended he smiled in order to hide whatever thought had been in his eyes.

'How's it feel to be a mud person, Streak?' he said.

'We talked to the feds and a couple of snitches in the AB about any group that might call itself "The Sword." They never heard of it,' Motley said.

'Who's "we"?' I said.

'Me.'

'Baxter's blowing it off?' I said.

'What do I know?' Motley said.

Clete, Oswald Flat, and I walked out into the squad room. Clete and Flat went ahead of me. I stepped back into Motley's office.

'I appreciate what you've done, Motley,' I said.

'Tell me straight, Robicheaux, what's "the gift" this guy was talking about?'

'I don't have the slightest idea.'

'Somebody thinks you do.'

'Maybe he was talking about somebody else.'

'Yeah, probably the archbishop. A thought you might take with you-if they're using meltdowns like Jack Pelley, you can bet they've got a shit pile of them in reserve. Purcel's a cracker, but sometimes he's got his point of view, you know what I mean?'

'Not really.'

'People tend to fuck with him only once. There's never any paperwork around later, either.'

'Bad advice from a cop, Motley.'

'I got a flash for you, Robicheaux. I made a copy of the preacher's tape and gave it to Baxter. Ten minutes later I saw him erase it and throw it in the trash.'

He bit down on his Baby Ruth and stared at me reflectively.

Outside, I shook hands with Oswald Flat and thanked him for his help, then I drove Clete back toward his office in the French Quarter. It was raining, and the thick canopy of oaks over St. Charles looked gray in the blowing mist. The streetcar rattled past us on the neutral ground, its windows down to let in the cool air.

'You were a little quiet in there,' I said.

'Why argue with Motley? I think he pissed his brains out his pecker on beer and hookers a long time ago.'

'What are you saying?'

'Come on, Dave. Have you ever seen a hit done with a silenced twenty-two that wasn't a mob contract? It's their trademark-one round in the back of the head, one through the temples, one in the mouth.'

'They use pros, not guys like this Pelley character.'

'It's Pelley that convinces me even more that I'm right. Think about it. Where's a brain-fried hype like that going to come up with a silenced Ruger, one with burned serial numbers?'

'You're thinking about Lonighan?'

'Maybe. Or maybe Lonighan and the greaseballs. Look, Dave, you stomped the shit out of Max Calucci in front of his chippies. Max is a special kind of guy. When he was up at Angola he found out his punk was getting it on with another con. The kid begged all over the joint to go into lockdown. Nobody'd listen to him. A couple of days later somebody broke off a shank made from window glass in his throat.'

'They don't hit cops, Clete.'

'But what if it's not a regular contract? What if Max and Bobo Calucci just pointed the meltdown in your direction and gave him the Ruger, or had somebody give it to him? Nobody's going to make it for a greaseball hit, right? Motley didn't.'

'You've got more reason to worry about the Caluccis than I do.'

We drove out of the tunnel of oaks on St. Charles into Lee Circle. Clete took off his porkpie hat and readjusted it on his brow.

'You're wrong there, noble mon,' he said. 'I was never big on rules. They know that.'

I looked at him.

'But you are. They know that, too,' he said. 'They feel a whole lot safer when they go up against guys who play by the rules.'

'Stay away from them, Clete.'

'You've been out of New Orleans too long, Dave. All the old understandings are gone. It's an open city, like Miami, anybody's fuck. There's only one way to operate in New Orleans today-you keep reminding the other side they're one breath away from being grease spots in the cement.'

It was raining much harder now, and people were turning on their car lights. I looked at Clete's hulking profile in silhouette against the rain. His face was cheerless, his green eyes staring straight ahead, his mouth a tight seam.

After I dropped him at his office, I made one final stop in New Orleans-at Hippo Bimstine's house, down by the Mississippi levee. The rain had almost quit, and he was in his backyard, dipping leaves out of his swimming pool with a long pole. He wore wraparound black sunglasses, plaid Bermuda shorts, and a Hawaiian shirt printed with brown-skinned girls dancing in grass skirts. The fatty rings in his neck were bright with sweat.

'Yeah, that colored cop Motley told me all about it,' he said. 'This tattooed guy sounds like some kind of zomboid, though. I don't think we're talking the first team here.'

'I had to learn a hard lesson a long time ago, Hippo. The guy who blows out your candle is the one who's at your throat before you ever expect it.'

'A guy with a sword tattooed on his head, shooting dope in his crotch with an eyedropper? Dave, give me a break. I got serious enemies. I don't lose sleep over guys who get arrested in filling station rest rooms.'

'You have a very copacetic attitude, Hippo.'

'You're trying to insult me? That's what we're doing here?'

'I don't think you want me asking you hard questions.'

He set down the pole on a stone bench, removed his sunglasses, and wiped his face on his sleeve. The air was hot and muggy, and raindrops dripped from the trees into the pool.

'I got no secrets. Everybody in New Orleans knows my politics,' he said.

'What's the Jewish Defense Organization?'

'It's the network I belong to. There's no mystery here. We got a project called Operation Klan Kick. We find out who these cocksuckers are, where they work, and we make some phone calls. You got a problem with that, Dave?'

'Do you know why this guy Pelley might talk about "a gift" or a group called The Sword?'

'What are you talking about gift and sword? Listen, you know why Tommy Lonighan wants that sub? Because I bother him. Everything I do bothers him. You know why I bother him? Because he's got a guilty conscience, like a big, black tumor always eating on his brain.'