Dixie City Jam

by James Lee Burke

  'Batist probably hasn't opened the shop yet. I'll go down,' I said.

  'Dave-'

  'It's all right. Bad guys don't park in your drive at sunrise.'

  I dressed in a pair of khakis, old loafers, and a denim shirt, and walked out on the gallery. The light was on in the bait shop. The Cadillac was parked in the shadows under the trees, but I could see two figures in the front seat. The air smelled like flowers and damp earth. I walked across the yard toward the car. To my right I could hear Tripod scratching against the screen on his hutch.

  Tommy Bobalouba got out on the driver's side, dressed in striped, dark brown slacks, tasseled loafers, and a form-fitting canary-yellow polo shirt. Across the bridge of his nose was a thick, crusted scab where I had pistol-whipped him. He was smiling. He put his finger to his lips and motioned me away from the automobile.

  'Charlotte's sleeping,' he whispered. 'She ain't used to being up this early.'

  'What are you doing at my house, Tommy?'

  'It's the weekend. Sometimes I like a drive in the country. Maybe I can rent a boat, you can take us out.'

  He combed his white hair while he gazed approvingly at the surroundings.

  'You didn't come here to square a beef, did you, partner?' I said.

  'You got a cup of coffee?'

  'We can walk down to the bait shop.'

  'The bait shop? What is this, the white trash treatment I get?'

  'My wife's not dressed yet.'

  'I want a favor from you.'

  'Tommy, I'm having a hard time with your presence here.'

  'What? I'm a germ?'

  'I'm the guy who hit you across the face with a forty-five. Now you're at my house.'

  'I don't hold a grudge.'

  'Good. Then you won't be offended when I recommend that you give me a call during business hours at the office.'

  'You made some remarks at my house. About stuff that's maybe on my conscience. So maybe I'm gonna try to set it right. You don't want to help me, then run it up your hole.'

  'I'd appreciate it if you'd watch what you say around my house.'

  The door on the passenger's side opened, and the ash blond lady named Charlotte got out and stretched sleepily.

  'Oh, Mr. Robicheaux, our favorite daytime nightmare,' she said.

  'We're gonna have some coffee. Down at his shop,' Tommy said.

  'Breakfast among the worms. How could a girl ask for more?' she said.

  'His wife ain't up yet,' Tommy said. Then with his back to the woman, he moved his lips silently so I could read the words Give me some fucking help, man.

  I took a quiet breath and put my hands in my back pockets.

  'I apologize for not inviting y'all in,' I said. 'But Batist has some doughnuts and some ham-and-egg sandwiches that I can heat up.'

  'Boy, that sounds good. I could go for that,' Tommy said. He hit me hard on the arm with the flat of his hand.

  The three of us walked down the slope to the dock. I couldn't begin to explain Tommy Blue Eyes' mercurial behavior. He walked on the balls of his feet, talking incessantly, his shoulders rolling, his eyes flicking from the bayou to the outboards leaving the dock to a flight of black geese dissecting the early sun.

  He and the woman named Charlotte sat at a spool table under the canvas awning while I went inside and brought out coffee and doughnuts on a tray.

  'Call Hippo for me,' Tommy said.

  'What for?'

  'Maybe I don't want to be enemies anymore. Maybe we ought to work together.'

  'Call him yourself,' I said.

  'I get three words out and he hangs up.'

  'Write him a letter.'

  'What I look like, St. Valentine or something?' He glanced at his wristwatch, then shook it close to his ear. 'You got the time?'

  'It's ten to six,' I said.

  'Look, why should Hippo and me be always cutting a piece out of each other? We're both in the casino business. Hippo's a good businessman, he'd be a good partner, he doesn't steal from people. I want you to tell him I said that.'

  'I think you got some damn nerve, Tommy.'

  He took his coffee cup away from his mouth and pointed four stiffened fingers into his chest. 'You come out to my house, you give me a lecture on conscience and responsibility, you hit me in the face with a gun, now I get another lecture?'

  'Is there anything else you want to tell me? I have some work to do.'

  He pushed a knuckle against his teeth, then clamped his hand across my forearm when I attempted to rise. He took it away and made a placating gesture.

