A Private Cathedral

by James Lee Burke

  “How did Gideon know Marcel needed to get out of town?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. The implications of all this business about a green man in a cowl are more than I want to deal with.”

  “What’s our choice?” I said.

  “The biggest frailty in our makeup is our willingness to engage evil, Dave. It’s always a trap. When you engage it, it becomes part of you. That’s the only way I can think about this.”

  “How do you not engage it?” I said. “Heinrich Himmler viewed the inmates in the camps before they were sent to the gas chamber. They had to look into his face through the wire. I can’t imagine what that would be like.” I saw the hurt in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Julian.”

  “Marcel said Gideon pressed the money into his palm. When Marcel tried to resist, Gideon grabbed Marcel’s wrist and forced the money on him.”

  I waited. “What’s the rest of it?”

  “There was an abrasion around Marcel’s wrist. With pustules in it, like tiny pearls.”

  “I’m not buying in to this, Julian.”

  “I’m telling you what I saw.”

  “Marcel must be working a con of some kind,” I said.

  “Don’t be surprised if your best thinking gets you nowhere.”

  “There’s another possibility,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Maybe Adonis Balangie is making a move on the Shondell family,” I said. “Maybe all this other stuff is theater. Maybe Penelope Balangie is as greedy as he is.” I swallowed when I put Penelope in the same category as Adonis.

  “You may be correct about Adonis, but you’re mistaken about Penelope,” Julian said. “Her problem is she thinks a good cause justifies any means. Did she catch your eye?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You heard me,” he said.

  “She’s attractive, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said.

  “What you mean is she’s beautiful and not easy to forget in the middle of the night.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I said dishonestly.

  “You’re right. I sometimes convince myself that my weaknesses are the weaknesses of everyone.”

  How had I gotten into this? Here was a man dedicated to God who got credit for nothing and blamed for everything and often lived under the authority of dictatorial men who could make life miserable for a diocesan priest. Now he had me to put up with.

  “You’re the absolute best of everything that’s good in Christianity, Father Julian,” I said. “Anyone who says otherwise should have his butt kicked around the block.”

  I waited for him to speak, but he didn’t.

  “Julian?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m not important. You are. And so is Clete Purcel and also Marcel LaForchette. One thing, however: I do not fear the green man.”

  “You don’t?”

  “The real evil in our community is Mark Shondell.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  “In one fashion or another, the man in the cowl seems to be a historical figure, a wandering soul, perhaps. He tried to help the prostitute and Marcel. Mark Shondell is homegrown and revered in our culture, a man who has the stench of an incinerator on him.”

  I walked back to the cruiser. Leslie was sound asleep. Elizabeth peeked at me from under the quilt, her blue eyes as clear as water. They reminded me of the eyes of the mixed-blood children I had encountered in Henderson Swamp. I woke up Leslie and moved her and her daughter into the Center, then drove to the department on East Main, my head throbbing.

  * * *

  I HAD THE DISPATCHER put out an APB on Marcel LaForchette. It was 4:46 P.M. The grotto next to our building was deep in shadow, the sun a red spark in the live oaks overhead.

  “Armed and dangerous?” the dispatcher asked.

  “No.”

  “Then why are we picking him up?” he said.

  I had to think about it. “For his own safety.”

  The dispatcher’s name was Wally. He was a big fat man who ate candy bars and fried pies all day and seldom missed an opportunity to make a sardonic comment. “You moved a stripper into the nuns’ place?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “You left the door to LeBlanc’s office open.”

  “Thanks for eavesdropping, Wally.”

  “What’s your secret wit’ the ladies?”

  “Maybe if you took the peach pie out of your mouth, I could understand what you’re saying.”

  “The woman in the waiting room,” he said. “I’d go on a diet for something like that. Scout’s honor.” He spread his fingers on his heart.

