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”He saved me from the electric chair. Didn't have nothing to gain for it, either. How come he start lying now?“
”He's involved with evil men, Luke. Get away from him.“
”I ain't worried about me.“
”I know you're not,“ I said. Then I said, ”Where is she?“
”Out at the house, packing her new clothes, talking about some place in the Islands they're going to, pretending everything all right with Aint Bertie, pretending he fixing to come by anytime now.“
”I wish I had an answer for you.“
”I ain't ax you for one. I just wanted you to know something befo'hand. It ain't gonna end like Moleen want it to.“
”You'd better explain that.“
”You don't know Ruthie Jean, suh. Nobody do. Specially not Moleen Bertrand.“
He went out the screen door and walked down the dock under the string of light bulbs. I picked up the fifty-cent piece he had left for the coffee. It felt warm and moist from the pressure of his hand.
Saturday morning I was reading the newspaper on the front steps when Helen Soileau's cr
uiser came up the dirt road and turned in my drive.
She closed the car door behind her and walked through the shade like a soldier on a mission, her dark blue slacks and starched white shirt, badge and black gunbelt and spit-shined black shoes and nickel-plated revolver as unmistakable a martial warning as the flat stare and the thick upper arms that rolled like a man's.
”Who's the in-your-face bitch-woman at your office?“ she said.
”Beg your pardon?“
”You heard me, the one with the mouth on her.“
”Clete hired her. She didn't strike me that way, though.“
2 6 O
”Well, tell her to pull the splinters out of her ass or learn how to talk on the telephone.“
”How's life?“ I said, hoping the subject would change.
”I'm working a double homicide with Rufus Arceneaux. I never quite appreciated the expression 'dirt sandwich' before.“
”It sounds like you really got a jump start on the day. You want breakfast?“
She hooked one thumb in her gunbelt and thought about it. Then she winked. ”You're a sweetie,“ she said.
I fixed coffee and hot milk and bowls of Grape-Nuts and blueberries for us on the picnic table in the backyard.
”There's something weird going on with Fart, Barf, and Itch,“ she said.
”The RAG in New Orleans called me yesterday and asked if I'd heard anything about Sonny Boy Marsallus. I said, “Yeah, he's dead.” He says, “We think that, too, but his body's never washed up. The tide was coming in when he got it.”
“I say, ”Think?“
”This guy is a real comedian. He says, “You remember that army-surplus character you bent out of round with your baton? Guy with a haircut like a white bowling ball, always chewing gum, Tommy Carrol? Somebody found him working late in his store last night and fried his mush.”
“
”Sorry, I don't remember a baton,“ I say.
