"You got me. But whatever it is, Purcel is not part of it."
"That"s not the impression we have. Your friend"s anatomy seems turned around. I think his p.e.n.i.s and main bowel are located where his brains should be," she said.
"You don"t have the right to talk about him like that," I said.
"You still don"t get it, do you? I work with a few people who aren"t as charitable as I am. They wouldn"t be totally unhappy if Whitey decided to have your friend clipped. Of if Whitey decided to put up a kite on an Iberia Parish detective who"s known for his hostility toward the Bureau."
"You"re a rough bunch."
"You don"t know the half of it," she said.
Then I saw a look in her face that every veteran police officer recognizes. It was the look of a cop out of sync with her peers, her supervisors, and the political and bureaucratic obligations that had been dropped on her. There may be room in government service for the altruist and the iconoclast, but I have yet to see one who was not treated as an oddity at best and at worst an object of suspicion and fear.
"I talked with Monarch Little last night," I said. "He admitted he called Tony Lujan and tried to shake him down just before Tony was killed. They were supposed to meet out by the Boom Boom Room, but Monarch claims he decided not to go."
"So?" she said.
"I believe him. I think Monarch is an innocent man."
She bit off a piece of her thumbnail and looked down the street. "Who do you think did it?"
"Right now I"d bet money on Slim Bruxal."
"Could be," she said. "Tell Purcel to keep his wick dry and stay away from casinos. One other thing-"
"I don"t know if I can handle it."
"I talked to the sheriff before I came over here. She seems to be very protective toward you. I"d thank my stars I had a boss like that."
I decided not to comment on her ongoing inventory of my personal life. I wrote my cell number on a slip of paper and handed it to her. "Call me with anything you get on Trish Klein. I"ll do the same," I said.
"I hope you"re telling me the truth."
"I don"t want to offend you, but I think you should give some serious thought to the way you talk to other people, Agent Mossbacher."
"No s.h.i.t?" she replied.
After she stuck my number in her shirt pocket, she backed into my garbage can and mashed it between her b.u.mper and an oak tree. "Oh jeez, I can"t believe I did this again," she said, twisting the steering wheel, bouncing over the curb in a shuddering sc.r.a.pe of steel against concrete.
I was convinced they grew them special in Chugwater, Wyoming.
ON SUNDAY, Molly and I went to Ma.s.s at the university chapel in Lafayette, then ate deep-fried crawfish at Foti"s in St. Martinville and took an airboat ride on Lake Martin. It was a wonderful afternoon. The lake was wide, the water high from the storm, the sh.o.r.eline bordered with flooded cypress and willow trees whose leaves riffled in the breeze. Strapped into the elevated seats on the airboat, roaring across the lily pads, ear protectors clamped down on our heads, we had an extraordinary view of the Edenic loveliness that at one time characterized all of Louisiana. Each time the airboat tilted into a turn or swerved across a slough that was little more than wet sand, Molly hugged my arm like a teenage girl on a carnival ride.
But I couldn"t get my mind off my conversation with Betsy Mossbacher. Obviously she had learned through a phone tap that Whitey Bruxal believed he was about to be taken down by the daughter of a man he had ordered killed. It was probably true he had ice water in his veins; indeed, he had probably been respected for his intelligence and mathematical talents by Meyer Lansky, the financial wizard of the Mob. But I believed that Whitey, like his mentors in Brooklyn and Miami, was driven by avarice, and like any man addicted to the love of money, his greatest and most abiding fear was not the loss of his life or even his soul.
"What are you thinking about?" Molly asked.
"Nothing," I said.
We were walking from the airboat landing to her car. The sun hung just above a line of willow trees on the far side of the lake, and a long, segmented line of black geese wended its way across it. Molly took my hand in hers. "You still thinking about that incident the other night?" she said.
"A little bit."
"You took Communion, didn"t you?"
"I was drunk when my friend Dallas Klein died. If I hadn"t been drinking, I could have taken a couple of those guys out."
"Let the past go, Dave."
"It doesn"t work that way."
"What doesn"t?"
"We"re the sum total of what we"ve done and where we"ve been. I still see Dallas"s face in my sleep. It"s no accident Whitey Bruxal ended up here," I replied.
I saw a look of sadness come into her eyes that I would have cut off my fingers to remove.
I should have been happy with all the gifts I had. Actually, I was, more than I can describe. But I had figured out a way to pay back Whitey Bruxal for Opa-Locka, Florida, and the slate was about to get wiped clean, one way or another.
