“You don’t think less of me because of what I told you about my past?”
“No,” I replied, trying to keep my face empty.
“See you at six?”
“Looking forward to it,” I said.
After she was gone, I could feel my heart racing, but I didn’t know why.
We met Butterworth with a box of fried chicken and crawfish at one of the picnic shelters in the park. He parked his Subaru under an oak and got out. He wore white slacks and a lavender long-sleeve silk shirt that twisted with light on his spare frame; his tan was even deeper than when I had seen him last. He put a Nicorette on his tongue.
“Sit down,” I said. “Have some of Louisiana’s best fried food. It has enough cholesterol to clog a sewer drain.”
“Very good of you. Thank you.”
“What did you want to tell us, Mr. Butterworth?” Bailey said.
“Of a concern or two I have. Our enterprise — or rather, the film culture — is a diverse one. Our common denominator is a desire for money and power and celebrity. I suspect you have determined that by now.”
“The same could apply to many groups of people,” Bailey said.
“Our production company is independent of the studios, which stay alive only through the computerized adaptation of comic books. In other words, we find production money in unlikely sources.”
His faux accent and manner were already starting to wear. “We’re conscious of that, Mr. Butterworth,” I said. “What’s the point, sir?”
“We take money from Hong Kong, Russians, Saudis, and some people in New Jersey.”
“And you launder money for some of them?” Bailey said.
I tried to give her a cautionary look.
“Use any term for it you wish,” Butterworth said. He fished in his shirt pocket as though looking for a cigarette. “I want you to understand my position. I don’t kill people. I saw enough of that in Africa.”
“You make and sell war games for teenagers,” Bailey said.
“I can’t deny that,” he said. “I also buy Treasury bonds, and if you haven’t noticed, the United States government is the biggest weapons manufacturer in the world.”
“Come on, Mr. Butterworth,” I said. “Let’s get to it.”
“A number of people from the Mafia have shown up in our lives. Why is that? They want an immediate return on their money. Second, a nasty little worm of a man with a ridiculous name evidently roasted a couple of their lads.”
“Smiley Wimple?” I said.
“Yes, that naughty boy.”
“You called him a worm of a man,” I said. “You’ve seen him?”
“He was on the bloody set, eating an Eskimo Pie.”
“How’d you know the guy was Wimple?” I said.
“I’ve seen him before. He was killing people here three years ago. He seems to have a fondness for the area.”
I didn’t know if I believed him or not, and frankly, I didn’t care. Butterworth had a circuitous way of spreading confusion without offering any information of value.
“Here’s what I think, Mr. Butterworth,” I said. “You plan to give us nothing. In the meantime you’re strapping on a parachute so you can bail out of the plane before it crashes.”
“Desmond’s film will be one of the greatest ever put on the American screen,” he said. “I’ve led a rather worthless life, but I take great satisfaction in the knowledge that I had something to do with a creation of that magnitude. Des has only a short run ahead of him. I hope he can finish his film.”
“Say again?” I replied.
“He’s on the spike. Don’t ask me what goes into his veins, because I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s a cocktail from hell.”
Our table was spangled with sunshine, the moss waving overhead, the wind cool off Bayou Teche. The petals of the camellia bushes were scattered on the grass like drops of blood. As a cop, you hear everything that human beings are capable of doing. That doesn’t mean you get used to it. Evil has a smell like copper coins on a hot stove, like offal burning on a winter day, like a gangrenous-soaked bandage at a battalion aid station in a tropical country. It violates your glands and your senses. Its odor stays in your dreams, and you never fail to recognize it in your waking day. I swore I smelled it on Butterworth’s skin.
“No comment?” Butterworth said.
“You’re diming your friend and doing it without shame,” I said. “It’s a bit embarrassing to witness.”
He looked at Bailey. “He’s obsessed with you.”
“Who is?” she said.
“Desmond,” Butterworth said. “Be careful. A great artist is just this side of mad. If you doubt me, thumb through the bios of those who torment themselves for months trying to paint a starry night or the likeness of God. Desmond uses chemicals not to escape reality but to find it. How insane can one man be?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
I picked up Bailey at six o’clock. Or tried to pick her up. She came to the front door in a gingham dress. I was wearing a suede sport coat and freshly pressed slacks and a light blue shirt and a plum-colored necktie. “Ready?”
“Where are we going?” she said, as though surprised.
“Dinner and a movie.”
“I already fixed something.”
“Then a film?”
“Whatever you like. Are you turning into a monk?”
“If so, I’m not aware of it.”
“Come in, Dave. We need to talk.”
I didn’t want to come in or to talk. If someone had pointed a gun at me and asked me to state my honest feelings about Bailey, I wouldn’t have known what to say. My obsession with her was probably as great as Desmond’s. Maybe I was trying to reclaim my youth; maybe I wanted to be her protector. It was hard for me to separate her from the image of Cathy Downs standing by the road while Henry Fonda tells her that one day he may return to Tombstone, although he knows full well that his business with the Clantons is not over and he will never be back.
Yes, it was hard for me to separate Bailey from Clementine Carter, until I thought about the three men Bailey had set on fire.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. She had set the dining room table and lit a candelabra in the center. “You’re looking at me that way again. It makes me very uncomfortable,” she said.
“That’s a pretty dress. You look beautiful in it. You’re beautiful in anything, Bailey.”
“I wish I hadn’t told you about what I did in Montana. You think I should resign my job?”
“For what purpose?”
“Maybe I should report myself to the authorities in Montana.”
I could feel my heart thudding, my stomach churning. “This is the reality. The case was closed years ago. In the eyes of the law, three meth dealers blew themselves up. Probably all three had records as dealers and predators. Their deaths were marked off as good riddance. If you reopen the case, you will be involved with the courts for two or three years and then probably be given probation. Everybody involved with the case will secretly wish you stayed in Louisiana. In the meantime you will be financially destitute and ruined professionally. What good would come out of it?”
“I’d sleep again,” she said.
I had tried. But I couldn’t even convince myself. And I had not addressed the arson investigation at the school in Holy Cross, even though I had discussed it with Clete, for which I felt another layer of guilt.
“Desmond hired a PI to dig up dirt on you,” I said. “Or rather, he got Lou Wexler to hire the PI who dug up your past.”
“Pardon?”
“You were part of an arson investigation when you were thirteen. The fire was at a Girl Scout meeting in Holy Cross.”
“Yes, it was an accident.”
“I talked to a retired fire department superintendent,” I said. “He believed they cut you some slack because of the problems in your home.”