It was still raining when Clete and I got off I-10 at Jennings and drove south to an Airstream trailer perched on blocks by a pond dark with sediment and coated with floating milk cartons and raw garbage. A dirt bike was parked in an open-sided shed. Clete cut the lights and took his .38 white-handled snub-nose from his shoulder holster and put it under the seat, then removed a sap and a pair of brass knuckles from the glove box and slipped them into his slacks.
“Leave your piece,” he said.
“Why?”
“If it goes down and Penny gets his hand on a gun, he’ll kill everybody in the room. When we have time, I’ll show you a video of what he did to three black guys on the yard at Quentin.”
“He’s not your ordinary pimp?”
“Penny is not your ordinary anything.”
Clete knocked on the door. I was wearing a raincoat and a rain hat pulled down on my eyes. A man with a complexion like mold on a lamp shade opened it. His expression seemed to shape and reshape itself as though he couldn’t make up his mind about what he was seeing. He wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off, his cargo pants buttoned under the navel. The inside of the trailer was a wreck.
“What do you want?”
“A few minutes, Kev,” Clete said. “This is my friend Dave Robicheaux.”
His eyes seemed to burn into my face. Then his expression lightened. “You a cop?”
“Why do you think that?” I said.
“They walk like their underwear is too tight or they got a suppository up their ass.”
“I treated you righteous, Kev,” Clete said. “Lose the hostility.”
“So what do you want?”
“Jimmy Nightingale’s cousin says she fired you. I didn’t think that was right. She also said you were a yardman. That didn’t ring right, either. Help me out here.”
His eyes went from Clete to me and then to Clete again. “That bitch said that?”
“You got it.”
“Come in.”
He closed the door behind us. “Sit down.”
A half-eaten pizza lay in a delivery box on a breakfast table. A television set rested in the sink. A bed against the wall was layered with skin magazines. I tried to keep my expression neutral.
“Why you looking at me?” he said.
“Clete showed me your sheet,” I said. “You were in three mainline joints. But you don’t have any tats.”
“Pencil dicks need tats. Want to find the biggest sissy on the yard? Check the guy with sleeves. What’d that bitch say?”
“Let’s back up a little bit,” Clete said. “Jimmy Nightingale told Dave he didn’t know you.”
“He’s a liar.”
“That’s what I thought,” Clete said. “I told Dave you were no yardman, either.”
“I was the chauffeur.”
“You delivered dope and girls to Nightingale’s house?” I asked.
“I’m supposed to answer that question? To a cop? What’s with all this Nightingale stuff?”
“The Jeff Davis Eight,” I said.
“Oh, boohoo time again,” he said. “Those whores got themselves killed.”
“How do you figure that?” I said.
“They’re skanks. They’re stupid. They go out on their own. Independence and the word ‘whore’ don’t go together.”
“They need a pimp?” I said.
“No, they need plastic surgery. Why you keep looking at me like that?”
“You’re an interesting guy.”
“What’s with this guy, Purcel?”
“Dave is all right, Kev.”
“Yeah? This stuff about the cousin? She ain’t Jimmy’s cousin. She’s his sister or half sister.”
“Let’s stick to the subject,” I said. “In your opinion, who killed the eight women?”
“They were in the life, man.”
“Why’d Jimmy’s secretary fire you?” I said.
“She came on to me. I told Jimmy. Who cares about any of this?”
There was a dull intensity in his eyes that’s hard to describe or account for. You see it in recidivists or in lockdown units where the criminally insane are kept, although you are never sure they are actually insane.
“I like your accent,” I said. “Did you grow up in New Orleans?”
“I’m from New York.”
“Want to give us the name of the company bank account you were using as a drop?” I said.
But I had lost his attention. “What you got in your slacks, Purcel? A blackjack? You’re shitting me?”
“I always carry one. Take it easy.”
“I’m done talking. I’m gonna finish my dinner.”
“You see Tony Squid around?” Clete asked.
“At the aquarium.”
“Is Tony doing more than pour concrete for Jimmy Nightingale?” Clete said.
Penny kicked open the door, letting in the rain. “Youse both get out.”
“Clete told me you had a son,” I said.
I saw the alarm in Clete’s face.
“What about him?” Penny said.
“What happened to him?”
“Nothing. He went to a home.”
“For irreparably damaged children?” I said.
He pared his thumbnail with the tine of a fork, then raised his eyes to mine. His lips curled as though he were preparing to speak, but he didn’t utter a word. Somehow I felt I was gazing into the face of an old enemy.
Clete and I went down the wood steps into the rain. Clete looked back over his shoulder. He took a breath. “He’s got a hard-on for you, Dave. If you come out here again, carry a drop.”
“He’ll cap a cop he’s met one time?”
“He’s got a brain like flypaper. He doesn’t let go.”
“I feel like going back in there.”
“Let’s have a burger and some coffee. Don’t argue.”
“What’d he do to his son?”
“The kid is too scared to talk. Penny is supposed to get him back in two weeks.”
He started the Caddy. We drove slowly past the trailer and the pond blanketed with floating trash.
The next morning, my first visitor in the office was Spade Labiche. He looked energized, glowing with his new assignment, a notepad in his hand. “Got a second, Dave?”
“What’s up?”
He sat down without being asked and peeled back his notebook. “I want you to know everything I’m doing. Maybe you can explain a couple of things as we go along.”
“Okay.”
“We pulled the phone records for calls made to the Dartez number night before last. None were made from your cell or your landline. Except one came in from a pay phone at a filling station in St. Martinville. At just about the time Ms. Dartez says her husband talked to you and said he’d meet you out by Bayou Benoit.”
I didn’t reply.
“You had a snootful?” he said.
“Who told you that?”
“Helen has to do her job, Robo.”
“Yeah, I was loaded.”
“I know what you mean,” he said, writing in his notebook. “So you were going to iron some things out with Dartez? About your wife’s death?”
“I don’t remember.”
He looked up at me. “Can you give me something to work with here?”
“So you can exclude me?”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
“Do you have any witnesses?”
“I’m not supposed to discuss that. We’ve got to tow your truck in. Are you solid with that?”
“What for?”
“An anonymous tipster said he saw a beat-up blue truck slam the rear end of a black truck close to the convenience store. You told Helen you were headed to St. Martinville. So we got to have a look at your truck, Robo.”
“I don’t know who gave you permission to give me a nickname, but I advise you to stop using it.”
“Ease up on the batter, bubba.”
“Get out of my office.”
He flipped the notebook shut. “Have it your way.”
“I plan to.”