“We’ll get everything to the lab.”
“Waste of time. The guy’s a pro. One of two guys sent him.”
I knew where we were going. “You don’t know it was Smiley. Don’t start making connections.”
“He’s out-of-town talent. He’s working for Fat Tony or Jimmy Nightingale. They both have the same motivation.”
“Like what?”
“Tony thinks he’s hit the big time in Hollywood. Nightingale is about to become an international figure. They’re leaving their baggage in the depot.”
But I knew Clete’s thought processes had not reached their destination.
“It’s Nightingale,” he said. “His shit-prints are on all of this.”
“Okay, he’s the Antichrist of St. Mary Parish,” I said. “You made your point. But the evidence that he’s hired a killer isn’t there. Tony Nemo hires killers. Rich guys like Jimmy hire lawyers.”
“Jimmy?”
“Nightingale,” I said.
“Right.” Clete refilled his cup and wrapped his hand around it and lifted it to his lips, then set it down without drinking. “I didn’t come here to tell you about my suspicions. You’re my friend, and I got to be up front with you about something.”
I felt the moisture in my mouth dry up, even the taste of the coffee disappear.
“The guy who sent the bomber after me didn’t care if he killed Homer or not,” Clete said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Tony Nine Ball or that punk in St. Mary Parish, the guy behind this is going off the board.”
“I didn’t hear that. You didn’t say it. That thought never crossed your mind.”
“I’m going to cap him, Streak.”
I took the tin cup from his hand and threw the coffee on the ground. “We’re done.”
“What would you do if it was Alafair?” he said. “Think about it. What would you do?”
Late that night, a pizza scooter pulled in to the driveway of a rented nineteenth-century home outside Jeanerette, and a short man in a stiff hat with a big bill got out with a pie box and looked around as though unsure of the address. The house was set back from the street and dark with shadow except for a light in the bathroom. A tall figure walked out of the driveway and confronted the delivery man. There was a brief exchange, then the tall figure disappeared and the delivery man climbed the steps to the gallery and twisted the bell.
The man who answered was wearing a brocaded royal blue silk robe. His body was shaped like a pile of inner tubes. “What’s this?”
“Your pizza.”
“I didn’t order a pizza.”
The deliveryman looked at the bill in his hand. “Anthony Nemo?”
“The name is Tony. I didn’t order a pizza. Where’s Robert?”
“Who?”
“My chauffeur.”
“He’s sleeping.”
“You leave your flying saucer on the lawn?”
“He was tired. He went to sleep. Like you.” The deliveryman raised a stun gun and touched it to the center of Tony Nine Ball’s face. Tony hit the floor like a cargo net loaded with salami.
When Tony awoke, all the curtains were closed, the air-conditioning blasting out arctic levels of cold air. A toy man with lips as red as a clown’s was sitting on a chair two feet from him, staring at him with a silly smile. Tony’s arms were pulled behind him.
“Hi, sleepyhead,” the man said. “My name is Chester. Do you want some pizza?”
“I can’t move.”
“You have ligatures on. So you won’t hurt yourself.”
“You almost knocked my head off. I can’t breathe. I got emphysema.”
Chester went into the bedroom and came back with a pillow. He put it under Tony’s head. “Better?”
Tony’s eyes were small and black and buried deep in his face. “You sound like Elmer Fudd.”
“Don’t be impolite. I can make you go back to sleep.”
“You’re the wack job everybody is talking about.”
Chester removed a rolled comic book from his back pocket and tapped it on Tony’s nose. “Bad, bad, bad.”
“You’re nuts. You belong in a gerbil cage. Tell me what you want.”
“Don’t make me mad.”
“My dick in your mouth, jerk-off. I got guys out there gonna take you apart no matter what happens in here.”
“No nasty talk. Not one word.” Chester tightened the comic in his grip and hammered the butt end on Tony’s nose. Tony’s face went out of shape, his eyes watering. A sound like a punctured tire wheezed from his throat. “I got to have my tank.”
“Bad boys don’t get what they want. I did some research on you. You have been very bad.”
“What the fuck is this?”
“Did Kevin Penny work for you?”
“So what?”
“He was cruel to his little boy. You knew about it. You didn’t stop it.”
“I didn’t know nothing about his personal life. You’re here from Boys Town?”
Chester’s head was throbbing like wooden blocks falling down a staircase. “I wasn’t in Boys Town. I was in a place where bad things were done to me.”
“From what I hear, you already fucked up two hits. One with the cop in New Iberia, one with Clete Purcel. Kevin Penny’s kid is living with Purcel. You were supposed to blow up the kid, too? You looking for child abusers? Go look in the mirror, gerbil boy.”
Chester’s mouth had shrunk to a stitch, his nostrils no more than tiny holes, white around the rims. He unrolled his comic book and stared at the cover. Wonder Woman was leaping across a canyon undaunted, her gold and red bodice pushing up her breasts, her blue star-spangled shorts skintight, the message in her face unmistakable. I will, Chester said inside his head.
“You’ll do what?” Tony said.
“What Wonder Woman tells me to. If I don’t, I’ll have bad thoughts and do bad things.”
“Bad thoughts? You’re an assassin who talks to a comic book. You’re a meltdown. I can get you help for that.”
Chester rolled the comic into a tight cylinder again and jammed it as hard as a stick into Tony’s eye. “You will not talk back anymore.”
Tony’s face quivered with shock. His wounded eye was watering and rimmed with a red ring.
“I never did anything to you. Somebody is using you. I’m a businessman, a movie producer. Check me out. You want to be in a movie? I’ll put you in a movie.”
“You need to be punished.”
“What do you call this?”
“Nothing,” Chester said.
He went outside and returned with a black leather bag, the kind physicians once carried. He removed a pair of needle-nose pliers and a plastic container. Tony’s face seemed to shrink and become miniaturized. “Don’t.”
Chester unscrewed the cap and fitted the pliers on Tony’s nose and squeezed. “Open wide.”
Then he poured the container of Drano down Tony’s throat, making sure not to get any on his clothes or hands.
The next morning Helen called half a dozen plainclothes into her office. She was looking out the window at the Teche as we filed in. When she turned around, it was obvious that she planned to be brief and deliver a message that cops understand but don’t talk about.
“The coroner says Nemo went out about as hard as it gets. His chauffeur is still in a coma. A passerby said he saw a man in a boxlike hat get out of the delivery wagon and talk to someone in the driveway. The ‘someone’ was probably the chauffeur: He got his eggs scrambled with a stun gun. The pizza wagon was stolen. Maybe it’s our man Smiley. Maybe not. The homicide is under the jurisdiction of St. Mary Parish.”
“That’s it?” someone said.
“It’s my belief that the same guy tried to put a bomb in Clete Purcel’s car,” she replied. “Or maybe we’ve got a tag team at work. Whoever it is, we need to cool them out. Everybody hearing me on this? We don’t get hurt. Civilians don’t get hurt. Bad guys go out of business. Everybody copy?”