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I'll love you forever
My jolie blonde.
But seldom did Annie and I speak directly to each other. Instead we talked brightly to Alafair, walked her to the swing sets and seesaws, bought snowcones, and avoided one another's eyes. That night in the almost anonymous darkness of our bedroom we made love. We did it in need, with our eyes closed, without words, with a kiss only at the end. As I lay on my back, arms across my eyes, I felt her fingers leave the top of my hand, felt her turn on her side toward the opposite wall, and I wondered if her heart was as heavy as mine.
I woke up a half hour later. The room was cool from the wind sucked through the window by the attic fan, but my skin was hot as though I had a sunburn, the stitches in my scalp itched, my palms were damp on my thighs when I sat on the side of the bed.
Without waking Annie, I washed my face, put on a pair of khakis and an old Hawaiian shirt, and went down to the bait shop. The moon was up, and the willows along the bank of the bayou looked silver in the light. I sat in the darkness at the counter and stared out the window at the water and the outboard boats and pirogues knocking gently against the posts on my dock. Then I got up, opened the beer cooler, and took out a handful of partly melted ice and rubbed it on my face and neck. The amber necks of the beer bottles glinted in the moon's glow. The smooth aluminum caps, the wet and shining labels, the brassy beads inside the bottles were like an illuminated nocturnal still life. I closed the box, turned on the lightbulb over the counter, and called Lafayette information for Minos P. Dautrieve's home number.
A moment later I had him on the phone. I looked at the clock. It was midnight.
"What's happening, Dunkenstein?" I said.
"Oh boy," he said.
"Sorry about the hour."
"What do you want, Robicheaux?"
"Where are these clubs that Eddie Keats owns?"
"You called me up to ask me that?"
I didn't answer, and I heard him take a breath.
"The last time we talked, you hung up the phone in my ear," he said. "I didn't appreciate that. I think you have a problem with manners."
"All right, I apologise. Will you tell me where these clubs are?"
"I'll be frank about something else, too. Are you drinking?"
"No. How about the clubs?"
"I guess things never work fast enough for you, do they? So you're going to cowboy our Brooklyn friend?"
"Give me some credit."
"I try to. Believe me," he said.
"There are a dozen people I can call in Lafayette who'll give me the same information."
"Yeah, which makes me wonder why you had to wake me up."
"You ought to know the answer to that."
"I don't. I'm really at a loss. You're truly a mystery to us. You don't hear what you're told, you make up your own rules, you think your past experience as a police officer allows you to mess around in federal business."
"I'm talking to you because you're the only guy around here with the brains and juice to put these people away," I said.
"I'm not flattered."
"So it's no dice, huh?"
He paused.
"Look, Robicheaux, I think you have a cinder block for a head, but basically you're a decent guy," he said. "That means we don't want you hurt anymore. Stay out of it. Have some faith in us. I don't know why you went out to Bubba Rocque's house this afternoon, but I don't think it was smart. You don't—"
"How'd you know I was out there?"
