But something was happening that had nothing to do with the realities of a violent death, particularly one that involved death by burning. He opened his eyes. Instead of flames, he saw a dense white fog puffing off the water, swallowing his body, anointing his brow and eyes, like the cool fingers of a woman stroking his skin, assuring him he would never be abandoned.
He could hear thunder crackling in the clouds and feel rain hitting his body as hard as marbles. The gasoline had been washed from his skin. Hailstones bounced on the ground and pattered on the buttonwoods; waves swollen with organic matter were coursing like a tidal surge through the mangroves. A tree of lightning lit up the clouds from the southern horizon to the top of the sky. The ship with the furled sails and giant oars was gone. In its place, dolphins were leaping from the swells, arching as sleek and hard and sculpted as mythic monsters, reentering the rings of foam they had created.
He felt the winch jerk, then lower him to the ground. He wondered if a deliverance was at hand or if another trick was about to be played upon him. The fog was so white and thick that he wanted to stay inside it forever and float out to sea, far beyond the horizon, and stay in the company of whoever had touched his eyes and brow. He wondered if that had been his mother. Who else could it have been? He was curled like a broken worm on the ground. He could hear feet crunching on the sand and shale, walking toward him, as loud and metronomic and heavy as the blood drumming inside his head.
Don’t do this to me, he said to someone. Please.
The words did not sound like his.
Chapter Thirteen
Johnny Shondell set down the fire extinguisher he was carrying and took out a pocketknife and knelt on one knee and sliced the ligatures on Clete’s wrists. The butt of a small semi-automatic protruded from the pocket of his jeans. He looked into Clete’s face. “You all right, Mr. Clete?” he said.
“No,” Clete said. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be all right. What happened?”
“I know some of the places they use. So I came here.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“You don’t want to find out.”
Clete shook his head. “This isn’t real.”
Johnny put his hand under Clete’s big arm and helped him to his feet. “Get all these memories out of your mind. There’s a world around us other people can’t see. You and Mr. Robicheaux found your way into it. That was a mistake. You got to undo the mistake. You hear me, Mr. Clete?”
“I’m not going to put up with this greaseball craziness, Johnny.”
“What day is it?”
Clete had to think. He had flown into Lauderdale on Friday. “Saturday morning.”
“It’s Monday,” Johnny said.
“It can’t be.”
“It is,” Johnny said.
“How’d I lose two days?”
“Maybe they used drugs on you. Maybe they didn’t need drugs. They have powers we don’t understand. The only thing they fear is discovery.”
“What?”
“They’re always out there. They don’t want people to know they exist. There’s good ones and bad ones.”
“Cut that out. What’s this place we’re in?”
“A junkyard.”
Clete started to shiver. The sky was still black, the rain still falling, twisting like drops of crystal. “You got a car?”
“A rental.”
“What about the cop who hit me with a blackjack?”
“I don’t know anything about a cop.”
“He was plainclothes,” Clete said. “He came to your motel room.”
“I don’t remember that,” Johnny said.
“We’re going to hunt down this guy and find out who he’s working for.”
“No, we’re not.”
Clete felt his legs going weak. His head began to spin, as though he were still suspended from the cable. His throat had never been so dry, even after weekend benders. Johnny steadied him with one hand. “My car is over here, Mr. Clete. I’m going to take you back to the hotel.”
Clete looked at the southern horizon. The waves were rolling out of the Straits, dark green and capping and glazed with the moon’s reflection. “What happened to the ship? The one with the masts and oars.”
“You’re not making sense. Oars on a sailboat? That doesn’t sound right.”
“It looked like it was out of medieval times.”
“Don’t think about these things anymore, Mr. Clete. You can’t talk about this to others, either. The more you do, the more people will not believe you. You see any of their faces?”
“Yeah, the cop and the guy in a hood.”
“What’d the guy in the hood look like?” Johnny asked.
“Not human.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Don’t talk about any of this. People will try to put you away. Most people don’t want the truth.”
Clete wiped the rain out of his eyes. His skivvies were translucent, his skin blue. He let Johnny help him to the rental car. For the first time in his life, he believed that madness might be the norm and that his own mind might become his greatest enemy.
Clete spent the next two days in Fort Lauderdale, then flew back to New Orleans and drove to New Iberia in his Caddy. In the meantime I had gotten my badge back and was hoping to put to rest my involvement with the Shondell and Balangie families.
Of course, that’s not the way things worked out. Clete hit town a nervous wreck. We were sitting at the redwood picnic table in my backyard when he told me what happened in the Keys. The cicadas were droning in the trees. But I could hardly hear them because of the popping sounds Clete’s words left in my ears. I thought he had finally lost his mind.
“Johnny Shondell showed up in the junkyard with a semi-auto?” I asked.
“He said he carried it in his guitar case.”
“Like that’s what all musicians do?” I said.
He didn’t answer. He stared at a blue heron that was standing in the lily pads on the edge of the bayou, pecking at its feathers.
“You couldn’t find the plainclothes who sapped you?” I said.
“The city and county guys said there was no one fitting that description in their departments.”
“How about the motel clerk who made the 911 call?”
“He blew town.” Clete gazed at the shadows under the trees as though the light were shrinking from the world.
“Stay here,” I said.
“Where you going?”
“You need something in the tank.”
“You got a shot of Dr. Jack stashed away?”
Sometimes I kept booze in the house. Or guests left it there. That might seem a funny admission from a recovering drunk, but the problem is in the man, not the bottle. If a drunk wants booze, he’ll burn down the liquor store to get it. For guys like Clete or me or anyone who shares our metabolism, alcohol and heroin are chemically synonymous, and the temptations are everywhere. A normal person cannot understand the longing a drunk feels for his glass. It is stronger and worse than any sexual desire, any fear of hell, any allegiance to family, country, or church.
I fixed a glass of iced tea and a ham-and-onion-and-avocado sandwich and brought them to him on a tray. I thought he’d be irritable because I didn’t bring him four fingers of Jack on the rocks or at least a beer. But he didn’t complain. I think Clete knew he was teetering on the edge of a breakdown. You’ve heard of the thousand-yard stare? His hands were shaking on his sandwich as though he had a chill.
“We’ve been in rougher spots,” I said.
“When?”
“Where’s Johnny now?”
“Back in town. Probably at his uncle’s. I can’t trust my own thoughts. I think I’m going crazy, Dave.”