  'It's not easy for me to talk to Hippo,' he said. I saw his blue eyes fill with a pained, pinched light. 'He just doesn't listen, he sees it one way, it's always been like that, he'd just walk off when I tried to say I was sorry about his little brother. I tried a whole bunch of times.'

  'When?'

  'When we were growing up.'

  'It's between you and him, Tommy. But why don't you say it to him once more, as honestly as you can, then let it go?'

  'He's not. He sees me on the street, he looks at me like I was butt crust.'

  'So long, Tommy. About the other day, I didn't want to hit you. I'm sorry it happened.' I nodded to the woman as I got up to go.

  He wiped part of a doughnut off his mouth with his wrist.

  'We're gonna rent a boat and some gear, do some fishing,' he said. 'If you're around later, we'll buy you lunch.'

  'I'm tied up. Thanks, anyway,' I said, and walked up the dock toward my house just as Alafair was coming down the slope, with Tripod on his chain, to get me for breakfast.

  At noontime Batist and I were outside in the cool lee of the bait shop, serving our customers barbecue chickens from our split-barrel pit, when I saw Tommy and the woman named Charlotte coming up the bayou in one of our boat rentals. The engine was out of the water, and I Tommy was paddling against the current, his face heated and knotted with frustration as the boat veered from side to side. It had rained hard at midmorning, then had stopped abruptly. The woman's hair and sundress were soaked. She looked disgusted.

  A few minutes later they came into the bait shop.

  Without asking permission the woman went around behind the counter and unrolled a huge wad of paper towels to dry her hair.

  'I owe you some money. I ran the motor over a log or something,' Tommy said.

  'It's in the overhead,' I said.

  He hit on the surface of his watch with his fingers.

  'What time is it?' he said.

  I pointed at the big electric clock on the wall.

  'Twelve-fifteen. Boy, we were out there a long time,' he said. 'A snake ate my fish, too. It came right up to the boat and sucked it off my stringer. Are they supposed to do that?'

  'Take an ice chest next time.'

  'That's a good idea.' He opened two long-necked beers from the cooler and gave one to the woman, who sat in a chair by a table, rubbing the towels back over her long hair. 'I guess we better hit the road. I didn't know it was already afternoon.'

  They went out the screen door, then I saw Tommy stop in the shade, tap one fist on top of another, turn in a circle, then stop again. He looked back through the screen at me and raised his fists momentarily in a boxer's position, as though he wanted to spar. He reminded me of a mental patient spinning about in a bare room.

  I walked outside. It was breezy and cool in the shade, and the sun was bright, like yellow needles, on the water.

  'What's on your mind, podna?' I said.

  He craned a crick out of his neck and pumped his shoulders. The cords in his neck flexed like snakes. Then he shook my hand without speaking. His palm felt like the hide on a roughened baseball.

  'You got to understand something, Dave. You mind if I call you Dave?'

  'You always have, Tommy.'

  'I go by the rules. I don't break rules, not the big ones, anyway. The greaseballs got theirs, cops got 'em, guys like me, micks who've made good from the Channel I'm talking about, we got ours, too. S
o when somebody breaks the rules, I got no comment. But I don't want to get hurt by it, either. You understand what I'm saying here?'

  'No.'

  'I never hurt anybody who didn't try to do a Roto-Rooter on me first.'

  'A hit's going down that you don't like?'

  'I said that? Must be a ventriloquist around here.'

  'What's the game, Tommy?'

  'No game. I got to do certain things to survive. You hold that against me? But that doesn't mean I wasn't on the square about Hippo. He was once my friend. I ain't trying to job you on that one.'

  I watched him walk up the dock toward his car, his head turned sideways into the breeze, the red scab on his nose like an angry flag, his blue eyes hard as a carrion bird's, as though hidden adversaries waited for him on the wind.

  I decided that it would take a cryptographer to understand the nuances of Tommy Lonighan.

  I walked around the side of the house to the backyard and turned on the soak hose in my vegetable garden. The bamboo and periwinkles along the coulee ruffled in the breeze. Beyond my duck pond, the sugarcane in my neighbor's field flickered with a cool purple and gold light.

