“No,” Adonis said. “Come in as you are.”
“How have you been, Adonis?” I said.
“My home is yours,” he said, stepping aside, letting my question hang.
The upholstery and curtains and wallpaper were a mixture of lavender and pink and pale green, a combination I would normally associate with seasickness, all of it printed with flowers, creating the affect of a villa in southern Italy. An oil painting of Pietro Balangie and his wife hung over the mantelpiece. She wore a royal-purple brocaded coat with a white brooch on the chest and had beautiful gray-swept hair and a placid expression that could be interpreted as one of either fortitude or acceptance. Pietro wore a three-piece suit and a boutonniere and a plum-colored tie, his neck like a stump protruding from his shirt, his hair combed neatly. Pietro might have had the body of a hod carrier, but in the painting and in real life, there was no denying the regal aspect in his classical Roman features and the quiet confidence that could make ordinary businessmen tremble.
Three bear rugs lay in a semicircle around a stone fireplace, their mouths propped open, their glass eyes staring as though in anticipation of the gas logs igniting. A half-dozen cats were lying or walking on the furniture.
“You giving my home the once-over?” Adonis said.
“Sorry?” I replied.
“The decor in my home. It doesn’t meet your standards? Or maybe you don’t like cats?”
“It’s a fine place,” I said.
“I’m glad you approve.”
“You asked me a question and I’m answering it,” I said. “It’s a fine home.”
His eyes held mine. “My mother and father were proud of it. So am I. That’s why I don’t change anything about it, or invite just anybody inside it.”
I let my eyes slip off his.
“We appreciate your invitation,” Clete said, breaking the silence. “See, we heard maybe your daughter is missing, and we tried to help out. A couple of guys who work for Mark Shondell started a beef with us, and I ended up in the hospital. We thought you could give us a little information.”
“Isolde is my stepdaughter,” he said. “Her father died on a mercy mission to Rwanda.”
“Whatever,” Clete said. “She told Dave on this amusement pier over in Texas that she was being delivered to the Shondells. That’s a little weird, right? I mean the word ‘delivered.’ That’s what I would call deeply weird.”
Adonis’s gaze was focused in neutral space. His eyes seemed to change color, as though either a great sadness or a great darkness were having its way with his soul. “Why do you feel compelled to speak of things like this to me? Are you telling me I’m irresponsible as a parent? That’s why you’ve come into my home?”
“We treated your father with respect when we were at NOPD, Adonis,” I said. “We wouldn’t disrespect either you or your family.”
There was a pause, a silence in which I could only guess at his thoughts, the kind of moment you remember from high school when you stepped on the wrong kid’s foot and you felt an elevator drop to the bottom of your stomach.
“Walk with me,” he said. “I have to feed my animals. Do you know my wife?”
“No,” I said, letting out my breath. “We need to get the issue of your stepdaughter out of the way, Adonis.”
“You don’t wish to meet my wife?” he said.
Clete signaled me with his eyes. “Yes, sir, I’d love to meet Ms. Balangie,” I said.
“Call her ‘Mrs.’ She’s a little traditional. That stuff about my stepdaughter? I don’t want to hear about it. Not on any level. Are we understood?”
I should have known better than to come to his house. Involvement in the arcane culture of the Shondell and Balangie families was like walking through cobwebs. You never got it off your skin.
“We came here out of goodwill,” I said. “I think we need to have an understanding about that.”
He paused again, his eyes searching my face, as though I were an object of idle curiosity. “All the courtesies of my home will be extended to you, but after you leave, I ask that you not interfere in my family’s affairs again.”
I didn’t answer. He opened the French doors onto a patio and looked back at me. “I asked you if we’re clear on that.”
“No, we’re not clear on anything,” I said. “Not at all.”
He stepped out on the flagstones. The patio was canopied by a grape trellis thick with vines. Adonis’s face was patched with sunshine and shadow. “My wife insisted that she meet both of you. After I introduce her to you, our visit will be over.”
I stepped toward him. “I’ll take one more run at it, Adonis. If somebody tried to do to my daughter what someone is doing to your stepdaughter, I’d blow him out of his socks. That means I can’t wait to get out of here. That also means I will not be rude to your wife. Would you like me to write that out in longhand? Or would you like to walk off in a more private place where we can raise the ante, got my drift?”
“Wait here,” he said. He turned his back on me and walked down a gravel path and entered through another set of French doors.
“Why don’t you spit in the punch bowl, Streak?” Clete said.
“I can’t take that bastard,” I said.
“Gee, you could have fooled me.”
The wind shifted and a cloud moved across the sun, and the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. I smelled the salt spray from the lake and heard a sail flapping. A boat with two black sails was in trouble, the captain trying to gather up one that had torn from the mast.
“Think that guy is all right?” Clete asked.
“The lake isn’t that deep there,” I replied.
“You ever see a boat with black sails?”
“Not that I remember,” I said.
I was bothered by the black sails, although I didn’t know why. Have you ever seen van Gogh’s last painting, the one in which the crows invade the perfection of the wheat field, the one that he was painting when he either shot himself or was shot accidentally by boys playing with a pistol? The boat with the black sails tipping in the wind gave me the same sense of desolation. “You okay, Dave?” Clete said.
“Yeah,” I said. I heard footsteps behind me.
“This is Penelope, gentlemen,” Adonis said.
When I turned around, I saw the woman I’d heard about but never seen. She was less than medium height and kept her chin tilted up the way short people do. Her eyes were warm and attentive; a strand of auburn hair lay on her cheek. She wore a white mantilla on her head and gripped a rosary with scarlet glass beads in her pale hand. Her mouth made me think of a small purple rose, with a black mole next to it.
I tried to remember what I had read about her. Her maiden name was Di Betto. She was from Sicily or Corsica; her family owned farmland and canneries and fishing fleets, things associated with the earth and sea. She was one of those women a photographer aches to get inside his lens, because no matter when or where he clicks the shutter, he knows he’s captured an artwork.
She extended her hand when Adonis introduced us. “It’s so nice to meet you,” she said. “Adonis says you’re among his oldest friends.”
That was a stretch.
“Yeah, we go back,” Clete said. “I mean to the old days.”
“I know what it means, Mr. Purcel,” she said.
“Sure,” he said. “I meant... I don’t know what I meant.”
“Adonis says you’re a kind man.”
“Me?” Clete said.
“And Mr. Robicheaux, too,” she said.
I nodded uncommittedly and then took a chance, one I knew would cause Adonis to veil his eyes, lest we see the wrath that was the Balangie family heirloom. “We’re a bit concerned about Isolde.”