  I walked to the door of the waiting room. I couldn’t believe it. Penelope Balangie was sitting stiffly in a folding metal chair at the back of the room, her knees crossed, wearing a lavender suit and hose and a pillbox hat with a veil, like a woman out of the 1940s.

  “That’s who I t’ink it is, right?” Wally said behind me. “Adonis Balangie’s old lady?”

  “No, that’s Mother Teresa.” I walked to the back of the room and sat down next to Penelope. She was breathing as though she had run up stairs, which she had not. “If you or Adonis want to file charges against me, do it,” I said. “Then leave me alone.”

  “Someone has to help me,” she said.

  “I’m not the man for it. I showed that this morning.”

  She leaned close to my face, her eyes riveted on mine, her face bloodless. “You’re not understanding me. This is about a man who is going to be killed. Am I supposed to say nothing?”

  “Who’s going to be killed?”

  “I don’t know his name. People who work for Adonis told him there’s an open something-or-other on this man.”

  “An open contract?”

  “Yes, that’s what he called it. Does that mean what I think it does?”

  “The target has a DOA tag on his big toe. Adonis didn’t explain any of this to you?”

  “Mark Shondell is the one ordering the man’s death. I don’t want to talk any more about Adonis. You brought his mistress to New Iberia?”

  “She doesn’t think of herself as a mistress.”

  “I don’t want to talk in here. Where can we go?”

  “I’m very tired, Miss Penelope. Don’t tell me you don’t like to be called ‘Miss,’ either. I’m going home now. I’m going to politely ask that you not come here again.”

  “You’re supposed to be a man of conscience. I’m trying to warn you about a man’s impending death.”

  “Is the target Marcel LaForchette?”

  “I told you, I don’t know the person’s name,” she said.

  “Goodbye, madam.”

  I walked out of the building. A storm front had moved in from the Gulf, shadowing the bayou and City Park and East Main, blowing leaves and pine needles into the circular driveway where the grotto stood, candles flickering in the votive glasses at the foot of the statue. Then the clouds burst, and the rain pounded on my head and shoulders and ran down inside my shirt. I went back into the building. Wally was at the candy machine.

  “Did you hear anything on LaForchette?” I said.

  “Nutting, Dave.”

  I waited for him to make another sarcastic or cynical remark.

  “No comment?” I said.

  “You want some paper towels? You look like a drowned cat.”

  “No, thanks.”

  Wally looked into space.

  “You want to tell me something?” I asked.

  “I always felt sorry about LaForchette,” he said. “I t’ought he got a bad deal, going to jail as a kid and all. What’s wit’ that woman?”

  “Penelope Balangie?” I said.

  “She was crying. You said somet’ing bad to her? That ain’t like you, Dave.”

  * * *

  THE EVENTS THAT followed are hard to put into words. They’re the kind that make you wonder how you could have prevented a serious blot on your soul or changed a li
fe or lifted someone from his despair with a gift as small as a smile, a gentle word, a touch on the cheek. Or, in my case, simply ignoring a bothersome knock on the door.

  The sky remained dark that evening, the rain unrelenting, the oaks and pecan trees in the yard quaking like apparitions when lightning rippled through the clouds. I was eating a frozen dinner in the kitchen when I saw a vehicle turn off East Main and bounce into my driveway, the high beams on. I put aside my food and went into the living room. Someone’s pickup was parked behind mine, the windshield wipers slapping, the engine running. I opened the front door but could not see who was behind the wheel.

  “Who’s that?” I hollered.

  I waited, but there was no answer. It wasn’t unusual for lost tourists to pull into my driveway. I closed the door and went back into the kitchen and sat down at the table. The headlights in the driveway continued to burn through the front windows. Then I saw someone in a slicker and a flop hat run for the front steps; a moment later, a fist pounded violently on the door. I removed a five-round titanium .38 Special snub from the cutlery drawer and stuck it in the back of my belt, then went into the living room again and unbolted and opened the front door.

  Marcel LaForchette glared at me from under his hat. “I need to confess.”