Chapter.
20.
T HE BRUXAL HOME looked like it had been airlifted from Boca Raton and dropped from a high alt.i.tude onto a rolling stretch of white-railed horse country fifteen miles north of Lafayette. It was three stories, built in a staggered fashion of pink stucco, with a tile roof and heavy oak doors and scrolled-iron balconies. In the side yard was a turquoise pool surrounded by banana trees, trellises heavy with trumpet vine, potted palms, and the overhang of giant live oaks. Immaculate automobiles that could not have cost less than seventy thousand dollars were parked in the driveway and the porte cochere, almost as though they had been posed for a photographic display demonstrating the munificence of a free-market system that was available to rich and poor alike.
Beyond the barn a red Morgan, a mare, galloped in a field. I thought of the winged horse emblazoned on the T-shirt worn by Yvonne Darbonne the day she died. I thought of her young life destroyed by rape at the hands of Bellerophon Lujan, and I thought of the boys who had g.a.n.g.b.a.n.ged her in a fraternity house when she was stoned, and I thought of the innocent people all over the world who suffer because of the greed and selfishness of the few.
These were not good thoughts to entertain as I pulled an unmarked departmental car next to the SUV Slim Bruxal had driven the afternoon he busted up Monarch Little at the McDonald"s on East Main in New Iberia.
I had called Whitey earlier, at his office, and had asked to see him. Most criminals of his background would have hung up or told me to talk to their attorney. But Whitey was an intelligent man and had done the unexpected, inviting me to his home at lunchtime. If I was to have any degree of success with him, I needed to empty my mind of all residual anger about him and his friends, even my conviction that they had murdered Dallas Klein, and concentrate on one objective only, and that was to leave in Whitey"s head a tangle of snakes that would eat him alive.
When he opened the door, he stepped out on the porch and looked in the yard, virtually ignoring my presence. "You seen the gardener?"
"No," I said blankly.
"That"s all right. Come on in. I got this new gardener. He chopped up the hose in the lawn mower. What are you gonna do? People don"t want to work for a living anymore."
I had to hand it to him. Dressed in white slacks and a black short-sleeved shirt with a silver monogram on the pocket, his white hair clipped and neatly combed, he was the image of an athletic, self-confident man in his prime. The fact I had stomped the s.h.i.t out of his right-hand man seemed inconsequential to him. He hit me on the shoulder and told me to come into the living room with him.
"So what"s on your mind?" he said, walking ahead of me.
"I"ve got a dilemma," I said.
"Yeah?" he replied, sitting down in a chair upholstered in red velvet.
Through the front window I could see the driveway, a big live oak in the yard, and the four-lane highway that led to Opelousas. "The Iberia Parish D.A. is an ambitious guy. He wants to wrap up Tony Lujan"s homicide and maybe make a lot of black voters happy at the same time. Get my drift?"
"No, I don"t get your drift."
"Monarch Little skates. Your boy takes the bounce. I don"t know if Lonnie is going to ask for the needle or not."
"Say that again."
"Lonnie Marceaux wants to be governor or a United States senator. He"s not going to get there by convicting a black dirtbag n.o.body cares about. Lonnie wants to screw you, Mr. Bruxal. By s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g you, he can also bring down Colin Alridge. That will buy him the national attention he needs."
"Call me Whitey. Slim didn"t kill Tony. Tony was his friend. Where you get off with this?"
"Tony was going to give up Slim on the hit-and-run death of the homeless man. There"s another theory about Slim"s motivation as well."
"Theories are like skid marks on the bowl. Everybody"s got them. I think you"re here to squeeze my b.a.l.l.s."
I glanced out the window at the highway, then grinned at him. "You"re not going to own anything to squeeze, Whitey," I said.
For the first time his brow wrinkled.
"The Feds have you and Bellerophon Lujan on racketeering charges. Lonnie wants a piece of you, too. That"s where your son comes in," I said. "Second in line does the time. From Lonnie"s perspective, your a.s.s is gra.s.s."
"You saying Bello is rolling over on me?"
"I"m saying it"s a done deal. Come on, you"re a smart man. Bello"s a c.o.o.na.s.s, born and bred in South Louisiana. You"re from Brooklyn. People here think New York is a place where h.o.m.os.e.xuals go to get married and every other woman has an abortion."
"Why you keep looking out the window?"
