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The skin of his face was grained and red, and his eyelashes fluttered with his frustration.
"Mr. Robicheaux, I think . . . I feel . . ."
"What?"
"I believe you've been treated unfairly."
"Oh?"
"I believe I've contributed to it, too. I've complained to others about both you and the FBI woman."
"I think there's another problem here, Mr. Lemoyne. Maybe it has to do with the price of dealing with a man like Julie Balboni."
"I've tried to be honest with you."
"That's fine. Get away from Balboni. Divest yourself of your stock or whatever it takes."
"Then maybe he was involved with those dead girls?" His eyes were bright and riveted on mine.
"You tell me, Mr. Lemoyne. Would you like Julie for your next-door neighbor? Would you like your daughter around him? Would you, sir?"
"I find your remark very offensive."
"Offensive is when a stunt man gets his nose and ribs broken and an ear torn loose from his head as an object lesson."
I could see the insult and injury in his eyes. His lips parted and then closed.
"Why are you out here, Mr. Lemoyne?"
"To see Mr. Goldman. To find out what I can."
"I think your concern is late in coming."
"I have nothing else to say to you. Good day to you, sir." He walked to his automobile and got in.
As I watched him turn onto the dirt road and head back toward the security building, I had to wonder at the self-serving naiveté that was characteristic of him and his kind. It was as much a part of their personae as the rows of credit and membership cards they carried in their billfolds, and when the proper occasion arose they used it with a collective disingenuousness worthy of a theatrical award.
At least that was what I thought—perhaps in my own naiveté—about Twinky Hebert Lemoyne at the time.
When I reached the security building Murphy Doucet, the guard, was back inside, and the chain was down in the road. He was bent over a table, working on something. He waved to me through the open window, then went back to his work. I parked my truck on the grass and walked inside.
It was hot and close inside the building and smelled of airplane glue. Murphy Doucet looked up from a huge balsa-wood model of a B-17 Flying Fortress that he was sanding. His blue eyes jittered back and forth behind a pair of thick bifocals.
"How you doing, Dave?" he said.
"Pretty good, Murph. I was looking for Julie Balboni."
"He's playing ball."
"Ball?"
"Yeah, sometimes he takes two or three guys into town with him for a pepper game."
"Where?"
"I think at his old high school. Say, did you get Twinky steamed up about something."
"Why's that?"
