James Burke - Black Cherry Blues

"Don't get out of the truck," I said, and I reached under the seat for my.45. The vehicle behind me pulled to the curb, and the driver cut the headlights just as I stepped out of the cab with the automatic held behind my leg.

Clete stuck his head out of the window of his Toyota jeep, his mouth grinning, a white billed cap cocked over his eye.

"Hey, can you tell me where I can catch the St. Charles streetcar?" he said.

"What have you got hidden behind you, noble mon? Are we into heavy shit here?"

"What are you doing following me?"

"I was on my way over and just happened to see you on the other street. Slow your pulse down, Streak." He got out of the Toyota and stretched and yawned. He wore a purple and gold LSU football jersey with a big tiger's head on the front. His love handles stuck out from the sides of his blue jeans. He reached back through the car window and took out a pint of whiskey in a paper bag, unscrewed the cap, and took a neat drink.

"Who was the broad?" he said.

I didn't answer him. I walked Alafair into the house, turned on all the lights, looked in each of the rooms, and came back outside. He sat on the steps, smoking a cigarette, the pint bottle by his knee.

"Who's the new broad?" he said.

"Wrong word."

"All right, who's the lady?"

"Just a friend, one of the teachers at the school. She looks after Alafair sometimes."

"I wonder why she isn't homely. Probably just a coincidence."

"What are you up to, Clete?"

"Nothing. Maybe I just want to talk a minute. You got a minute, don't you?"

I sat down next to him on the steps. Against the lights on the sawmill, I could see the outline of suitcases and a couple of rolled sleeping bags in the back of his jeep. He took his billfold out of his back pocket and began counting through a thick sheaf of twenties in the bill holder.

"How you doing on money?" he said.

"Not bad."

"I bet."

"I've still got my credit cards."

"You remember that time I dropped a deuce at Jefferson Downs? You lent it to me so Lois wouldn't find out."

"You paid it back. When we took that charter fishing trip out of Gulfport."

"Not quite. I didn't pay the guy."

I looked at him.

"He was a lousy guy. He ran us up on the sandbar, he didn't bring enough bait, his mate was a smartass. You think I'm going to give a guy like that four hundred dollars?" he said.

"Thanks, Clete. I don't need it right now."

He folded a stack of bills between his fingers and shoved them into my shirt pocket.

"Take it and stop irritating me."

"It looks like you're packed up."

"You can't ever tell."

"What are you doing, partner?"

"I think my greatest potential lies in population control and travel. Who'd you tell about Charlie Dodds?"

"The DEA."

"I knew it."

"The agent said he was going to the locals with it, too."

"Big deal. But I knew you'd do it, Streak. You'll always be a straight cop."

"There's worse things."

"What's that mean?"

"Nothing. I'm just talking about myself. I've got to go inside now. You want to come in?"

"No, thanks. I think I'll just take a drive somewhere, maybe eat a steak."

"You've been lucky so far, Clete. Walk away from it."

"You ought to come up to the Nine Mile House at Alberton with me. They've got steaks you can cut with a spoon. Watch out for that schoolteacher. Those kind will marry you."

I watched him drive away in the darkness. I went into the kitchen and put the folded sheaf of bills from my pocket on the table. Then I looked at the bills again and counted them. Some of the bills were fifties, not twenties. He had given me over six hundred dollars.

Later that night, Dixie came home with a black-and-white television set that he had bought for ten dollars, and was watching the late show on the couch in his underwear when the phone rang. I sat up sleepily on the edge of the bed and looked out at him in the lighted hallway as he answered the phone. His hairy stomach protruded over the elastic of his candy-striped shorts. He put his hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver.

"It's that DEA Polack in Great Falls," he said.

"You want me to tell him you're bombed out?"

"That's all right," I said, took the phone from him, went into the bathroom, and closed the door.

"What's up, Dan?" I said.

"I'm just glad to find you home."

"I'm glad to be home, too. My watch says it's one in the morning."

"An hour ago, somebody took a shot at Sally Dee. They damn near got him, too. The sheriff over there is going to have you high up on his list."

"Give him a call in the morning, will you, and tell him what time you got ahold of me. I don't want any more dealings with that guy."

"Sure. Hey, the deputy who called me said Sal's real shook up. The shooter got up on the knoll above the house and parked a big one right through the kitchen window while Sal was drinking a glass of milk and eating cookies at the table. It blew glass and parts of a flowerpot all over him. Guess who wants police protection now?"

"What do they have so far?"

"Not much. They know about where the shot came from. That's about it."

"No witnesses?"

"Not so far. You got some ideas?"

"Put it this way. How many people wouldn't like to see him cooled out?"

"No, no, let's be a little more candid here."

"My speculations aren't of much value these days."

"We're talking about Purcel."

"He was here earlier tonight."

"How much earlier?"

"Three hours."

"That'd give him time to get up there, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah, it would."

"You think he did it, don't you?"

"Maybe."

"Well, ole Sal's on the other end of the stick now. I wonder how he's going to handle it."

"He'll bring in some more of his hired shitheads. I'm real tired, Dan, Is there anything else?"

"Stay clear of Purcel."

"You better tell that to the Dio family. I wouldn't want Clete I hunting me."

"I don't think these guys want advice from the DEA. It's not a federal situation, anyway. Sometimes you get to sit back and watch the show."

I went back to bed and slept until the sun came up bright in my eyes and I heard the Saturday morning sound of children roller-skating out on the sidewalk.

For one morning I didn't want to think about my troubles, so when the lady next door gave me a venison roast, Alafair and I packed my rucksack for a picnic, took Dixie Lee with us, and drove down into the Bitterroot Valley to Kootenai Creek Canyon. The sky was cloudless, a hard ceramic blue from the Sapphire Mountains all the way across the valley to the jagged, snow-tipped ridges of the Bitterroots. We walked two miles up a U.S. Forest Service trail by the stream-bed, the water white and boiling over the rocks, the floor of the canyon thick with cottonwoods and ponderosa pine, the layered rock walls rising straight up into saddles of more pine and peaks that were as sharp as ragged tin. The air was cool and so heavy with the smell of mist from the rocks, wet fern, pine needles, layers of dead cottonwood leaves, logs that had rotted into humus, that it was almost like breathing opium.

We climbed down the incline of the streambed and started a fire in a circle of rocks. The stream flattened out here, and the current flowed smoothly over some large boulders and spread into a quiet pool by the bank, where we set out cans of pop in the gravel to cool. I had brought along an old refrigerator grill, and I set it on the rocks over the fire, cut the venison into strips, put them on the grill with potatoes wrapped in tinfoil, then sliced up a loaf of French bread. The grease from the venison dripped into the fire, hissed and smoked in the wind, and because the meat was so lean it curled and browned quickly in the heat and I had to push it to the edge of the grill.