Robicheaux: A Novel

by James Lee Burke

“Robey?”

  “Whatever.” He gazed down the street. “It’s warming up. I hear this movie deal is coming together.”

  “News to me.”

  “Come on, Levon Broussard is hooking up with Tony Nemo. You’re writing the script. It’s all around town.”

  “Talk to Levon.”

  “Like I told you before, I know the locale. Or maybe they want to use some real cops.”

  “Could be.”

  “I was an extra in a Miami Vice episode. They didn’t do the real story, though. You know the real story about Miami?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Jimmy Carter let all the boat people in. It took Reagan to stop it.” He squinted across the street at the square and the sun glinting on the Teche. His forehead was shiny, his upper lip beaded. He cleaned the humidity out of his eyes with his fingers. “Don’t look right now, but do you see a guy over there?”

  “Which guy?”

  “He’s wearing red tennis shoes.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t see anyone like that.”

  Labiche turned slowly, his arms over his chest. He stared at the square, his lips a tight button. “There’re a lot of weirdos around. This guy looked like a perv.”

  “Are you talking about the man who stole the ice cream truck and killed Maximo Soza?”

  His face blanched. “Yeah. We got an all-points on him.”

  “I don’t see anybody in red tennis shoes.”

  “Let’s go inside. I’ll buy you something cool to drink. Or maybe you want something stronger.”

  “There’re some people down by the bayou. You don’t want to check them out?”

  He put a fresh cigarette into his mouth and lit it. He shook the front of his shirt with his fingers as though ridding it of the heat rising from the sidewalk. “I got to quit these. No, there’s nothing down by the bayou. About the movie—”

  “Two things,” she said. “Don’t be giving my father nicknames. I’m surprised he hasn’t broken your jaw by this time. Second, stay away from me. It’s not your fault that you’re ignorant and stupid. In fact, you give the lie to the notion of white racial superiority, and for that reason, society owes you a debt. But please stop bothering me.”

  He stepped into the shade. He widened his eyes, his profile as jagged as broken glass, his teeth showing. “Maybe you’ll need a friend down the track. That friend could be me. But I won’t be there. Think about that.”

  “You’d better rephrase your words, trash.”

  Two people walking by looked over their shoulders.

  “I might put something in that smart-ass mouth you’re not expecting,” he said.

  “What did you say?”

  He opened the door of his cruiser. Before he shut it, he turned toward her and squeezed his phallus, his lust and iniquity undisguised.

  That evening she told me what had happened.

  THE SUNSET WAS like pools of fire inside clouds that were turning into rain. The crowd at the bar-and-grill up the bayou was a happy one. Before going inside, I stood at the deck railing and gazed at the live oaks on the lawn of the old convent, the people of color who were pole-fishing on the bank, the raindrops chaining the bayou’s surface. Then I went inside. People who knew me glanced away, either out of embarrassment or in fear.

  Babette, the young Cajun woman who had told me she’d seen Labiche with Kevin Penny, was working behind the bar. She was serving a highball to Spade Labiche. In the shadows at the end of the bar, Clete Purcel was eating a bowl of étouffée and drinking from a mug of beer caked with ice. He looked straight into my eyes but didn’t stop eating.

  “Hi, Miss Babette,” I said.

  “Hello, Mr. Dave,” she replied. “You want to order some food, suh? If that’s what you’re having, I mean.”

  “Not right now. Just a diet drink. Any kind is fine.”

  “You here to talk to me, Robicheaux?” Labiche said. “If you are, that’s a mistake.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You got a beef, do it by the numbers, at the office. That’s what offices are for.”

  I took a glass of iced Diet Coke and lime slices and cherries from Babette’s hand. I had not asked for the lime and the cherries, but she had put them in just the same. I sat down next to Clete.

  “Care to tell me why you’re in here?” he said.

  “Thought you might be here,” I lied.

  He looked at Labiche but spoke to me. “You want to eat?”

  “Nope.”

