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“You’re leaving on your own or you’re leaving in custody. It’s up to you, Weldon.”
“I don’t know about legal jurisdiction and that sort of thing, but I doubt you have much authority here, Dave. And I don’t see any Baton Rouge cops, and I don’t see any old man with a pistol. Take a break and get a soft drink over at the pop stand.”
“You’re starting to piss me off again, Weldon.”
“That’s your problem.”
“No, it’s yours. I think you were born with a two-by-four up your butt.”
“I never said I was perfect.”
“Do you have to prove that you’re not afraid of your father? You flew hundreds of combat missions. Didn’t you ever learn who you are?”
He raised his face and looked at me in an odd way. For just a moment in the fading light, his big ears, his square face, his close-cropped head made me remember the young boy of years ago, his bare feet gray with dust, his overalls grimed at the knees, swamping out the poolroom for two bits an hour.
Then the light in his eyes changed, and he took a drink of beer and looked down between his knees.
“You’ve done your job, Dave. Now let it go,” he said.
I felt Batist pull my sleeve, felt the urgency in his hand even before I heard it in his voice.
“Dave, look yonder,” he said.
Bobby Earl and his entourage of bodyguards and political aides had gone into the grassy area between the speaker’s platform and the concrete shell. Bama had worked her way through the throng and was giving him an oblong box wrapped with satin-finish white paper and a pink ribbon. But that was not what Batist had seen.
On the other side of the concrete shell, Vic Benson had just exited one of the portable bathrooms that stood in a long row under the trees, a baseball cap on his head, dark glasses on his nose. And as quickly as I saw him, he disappeared behind the far wall of the shell.
Then it hit me.
He knows Bama went to the park with Weldon. Through the crowd he got a glimpse of Bama talking with Bobby Earl. At a distance he’s mistaken Bobby Earl for Weldon.
“Good God, he’s going to shoot Bobby Earl,” I said.
“What?” Weldon said.
I took my badge from my coat pocket, held it open in front of me, and ran toward the grassy area behind the speaker’s platform, the weight of the .45 knocking against my hip. I heard Batist hard on my heels. People paused in midsentence and stared at us, their expressions caught between laughter and alarm. Then Earl’s bodyguards were moving toward us, spreading out, their faces heating with expectation and challenge.
Through their bodies I saw Earl’s peculiar monocular vision focus on my face.
“Get that man out of here!” he said.
Two men in suits stepped in front of me, and one of them stiff-armed me in the shoulder with the heel of his hand. His coat hung at an odd angle because of a weight in the right-hand pocket.
“Where you think you’re going, buddy?” he said. His breath was rife with the smell of cigars.
“Iberia Parish sheriff’s office. There’s a man in the crowd with—” I began.
“Yeah? Who’s that with you? The African paratroopers?” he said.
“He’s FBI, you peckerwood shithead,” I said. “Now, you get the fuck out of my way.”
Mistake, mistake, I thought, even as the words came out of my mouth. Don’t humiliate north Louisiana stump-jumpers in front of either their women or the boss man.
“Iberia Parish don’t mean horse piss on a rock here,” the second man said. “You better haul your ass ’fore you get it hauled for you.”
Then more of Earl’s bodyguards and aides pressed toward me, as though I were the source of all their problems, the spoiler of a grand moment in which they had been allowed to participate.
I stepped back from them and held my palms outward. Then I pointed one finger at them.
