The streetlamps clicked on. A car went by, blowing leaves and carbon monoxide in its wake.
“There’s a bed-and-breakfast on the next block, but they’re probably full up,” I said.
“I’ll manage,” she said.
“Why don’t you call your husband and ask him what he wants you to do?”
“Adonis is not my husband,” she said.
“Did I just hear you right, or is one of us crazy?”
She looked at my humble house, with its boxcar-like design and peaked tin roof that was stained with lichen and rust, the gutters impacted with Spanish moss. “I promise I’ll only take a few minutes of your time. Then, if you tell me you never want to see me again, I’ll abide by your wishes.”
“Come in,” I said. I parked my truck in the porte cochere and carried my groceries through the back door and placed them on the drain board, refusing to accept that I was trying to hide her presence on my property. “You want a Dr Pepper or a glass of lemonade?” I said.
“Nothing, thank you.”
“What was that about Adonis not being your old man?”
“Why are you using that kind of language?”
“I didn’t give it any thought.”
“Don’t lie. You’re trying to be someone you’re not. You’re a gentleman, Mr. Robicheaux, so act like one. Don’t let fear turn you into a dolt.”
I felt my face shrink. “Miss Penelope, I’m a widower and a drunkard. My relationship with the sheriff’s department is tenuous. My stepdaughter and a half brother are my only family. Clete Purcel is my best friend. That is the sum of my time on earth. There’s a shorter version. I’m bad news, and I don’t have answers for myself, much less others.”
“Adonis and I were never married,” she said. “I was part of a business deal. Or at least that’s what you would call it here. The custom goes back five hundred years in our families. I’m talking about the Shondells and the Balangies.”
“So how about eighty-sixing tradition and living your own life?” I said.
“In my way, I try to do that.” She was standing closer to me than was proper in the culture of New Iberia. “When I say I’m not married to Adonis, I mean I’m not married on any level and never have been. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, I’d say that’s clear enough. But this isn’t information I necessarily want or need.”
“Faux marriages have existed since the beginnings of civilization. So just stop it, Mr. Robicheaux.”
“Stop what?”
“Acting like you’re shocked. It doesn’t become you.”
I took an ice tray and two cans of Dr Pepper from the refrigerator and knocked the ice against the sink and began filling two glasses with it, my hands uncoordinated, even shaking. She stepped closer so I could see her at the corner of my vision. “Don’t be so emotional.”
I propped my arms on the sink’s rim. “I don’t care if you’re married or not,” I lied. “You cannot deny the source of your wealth, Miss Penelope.”
“Would you please not use that servile form of address to me?” she replied. “Where are your pets?”
“My pets?”
“You have pet bowls inside and outside. There’s a rabbit hutch under your tree.”
“I have a pet coon and a number of cats. In fact, the lady next door and I feed most of the cats in the neighborhood.”
“See? You’re a kind man. Why do you try to hide your qualities?”
I dried my hands. I turned and looked down at her. I thought of that twilight evening when I’d pitched the only perfect game in my baseball career. “I’m not your guy, Ms. Balangie.”
She circled my wrist with her thumb and forefinger. “Look at me.”
“Nope. No more gamesmanship.”
Her eyes jittered as they searched mine. “You think I’m immoral? You think I’m a liar. You think I don’t weep for my daughter? You look me in the eye and say that.”
“No, ma’am, I don’t think any of that.”
“Then maybe think of someone other than yourself.”
“Pardon?” I said.
“Damn you,” she said. “Damn you to hell.”
Then she beat my face with her little fists, cutting and bruising my lip and cheek and the edge of my eye. I stood with my hands at my sides and let her do it and never blinked. I stood like that until her fingers knitted themselves in my hair and tears leaked from her eyes, and I did not move even when she pulled my face down to hers and kissed my eyelids and my mouth and smeared my blood on her hair. Nor did I defend myself when she stood on top of my shoes and opened my shirt and kissed and bit my chest.
“I’m sorry for the pain you feel, Ms. Balangie,” I said. “I just don’t know what I can do about it.”
She pressed the side of her face against my heart. I placed both hands between her shoulder blades. Her hair smelled like the Caribbean. I felt a throbbing inside me I could barely restrain, and I could think of no words to say to my Higher Power other than I’m sorry for this.
FOUR DAYS LATER, Clete Purcel was back from New Orleans. He called in the early morning and asked me to meet him for breakfast at Victor’s Cafeteria on Main. “Something happen in the Big Sleazy?” I said.
“I’m feeling a lot better, that’s all,” he replied. “I’ll tell you about it.”
Victor’s was right across the street from Clete’s office, not far from the drawbridge. He was waiting for me by the front entrance. The air was cool and damp, the pavement still in shadow, the buildings dripping with moisture. He was wearing a soft wool suit with a crisp dark brown shirt and a shiny thin brown belt and brown alligator loafers. His eyes were clear, his cheeks rosy. “You look sharp,” I said.
“Let’s get some eats,” he said.
Inside, he stacked his tray with ham and scrambled eggs and grits and gravy and laid in to it, bending forward each time he put a fork-load in his mouth. “What’d you get into while I was gone?” he said.
“I’m back at the department.”
“Your face.”
“A lady got emotional. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“What’s the lady’s name?”
“I already forgot. You said you were feeling better and you were going to tell me about it.”
He glanced up at the stamped tin ceiling, his eyelids fluttering. I could hear his shoes tapping up and down under the table. “Okay, here it is,” he said. “I figured out some of those things that happened in the Keys.”
I should have been happy about his resilience. But I wasn’t. I knew the syndrome too well. Denial, as we call it today, is the brain’s anodyne and far less harmful in most situations than the booze that people like me soak their heads in. In this instance, I believed my best friend was not only lying to himself but setting himself up for another disastrous fall.
“See, I was hitting the sauce as soon as I got to Lauderdale, then I really turned on the spigot down in Key West and got sapped by that cop who was probably working for Eddy Firpo. They dosed me up with purple acid, and I started having hallucinations about my childhood, and I imagined this guy in the hoodie was my father or something like that.”
“How do you explain the galleon out on the salt?”
“I told you, I had a dream about a galleon earlier.”
“Right, the same dream I had,” I said. “What are the chances of that?”
“Dave, think about it. You’re always talking about slave ships and the Middle Passage. How about that place on the bayou where you say Jean Lafitte used to moor his boat and sell slaves and loot to the locals? The mooring chains are still in the tree, right up the bayou from the old Burke house, right or wrong? How many times have you told me those stories about digging for Lafitte’s treasure when you were a kid?”
“You’re right,” I said.
“See?” he said, pointing his fork at me. “There’s always an answer to these things.”