  “See Father Julian.”

  “This is about you, motherfucker.”

  “I don’t like people swearing on my property or in my home. I’m also out of Purple Hearts. I’ll see you at the department tomorrow.”

  “That’s what you t’ink.”

  He stiff-armed me backward and stepped into the room. I had not realized how strong and solid his body was. His face was beaded with water and twisted in an angry knot. He smelled like leaves and earth and the sulfur of the storm.

  “You’re a pro, Marcel,” I said. “Eighty-six the melodrama, will you?”

  “Maybe I’ll bust your jaw.”

  “I never jammed you.” I said. “I never ran you in with the lowlifes.”

  “You always talked down to me. Just like you’re doing now.”

  “Has Mark Shondell got a contract on you?”

  “Open hit. I say fuck it. I been there before. You heard of Sammy the Bull?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sammy tole me I was the best.”

  “But you got straight and you’re on the square now. I’ll fix us some coffee and you can tell me what’s on your mind. Okay?”

  “No, not okay,” he said. He reached inside his raincoat and removed a Magnum-22 Ruger single-action revolver with white handles. He let it hang from his right hand, his slicker dripping on the rug. He tilted his head and grinned.

  “Private joke?” I said.

  “You ain’t never put it together, have you?”

  “You lost me, podna.”

  “I’m talking about you and me. You don’t see it? Look close. The hair, the eyes, maybe the nose a li’l bit.”

  “We’re coon-asses,” I said. “Maybe distant cousins.”

  “My mother tole me she got it on wit’ your old man, Big Aldous.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Big Aldous didn’t stick it to every woman on the bayou?”

  “That was later in his life. When my mother was unfaithful.”

  “You lying son of a bitch. He kept a whore in Abbeville. They had a son named Jimmie.”

  “Why drag up all this grief? You were always stand-up. Are you going to let a bum like Shondell screw up your head?”

  “It ain’t Shondell done it. It’s you. I didn’t have a father or mother. When you were seventeen, you went to SLI. When I was seventeen, I got my rectum tore out in St. John the Baptist Parish prison.” He shoved me again. “I want to hurt you, Dave. I want to kill your animals and burn your house. I want to do t’ings I ain’t never done to nobody else.”

  “Your anger is with yourself, bub. Run your shuck on somebody else.”

  “Big Aldous come to my house once. He was drunk. He had a Christmas tree tied on the roof of his car. He was taking it to y’all’s house. He didn’t bring nutting to mine.”

  “I’m sorry all that happened, Marcel. But I can’t change it. Neither can you.”

  “You got a gun on you, ain’t you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “You didn’t answer somebody beating on your door wit’out your piece? You’re a cop. Don’t be putting your hand behind you. I’ll dust you right here.”

  “I’ve had a good life,” I said. “Do whatever you’re going to do.”

  “Know why I use a twenty-two?”

  “The round bounces around inside the skull. Unless you’re using hollow-points. Then it doesn’t matter.”

  He lifted the barrel so it was pointed at my sternum. I had never seen his eyes so bright. They seemed about to shatter in the sockets. “You made fun of me when I said I might become a PI. ’Member that?”

  “When I visited you at Huntsville? Yeah, I was kidding.”

  “I ain’t,” he said.

  He pressed the muzzle of the .22 into the soft flesh under his chin, pushing it deep as though he wanted to do double injury to himself. Then he pulled the trigger.

  Close up, the report of a .22 Magnum is almost as loud as a .45 auto. It’s deafening. The round drove up through the roof of his mouth and into the brain, splattering my face with his blood. He collapsed under his hat and slicker as though he were dissolving into a pool of black ink, one hand locked on my shoe.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  THE CORONER, PARAMEDICS, uniformed deputies, and Carroll LeBlanc and another detective did not finish their work until almost two A.M. Most of the time I sat in the kitchen, watching each person methodically do his job so there would be no doubt about the integrity of the investigation. The blood on my hair and face was photographed before I was allowed to wash it off. I also had to give up my shirt in case it contained powder burns. I knew the questions that would be asked of me, but I did not fear them. The questions I had to ask myself were another matter.