I ignored his question. "This is the short version. They"re about to freeze your a.s.sets. As you probably know, a RICO conviction will allow the Feds to seize everything you own. In the meantime, you"ve got other issues and other enemies to deal with."
"Issues? I don"t like that word. Everybody is always talking about issues." Then, paradoxically, he said, "What issues? What enemies?"
He saw me looking out the window again, this time at a vintage Cadillac convertible with a fresh pink paint job coming up the driveway from the four-lane. "Who"s that guy?" he said.
"He does scut work for us. I told him I"d be here. You mind?"
"What"s his name?"
"Clete Purcel."
"That fat guy is Purcel? Yeah, I do mind. His squeeze is this Trish Klein broad. What are you guys working here?"
I got up and opened the side door to the terrace. "Hey, Cletus, over here," I said.
"Hey, you answer my question," Whitey said.
But again I didn"t reply. Clete walked through the dappled shade of the live oak, his face affable and handsome behind his yellow-tinted aviator"s gla.s.ses. I could feel the air-conditioned coolness from the living room rushing past me into the heat and humidity of the afternoon.
"Hey, how"s it hangin"?" he said to Whitey as he came through the door, uninvited.
But I had underestimated Whitey. He might have been a creature of his times, his psychological makeup as hard as the concrete he grew up on, but he was nevertheless capable of mustering a level of dignity, even if it was feigned, that men of his background seldom possess.
"It"s lunchtime and I was going to ask Mr. Robicheaux to join me," he said. "Because you"re his friend, you"re welcome, too. But this is still my home, the place where my family lives. Any guest in my house has to respect that."
"You got it, Whitey. But I"ve had the pleasure of meeting your employee Lefty Raguza. He"s not a family-type guy," Clete said.
"What might have happened outside this house has no application inside it, you follow? You want to eat, there"s a spread laid out for us in the dining room. You want to act rude, it"s time for you to go," Whitey said.
"Here"s a story for you," Clete said. "We"ve got a congressman here who was asked to describe Louisiana on CNN. He goes, "Half of it is underwater and half of it is under indictment." Right now, in your case, that means you"re anybody"s hump. Forget the lunch. Let"s talk business."
"What business I got with you?"
"The word is your kid"s a closet bone smoker. The Iberia D.A. has got the handle he needs to jam him and you both. Dave didn"t tell you?"
The transformation that took place in Whitey"s face was like none I had ever seen in another person. The eyes didn"t blink or narrow; the color in them did not brighten with anger or haze over with hidden thoughts. The jawbone never pulsed against the cheek. Instead, his expression seemed to take on the emotionless solidity of carved wood, with eyes as dull and cavernous as buckshot. I believe I could have scratched a match alight on his face and he wouldn"t have blinked.
"What"d you call my boy?" he asked.
Clete pressed the palm of his hand against his chest. "I didn"t call him anything. That"s his rep in a couple of drag joints in Lafayette. I thought you and Dave had talked. The D.A. thinks the Lujan kid came on to your son and your son blew up his s.h.i.t. The point is when piranhas smell blood, they clean the cow to the bone. You want your casino interests let alone? Maybe I can make that happen. I"m getting through to you, here?"
"Yeah, you"re both working with this t.w.a.t Trish Klein," Whitey said.
Clete looked at me. "You heard the man, Streak. I told you it was a waste of time. Hey, Whitey, this isn"t Miami. Louisiana is a fresh-air mental asylum. Dave knocked a tooth out of the D.A."s mouth and he"s still got his shield. What does that tell you? You think we"re here to shake you down for chump change? While you"re in the slams, what do you think Bello Lujan is going to be doing-protecting your a.s.sets till you get out? He"ll turn your pad into a cathouse and your horses into canned dog food."
We left Whitey standing in his living room. Outside, as we crossed the thick, carpetlike texture of his St. Augustine gra.s.s, I heard the red Morgan running in the pasture. Her neck and flanks were dark with sweat, her mouth strung with wisps of saliva. She clattered against a rail and I would have sworn she nickered at me.
Clete got in his Caddy and headed down the driveway. Just as I started my engine, I saw Whitey come out the front door.
"Hey, Robicheaux, wait up," he called.
I rolled down the window. "What?" I said.
"What he said about my boy?"
"Yeah?"
"People are saying that, or your friend was just working my crank?"
"Your kid has problems. h.o.m.os.e.xuality is probably the least of them."
"You got a kid?"