  “You just like slop chutes? Like memories of past boom-boom?”

  I glanced up at the TV screen. “I want to watch the ball game.”

  “Yeah? Who’s playing?”

  I placed my hand on his shoulder. It felt like concrete. “Think we’re too old for this?”

  “Old for what?”

  “All this crap.”

  “Don’t buy in to that. Most people are dead inside at forty.” He snapped his fingers. “Look at me.”

  “I am looking at you.”

  “You’re looking at Labiche. What gives?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Are you trying to have another slip? Because if you are, I’m leaving.”

  “You worry too much. Miss Babette, can I have another one of these, please?” I handed her my empty glass.

  But I could not say liquor wasn’t on my mind. I could not only smell it, I was drawn to it the way a bee is drawn to flowers. The bottles on the back counter rang with light. I could almost taste the foam and brassy bead of the beer splashing from the spigot into a big ice-crusted mug, the whiskey brimming on the edges of a shot glass, the Collins mix and shaved ice and mint leaves in tropical drinks made with vodka and rum and gin. I could not explain the metabolic craving that had brought me nothing but sickness and misery, not to mention a murderous rage that was often the surrogate for the booze I couldn’t get enough of.

  I looked at Labiche’s profile and the way he positioned himself at the bar, one foot on the brass rail, shoulders back, half a head taller than those around him. He could see everyone coming in or leaving; he could see down a woman’s blouse, particularly the women behind the bar. He could see a tryst beginning in the parking lot. He could eyeball a parolee who wasn’t allowed to keep company with other ex-felons or enter establishments where alcohol was sold. He was Polonius eavesdropping on the rest of the world.

  I saw Babette bend over to pick up a napkin from the duckboards. I saw Labiche’s eyes follow her breasts down.

  “Where you going?” Clete said.

  “To tell Spade whom he reminds me of.”

  “Whom?”

  I stood behind Labiche but couldn’t bring myself to touch him. I remember seeing Babette look at me, her brow furrowed. I remember Labiche turning around as though he heard the bell at a rail crossing.

  “Want something?” he asked.

  “Repeat what you said to my daughter earlier today.”

  “I didn’t say anything to her. ‘Top of the morning’ or something like that. You drunk?”

  “Think carefully. You asked her if she saw a guy in red tennis shoes. Then you said something else.”

  “You’re a sick man, Robicheaux. Everybody knows it except you. In regard to your daughter, I wouldn’t wipe my ass with her.”

  A quietness settled on the bar.

  “Did you hear me?” he said.

  I nodded. I picked at my nails.

  “You just going to stand there?” he said.

  “You’re not hard to read, Spade.”

  “Have a drink. I’ll put it on my tab. I’ll drive you home. You and your daughter quit your bullshit.”

  “You didn’t make your case on the Dartez homicide. So you thought you’d go all in.”

  “I can’t take this,” he said to no one. He slipped a credit card from his wallet and dropped it onto the bar. “I’m heading out, hon,” he said to Babette. “I’ll pick you up at closing time.”

  Babette picked up the card, her face col
oring.

  “Look at me, Spade,” I said.

  “Jeez, what does it take?” he said, turning toward me.

  I caught him with my right, putting my shoulder and hip into it, driving my fist straight into his mouth, snapping his face sideways as though he had been dropped from a hangman’s rope. I saw blood fly against the back mirror and heard a stifled cry rise from his throat. I hooked him twice with my left hand and caught him again with my right, knocking his head against the bar as he went down.

  I should have pulled the plug. But I knew I wasn’t going to. The simian that had lived in me since I was a child was back in town. A cloud that was red and black and without shape seemed to explode inside my head and destroy my vision, although I was able to see my deeds from somewhere outside my body. Labiche was on the floor and I was stomping his face, hanging on to the bar for purchase, his blood stippling my loafers. The image reminded me of the blood on the grass where T. J. Dartez had been beaten to death. A woman was screaming. Someone was on a cell phone. Labiche’s eyes were filled with terror. I kicked at his face and lost my balance. I felt the desire to kill him slip away from me, like ash dying on a dead fire.

