AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You threw Legion Guidry through a window?”
“He’s lucky I didn’t feed it to him.”
“He’s going to come after you.”
“Good. I’ll finish what I started this morning. You know what he did to Barbara in the western store?”
“No, I don’t.”
He told me about the scene in the store, Legion Guidry blowing his breath in Barbara’s face while he crushed the bones in her hand.
“He’s setting you up, Clete. That’s why he didn’t file against you,” I said.
He forked his steak off the grill and slapped it on a plate. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Get some bread and a Dr Pepper out of the icebox,” he said.
“What’s eating you?”
“Nothing. The world. My weight problem. What difference does it make?”
“Clete?”
“Barbara’s shitcanning me. She says we’re not a match. She says I deserve more than she can give me. I can
’t believe it. That’s the same line I used when I broke it off with Big Tit Judy Lavelle.”
“When did she tell you this?”
“A little while ago.”
“After you got out of jail for defending her?”
“It’s not her fault. My ex said I always smelled like dope and whores. The only person who won’t accept what I am is me.”
He went into the kitchen with his steak and took a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet and poured three fingers in a glass. He glanced at me, then opened the icebox and tossed me a can of Dr Pepper.
“Get that look off your face. Everything is under control,” he said.
“You going to get drunk?” I asked.
“Who knows? The evening is young.”
I blew out my breath. “You’re going to try to make up with Zerelda Calucci, aren’t you?”
He drank his whiskey in one long swallow, his eyes watering slightly from the hit his stomach took.
“Wow, the old giant killer never lets you down,” he said.
. . .
That night I helped Batist in the bait shop, but I couldn’t let go of Perry LaSalle’s smug complacency. I picked up the phone and called him at his home on Poinciana Island. “Just a footnote to our conversation this afternoon,” I said. “Legion Guidry physically abused Barbara Shanahan in public. He called her a bitch and almost broke her hand. This is the woman you supposedly care about. In the meantime, you denigrate Clete Purcel for going after the guy who hurt her. In this case the guy is your client.”
“I didn’t know this.”
My hand was squeezed tight around the phone receiver, another heated response already forming in my throat. But suddenly I was robbed of my anger.
“You didn’t know?” I said.
“Legion did that to Barbara?” he said.