  Bootsie had gone shopping in New Iberia, and Alafair was fixing sandwiches at the drain board when I walked into the kitchen. From the front of the house I heard the flat, tinny tones of a 1920s jazz orchestra, then the unmistakable bell-like sound of Bunk Johnson's coronet rising out of the mire of C-melody saxophones.

  'What's going on, Alf?' I said.

  She turned from the counter and looked at me quizzically. I could see the outlines of her training bra under her yellow T-shirt.

  'Who put one of my old seventy-eights on the machine?' I said.

  'I thought you did,' she said.

  The record ended, then the mechanical arm swung back automatically and started again. I walked quickly into the living room. The front door was open, and the curtains were swelling with wind. I opened the screen door and went out on the gallery. The yard and drive were empty and blown with dead leaves. Out on the dirt road black kids on bicycles, with fishing gear propped across their handlebars, were pedaling past the dock. I went back inside, lifted the arm off the record, and turned off the machine. The paper jacket for the record lay on the couch. The record itself was free from any finger smudges; it had been placed on the spindle with professional care.

  'Alf, it's all right if you wanted to play the record,' I said in the kitchen. 'But it's important you tell me whether or not you did it.'

  'I already told you, Dave.'

  'You're sure?'

  'You think I'm lying?'

  'No, I didn't mean that. How long has it been playing?'

  'I don't know. I was outside.'

  'Did Bootsie put it on before she left?'

  'Bootsie doesn't play your old records, Dave. Nobody does.'

  'Bootsie hasn't been herself, Alf.'

  She turned back to the counter and began spreading mustard on her sandwich bread, her face empty, the way it always became when she knew something was wrong in the house. Her pink tennis shoes were untied, and her elastic-waisted jeans were stained with grass at the knees from weeding in the garden.

  I saw her hand with the butter knife slow, then stop, as a thought worked its way into her face.

  'Dave, I heard the front screen slam about fifteen minutes ago. Was that you?'

  'I was at the dock, Alf. Maybe it was Bootsie.'

  'Bootsie left an hour ago.'

  'Maybe she came back for something.'

  'She would have said something. Was it that bad man, Dave?'

  I picked her up and sat her on top of the drain board, like she was still a small child, and began tying her tennis shoes.

  'Was it that bad man?' she said again.

  'I don't know, Alf. I truly don't.' My fingers were like a tangle of sticks when I tried to tie the bow on her shoe.

  That evening, at dusk, the clouds in the western sky were marbled with orange light, and fireflies spun their wispy red circles in the darkening trees. Bootsie had taken Alafair to the video-rental store in town, and the house was empty and creaking with the cooling of the day. I called Clete at his apartment in the French Quarter.

  'Buchalter was here,' I repeated. 'No one else would have put that record on. The guy went in and out of my house in broad daylight and nobody saw him.'

  'I don't like what I'm hearing you say, Streak.'

  'I don't either.'

  'I don't mean that. The Bobbsey Twins from Homicide don't rattle.'

  'The guy seems to float on the air, like smoke or something. What am I supposed to say?'

  'That's what he wants you to think.'

  'Then tell me how he got in and out of my house today?'

  'That's part of how he operates. He wants you to feel like you've been molested, like he can reach out and touch you anytime he wants. It's like you don't own your life anymore.'

  I could hear my own breath echoing off the receiver.

  'My ex's first husband tried to do a mind fuck on her the same way,' he said. 'He hired a PI to take zoom-lens pictures of her on the toilet and mail them to her boss, then he got in her bedroom while she was asleep and slashed up all her underwear with a razor… Hey, lighten up, Dave. Buchalter is flesh and blood. He just hasn't moved across the right pair of iron sights yet.'

  'Clete, I've got every cop in Iberia Parish looking for this guy. How-'

  'You think he was there today. You didn't see him. Listen, big mon, we're going to turn it around on this guy. They all go down, it's just a matter of time… Are you listening?'

  'Yes.'

  'Your problem is you think too much.'

  'Okay, Clete, I've got your drift.'

  'I thought you were calling me about Nate Baxter.'