  Clete Purcel came out of nowhere and clenched me from behind and locked his hands on my chest and wrestled me out the door. We were out on the deck, the stars bright, the drawbridge at Burke Street lifting into the air. I pushed him away.

  “He played you, big mon,” Clete said. “Why’d you let him do it?”

  I felt like I was coming off a drunk or getting off a ship without my sea legs. “What happened?”

  “Who cares? It’s done. Get in the Caddy.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “How about another galaxy?” he said.

  We walked into the parking lot and got into the car. He started the engine. “You got it together?”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  He exhaled loudly. “You don’t know?”

  “He put his hand on me?”

  “No, he didn’t do anything. You laid him out.”

  We drove down the street and over the steel grid on the drawbridge.

  “I didn’t kill Dartez,” I said.

  He looked at me oddly, but I didn’t try to explain.

  * * *

  AT SIX THE next morning, I put sardines on the spool table in the backyard for Mon Tee Coon, then showered and dressed and went to work as though nothing had happened the previous night. No one in the building treated me differently than they would have any other day. Helen seemed preoccupied with the paperwork on her desk. I made some calls to cops I knew in Fort Lauderdale and Miami. I drove to the convenience store and again interviewed the clerk who had sold Ding Dongs to the man in red tennis shoes. When I returned, my mailbox was full of messages, and at least half a dozen had been slipped under my door, all from my colleagues. Below is a sampling:

  Way to go, Robicheaux.

  Rip ass, big Dave.

  Fucking A, Streakus.

  Tell Purcel to finish the job.

  Next time cap the cocksucker.

  Helen tapped on my door.

  “Come in,” I said.

  She sat sideways in a straight-back chair. She was wearing dark blue slacks and a white shirt with her gold badge on the pocket. I felt like I was in a filmstrip that had just shifted into slow motion. Her face was composed, her eyes neutral.

  “Labiche isn’t pressing charges,” she said.

  “I see.”

  “You’re not surprised?” she said.

  “He wants to look stand-up.”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  I told her what he had said to Alafair.

  “You should have come to me,” she said. “I would have done something about it.”

  “How bad is Labiche hurt?”

  “It’s probably not felony assault. That doesn’t mean it’s acceptable.”

  She waited for me to say something. I didn’t.

  “I talked to the barmaid,” she said.

  “Babette?”

  “She said you backed off. That Purcel didn’t need to drag you outside.”

  “Could be.”

  “Were you drinking?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You think Labiche set you up?”

  “Probably.”

  “The prosecutor’s office will be looking at you again. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Here’s the rest of it,” I said. “In front of Victor’s, he told Alafair there was a guy wearing red tennis shoes down by the bayou. Alafair said Labiche seemed spooked, but he didn’t want to check the guy out.”

  “Like he already knew who the guy was?” she said.

  “That was Alafair’s opinion.”

  Helen gazed into space. “What’s your take on all this?”

  “Labiche was probably on a pad for some dealers in Miami. He had ties there to Penny. I talked to a retired detective in Dade County. He said Penny got out of Raiford on appeal after some drugs disappeared from an evidence locker. The detective said Labiche was a suspect in the disappearance of the drugs.”

  “So maybe our man in the red tennis shoes is a hitter from Florida who knows Labiche?”

  “Or Labiche knows him.”

  “But what’s the agenda of the guy in the red shoes?” she asked.

  “Pookie Domingue told Clete the guy’s a cleaner.”

  “Pookie the Possum?”

  “Clete said he was about to dump in his pants.”

  “Can I get a promise from you?” she said.

  “What?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. “Forget it.”

  “What is it?”

  She stood up to go. “Don’t get into it with Labiche again. Got it, bwana? Bwana not have time to evolve. Bwana clean up brain with vacuum now or get thrown through window.”

