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Rodney Loudermilk had just forked a piece of steak into his mouth when the visitor seized him from behind and dragged him out of his chair, locking arms and wrists under Rodney's rib cage, lifting him into the air and simultaneously carrying him to the window, whose curtains swelled with the evening breeze. Rodney probably tried to scream and strike out with the fork that was in his hand, but a piece of meat was lodged like a stone in his throat and the arms of his visitor seemed to be cracking his ribs like sticks.
Then there was a rush of air and noise and he was out above the city, among clouds and rooftops and faces inside windows that blurred past him. He concentrated his vision on the dusky purple stretch of sky that was racing away from him, just like things had always raced away from him. It was funny how one gig led to another, then in seconds the rounded, cast-iron, lug-bolted dome of an ancient fire hydrant rose out of the cement and came at your head faster than a BB traveling toward the eye.
THE ACCOUNT OF RODNEY Loudermilk's death was given us over the phone by a San Antonio homicide investigator named Cecil Hardin, who had found the crumpled piece of notepaper by the wastebasket in Loudermilk's hotel room. He also read us the statements he had taken from the two witnesses in the alley and played a taped recording of an interview with Loudermilk's pipehead friend.
"You got any idea who H.S. is?" Hardin asked.
"We've had trouble around here with an ex-cop by the name of Harpo Scruggs," I said.
"You think he's connected to Loudermilk's death?" he asked.
"The killer was an aerialist? My vote would go to another local, Swede Boxleiter. He's a suspect in a murder in Lafayette Parish."
"What are y'all running over there, a school for criminals? Forget I said that. Spell the name, please." Then he said, "What's the deal on this guy Boxleiter?"
"He's a psychopath with loyalties," I said.
"You a comedian, sir?"
I DROVE UP THE Loreauville road to Cisco's house.
Megan was reading a book in a rocking chair on the gallery.
"Do you know where Swede was on Sunday?" I asked.
"He was here, at least in the morning. Why?"
"Just a little research. Does the name Rodney Loudermilk mean anything to you?"
"No. Who is he?"
"A guy with sideburns, blind in one eye?"
She shook her head.
"Did you tell Swede anything about your attackers, how they looked, what they said?"
"Nothing I didn't tell you. I was asleep when they broke in. They wound tape around my eyes."
I scratched the back of my neck. "Maybe Swede's not our man."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Dave."
"Sunday evening somebody canceled out a contract killer in a San Antonio hotel. He was probably one of the men who broke into your house."
She closed the book in her lap and looked out into the yard. "I told Swede about the blue stars on a man's wrist," she said.
"What?"
"One of them had a string of stars tattooed on his wrist. I told that to one of your deputies. He wrote it down."
"If he did, the sheriff and I never saw it."
"What difference does it make?"
"The guy in San Antonio, he was thrown out an eighth-floor window by somebody who knows how to leap across window ledges. He had a chain of blue stars tattooed around his left wrist."
She tried to hide the knowledge in her eyes. She took her glasses off and put them back on again.
