AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What have you two done, Dave?”
I sat down at the breakfast table and looked at the tops of my hands. I thought about telling her all of it.
“Back at the First District, we used to call it ‘salting the mine shaft.’?”
“What?”
“The wiseguys have expensive lawyers. Sometimes cops fix it so two and two add up to five.”
“What did you do?”
I cleared my throat and thought about continuing, then I made my mind go empty.
&n
bsp; “Let’s talk about something else, Boots.”
I gazed out the back screen at the fireflies lighting in the trees. I could feel her eyes looking at me. Then she walked out of the kitchen and began sorting canned goods in the hallway pantry. I thought about driving into town and reading the newspaper at the bar in Tee Neg’s poolroom. In my mind I already saw myself under the wood-bladed fan and smelled the talcum, the green sawdust on the floor, the flat beer, and the residue of ice and whiskey poured into the tin sinks.
But Tee Neg’s was not a good place for me to be when I was tired and the bottles behind the bar became as seductive and inviting as a woman’s smile.
I heard Bootsie stop stacking the canned goods and shut the pantry door. She walked up behind my chair and paused for a moment, then rested her hand lightly on the back of the chair.
“It was for me and Alafair, wasn’t it?” she said.
“What?”
“Whatever you did last night in New Orleans, it wasn’t for yourself. It was for me and Alafair, wasn’t it?”
I put my arm behind her thigh and drew her hand down on my chest. She pressed her cheek against my hair and hugged me against her breasts.
“Dave, we have such a wonderful family,” she said. “Let’s try to trust each other a little more.”
I started to say something, but whatever it was, it was better forgotten. I could hear her heart beating against my ear. The sun-freckled tops of her breasts were hot, and her skin smelled like milk and flowers.
BY NINE O’CLOCK the next morning I had heard nothing of particular interest out of New Orleans. But then again the local news often featured stories of such national importance as the following: the drawbridge over the Teche had opened with three cars on it; the school-board meeting had come to an end last night with a fistfight between two high school principals; several professional wrestlers had to be escorted by city police from the National Guard armory after they were spat upon and showered with garbage by the fans; the drawbridge tender had thrown a press photographer’s camera into the Teche because he didn’t believe anyone had the right to photograph his bridge.
So I kept diddling with my paperwork, looking at my watch, and wondering if perhaps Clete hadn’t simply spent too much time at the draft beer spout in the Acme before he had decided to telephone me.
Then, just as I was about to drive home for lunch, I got a call from Lyle Sonnier.
“Sorry to be so late getting back to you, Loot, but it was hard getting everybody together. Anyway, it’s on for tomorrow night,” he said.
“What’s on?”
“Dinner. Actually, a crab boil. We’re gonna cook up a mess of ’em in the backyard.”
“Lyle, that’s nice of you but—”
“Look, Dave, Drew and Weldon feel the same way I do. You treated our family decent while we sort of stuck thumbtacks in your head.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I know better, Loot. Anyway, can y’all make it or not?”
“Friday night we always take Batist and Alafair to the drive-in movie in Lafayette.”
“Bring them along.”