  'Why would I call you about him,'

  'Nate almost got deep-fried in his own grease early this morning. Evidently he gets it on in Algiers sometimes with this biker broad who used to be his snitch in the First District. But he wakes up this morning, the broad is gone, and the dump she lives in is burning down. Except she's got French doors that are locked across both handles with Nate's handcuffs. He wrapped his head in a wet sheet and curled up in the bathtub or he wouldn't have made it.'

  'Where's he now?'

  'At Southern Baptist, up on Napoleon. Why?'

  'Is he pressing any charges?'

  'Not according to the cop who told me about it. I guess getting set on fire just goes with the territory when Nate tries to get laid.'

  'Who's the woman?'

  'Pearly Blue Ridel, you remember her, she used to work in a couple of the Giacanos' massage parlors, then she got off the spike and hooked up with some born-again bikers or something. Too bad Baxter's still got her by the umbilical cord.'

  'Pearly Blue's no killer, Clete. She starts every day with a nervous breakdown.'

  'Tell that to Nate.'

  'I think it's a hit. A heroin mule in Baton Rouge sheriff's custody told me and Lucinda Bergeron that the Calucci brothers were going to take somebody out, somebody they weren't supposed to touch. Then this morning Tommy Lonighan showed up at my dock and made a point of establishing his whereabouts from six to noon or so.'

  'Let them whack each other out. Who cares? If Baxter had caught the bus, half of NOPD would be plastered right now.'

  'Would you like Lonighan setting you up for his alibi?'

  'Keep it simple, Streak. Buchalter's the target. These other guys are predictable. Your man is not.'

  Your man? I thought, after he had hung up. For some reason the possessive pronoun brought back the same sense of visceral revulsion and personal shame and violation that I had felt when Mack, on that raw, late-fall afternoon in the barn, had extended the backs of his fingers to my face and made me an accomplice in the sexual degradation of my mother.

  Why?

  Because as, the object of someone else's perverse sexual obsession, you feel not only that you are alone, and I mean absolutely alone, but that th
ere is something defective in you that either attracts or warrants the bent attentions of your persecutor.

  Ask anybody who has ever been there. Even a cop.

  I knew Pearly Blue Ridel on another level besides the one that Clete had mentioned over the telephone, but the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous prevented me from acknowledging to an outsider that she was a member of our fellowship.

  Bootsie, Alafair, and I went to an early Mass at St. Peter's in New Iberia the next morning, then I dropped them off at my cousin Tutta's in town and headed back for New Orleans.

  Pearly Blue's AA group was not a conventional one. It was made up of low-bottom drunks and outlaw bikers across the river in Algiers, and it was called the Work the Steps or Die, Motherfucker group. Because most of the members rode chopped-down Harleys, often had shaved heads, were covered with outrageous tattoos, and were generally ferocious in their appearance, they couldn't rent a meeting hall anywhere except in a warehouse that adjoined a biker bar where many of them used to get drunk. I parked in the alley behind the warehouse and used the rest room in the back of the bar before I went into the noon meeting.

  On the condom machine someone had written in felt pen, Gee, this gum tastes funny. Written in the same hand on the dispenser for toilet-seat covers were the words Puerto Rican Place Mats.

  The AA meeting area in the warehouse was gray with cigarette smoke, dense with the smell of sweaty leather, engine grease rubbed into denim, expectorated snuff, and unwashed hair. I stood against the wall by the doorway until Pearly Blue would look at me. She wore Levi's that were too large for her narrow hips, no bra, and a tie-dyed shirt that showed the small bumps she had for breasts. Her hair was colorless, stuck together on the ends, and the circles under her eyes seemed to indicate as much about the hopelessness of her life as about her emotional and physical fatigue. You did not have to be around Pearly Blue long to realize that she was one of those haunted souls who waited with certainty at each dawn for an invisible hand to wrap a cobweb of fear and anxiety around her heart.

  My stare was unrelenting, and finally she got up from the table and walked with me out into the alley. She leaned against my truck fender, put a cigarette in her mouth, and lit it with both hands, although there was no wind between the buildings. She huffed the smoke out at an upward angle, her chin pointed away from me.