Annie was not only the best woman I ever knew; she was also the best human being. I called her my Mennonite girl, sewn together from cornflowers and bluebonnets. Her faults were those of excess in love, forgiveness, worry over others, faith that goodness would always prevail over evil. She was seldom if ever critical of others, and when their views didn't coincide with her eccentric Kansas vision of the world, she saw them as victims of what she called weirdness, a condition that she saw virtually everywhere.
I became involved with Robin Gaddis after Annie's death. She was a stripper and sometime-hooker on Bourbon Street, but she was brave in her way and kind and gave much more than she received. What some will not understand is that it takes courage to grow up in a place like the welfare project by the old St. Louis Cemetery in New Orleans. Ask a tourist who has visited that cemetery in anything less than a large group, even in broad daylight. Or if one is suicidal and would like to have a truly existential experience, he might try walking through Louis Armstrong Park, right next to the welfare project, at night. Robin's body was outraged in many ways long before she began taking off her clothes for men simply for money. I don't know where she is today. I wish I did. I have two Purple Hearts. I believe they belong much more to Annie, Robin, and Darlene than they do to me.
The wind began to blow, and in the fading twilight I could see the smoke from the pulp mill flatten in the valley west of town and smell its odor like a tinge of sewage in the wet air. We drove Tess Regan back to her apartment house, and I walked her to her door. The porch light was on, and there was a sheen in her auburn hair, and her shoulders looked pale against her pink-and-blue-flowered dress.
"Thank you for this evening," she said, and she touched me lightly on the arm with her fingers and let them rest there for perhaps three seconds. Her green eyes were warm and genuine, and I wondered if she had been rehearsing for a long time to be that Catholic girl the nuns and the brothers had told us about.
We drove under the dark shadows of the trees toward our house, and the glow from the street lamps looked like long slicks of yellow light ironed into the street's wet surface. I turned the corner onto our block while Alafair kept looking out the passenger window at a pair of headlights behind us.
"That same car stopped down from Miss Regan's," she said.
"What?"
"That car stopped behind us while you were talking to Miss Regan on the porch."
I parked in front of our house. The street was dark, and the strings of lights on the sawmill across the river shone on the water's surface.
"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?"