  Could I have twisted the pistol from Marcel’s hand when he pressed the muzzle under his chin? Maybe. What if I had distracted him and lied and told him my father had spoken fondly of him? What if I had told him I had some juice in Baton Rouge and could get him a pardon so he could work as a PI?

  But the greater concern I had, the one that left me feeling empty and weak at heart and unable to think, was my attitude when I’d visited Marcel in Huntsville Prison. I’d treated him as I would have a gerbil, a genetic accident, a slug lifted from under a rock, at best a spiritually impaired man whose soul had been stolen at age seventeen. I’d treated him with the dignity I would have shown a germ.

  How is it I never thought he could be my half brother? Did I deliberately ignore the possibility because I didn’t want to share my father, who was the only person in my life after my mother deserted us? The answer was probably yes.

  “We’re pretty much done here,” LeBlanc said. He was wearing a sport coat and slacks and a tie. He screwed a filter-tip cigarette in his mouth. “Mind if I light up?”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “No problem.” He dropped his cigarette back in the pack, then scratched his cheek. “LaForchette had his piece inside the raincoat?”

  “Yep.”

  “You thought he was gonna smoke you?”

  “For a moment or two.”

  “What’d he say before he went out?”

  “He said ‘I ain’t.’ ”

  “I ain’t what?”

  “When I visited him in Huntsville, he said he’d like to be a PI in New Iberia. I made a joke about him working at a car wash. Then I told him I was only kidding. So now he was proving he didn’t kid. Big triumph, huh?”

  “Then he shot himself? For no reason you know about?”

  “The guy had a miserable life.”

  LeBlanc wrote in his notepad. “Took his secrets to the grave?” he said, not looking up. “Why is it I don’t believe you, Robo?”

/>   “He said there was an open hit on him.”

  “Ordered by who?”

  “Probably Mark Shondell or Adonis Balangie or both of them,” I said.

  “You have evidence of that?”

  “No.”

  LeBlanc huffed something out of his nose, his eyes receded deep inside the thickness of his skin as though he lived inside a husk. “You keep giving me about half the story, Robo. I can’t say as I like it.”

  “The man came here and killed himself in my living room. I’ll live with this the rest of my life. Now get off my back, Carroll.”

  “Has this got something to do with the voodoo guy or whatever he is at Henderson Swamp?”

  “Could be.”

  He closed his notebook. “I was afraid you’d say that. Here’s what’s going in my report: LaForchette was born to lose and wanted an audience when he shuffled off to wherever guys like him go. Merry Christmas.”

  “He thought I was his half brother and I got all the breaks.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Probably.”

  “Go take a shower. You look like you just got out of Auschwitz.”

  “Why do you use that as a comparison?” I said.

  “What, that’s not politically correct?”

  “Just don’t do it.”

  “Got to tell you this, Dave,” he said, “you’re one crazy son of a bitch. Whatever you suffer from, I hope it’s not contagious.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t use profanity in my house.”

  * * *

  I WENT DEEPER INTO my funk and knew I would not sleep until the next night, and until then I would have no rest, no peace, no respite from the voices and people and sometimes monstrous shapes that dwelled inside my head.

  How do depression and obsession work? I’ll try to explain. The rain made me think of knives in the glow of the streetlamps along East Main. But the rain or my associating it with knives was not the problem. It was the key that opened the lockbox on places I didn’t want to revisit: a nineteen-year-old kid mowing down a birthday party with Ma Deuce in a free-fire zone; digging up bodies buried by a serial killer who kept human trophies; opening the back of a moving van stuffed with illegals in hundred-degree heat; swimming across a bayou at night, trying to get to my house and stop a man who murdered my wife, Annie, with a shotgun while I watched.