  * * *

  SURPRISES NEVER END. Just after work on Wednesday afternoon of the following week, Spade Labiche walked into my backyard while I was washing my boat. Mon Tee Coon was high up in a tree, looking down at us. Labiche was dressed like a sport in two-tone shoes and a panama hat and a tropical shirt that hung outside his slacks, as though he were trying to transform himself from one identity to another, like people do when they can no longer bear their own mistakes and the lives they lead. The swelling had gone out of his face, but the bruises and scrapes were still there. I never thought I could feel sorry for a guy like Labiche, but I did. There was another element in his face, namely, systemic fear, the kind that eats through your stomach and your entrails or the kind you see in people who know the Great Shade is waiting for them.

  “Before you tell me to get lost, let me make my case,” he said.

  I squirted the hose on the boat’s bow and ran a sponge along its surface. “I don’t think we have much to talk about.”

  “Here’s my situation,” he continued, undaunted. “You don’t work undercover in Miami without getting dirty. I crossed lines. I’ve been in situations where I had to either let a guy get smoked or get smoked myself. You ever have a gig like that?”

  “Close.”

  “You let it play out? You let the guy go down?”

  “I popped the guys who were going to pop him.”

  “I got it. Mr. Moral Superiority.”

  “Your meter is running, Spade.”

  “I know things nobody else knows. Something is going on that doesn’t make sense. I got to have a deal.”

  “See Helen.”

  “She listens to you like she’s got a thing.”

  “Lose it,” I said.

  “Screw that. I got the key to your head. I got the key to your soul.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  He stepped closer to me, even though the spray from the hose drifted onto his clothes. He must have smeared himself with deodorant rather than taking a shower before coming to the house. “The guy who clipped the St. Mary deputy and cooked the guy in the ice cream truck probably has a list. But the list doe
sn’t make sense. Maybe Tony Squid put out the contracts. I think this is political. That means Jimmy Nightingale.”

  “Who killed Penny?”

  “With an electric drill? A sadist for hire.”

  “Maximo Soza was a sadist.”

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  “The guy in the ice cream truck,” I said.

  “Ask me about Miami, I know all the names. I don’t know all the names around here.”

  “I thought you were an expert on New Orleans.”

  His cheek, yellow and blue from my knuckles, quivered like jelly. “This is the deal I need. I keep my badge. Nothing goes in my jacket on this. You help me with Helen, I’ll give you some information you can’t get from anybody else.”

  How do you react to perps or corrupt cops who try to bargain? As Alafair once said about her dealings with venal people in the film industry: “It’s easy. You hang up on them. They can’t stand it.”

  “Did you hear me?” Labiche said.

  “Sorry, I drifted off.”

  “What is it with you? I want to be friends. I didn’t file charges.”

  “I think you wanted me to attack you.”

  He adjusted his tie and made a snuffing sound. “Who knows why anybody does anything?”

  “Did you ever destroy evidence or steal it from an evidence locker?” I asked.

  “Where’d you come up with that one? People are getting killed, and you’re talking about evidence lockers.”

  “Everybody dies,” I said.

  His face drained as though he were aging before my eyes.

  “You all right?” I said.

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be all right? Why’d you say that?”

  “No reason, Spade. Have a good one.”

  I turned my back on him and resumed washing the boat. Mon Tee Coon jumped from one tree limb to the next, shaking leaves on my head. When I looked up, Labiche was gone.

  * * *

  JUST OUTSIDE LAFAYETTE, a man someone said looked like an egg with features painted on it turned off the service road in a Mazda and parked in front of a rental storage locker. He fitted a key into the lock and pulled up the door, waving to anyone nearby. He removed a cardboard box overflowing with folded clothes that still had price tags and placed the box into the trunk of the car. He did the same with a large and seemingly heavy rifle case. He was almost hairless and wore red tennis shoes that were caked with mud. While he loaded the car, he sucked on a lollipop.