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Tito crashed into a wall and collapsed on his spine, his legs spread, his jaw torn loose from his head. Caesar tried to crawl away from the rounds that blew the sole of his shoe off his foot, tore through a buttock, and splattered blood off his shoulder in a horsetail on the floor.
The room was littered with ejected shell casings when Max Coll finally stopped firing. He nudged Tito in the chest with his polished shoe, satisfying himself that Tito was dead, then leaned down and studied Caesar's face. "Oops, looks like you're still on board, little fellow," he said, and fired a round into the side of Caesar's head, stepping back to avoid the splatter.
He stood erect and took my measure, his cheeks rosy, a cleft in his chin slick with sweat. He pulled the sponge from my mouth. "You all right, Mr. Robicheaux?" he asked.
My heart was pounding, my ears almost deaf. "Cut me loose," I said.
"Can't do that, sir. You're a copper through and through. You'd figure out a way to have me in cuffs for sure. Give my best to Father Dolan. He's a bit hard-headed, but under it all I think he's a fine man of the cloth. His kind make me proud I'm a Catholic," he said.
And with that he was gone.
Fifteen minutes later three cruisers from the St. Martin Parish Sheriff's Department arrived at the fish camp, having been notified of my situation from a payphone by Max Coll.
Chapter 15.
On Wednesday afternoon, after sleeping almost fifteen hours, I drove with Clete Purcel in his Caddy to City Park and sat under a barbecue pavilion in the rain on the banks of Bayou Teche.
"A guy pissed in your face?" he said.
"No, first he pissed in my face. Then he pissed all over me," I replied.
He lit a Lucky Strike and spit a piece of matter off his tongue. A moment later he nipped the cigarette into the bayou and watched it float away. "Don't let me light one of these again," he said.
"I won't."
"The Flannigan broad set you up," he said.
"I don't believe that."
"She got you out of your house and into a bar. What's that, working the Steps one drink at a time?"
"It was my idea to go over there."
"Why? You got some big obligation to keep other people from drinking if they want to? "
I didn't answer. I tried to avoid his eyes. "Are we talking about boom-boom out of times past?" he said.
"Why don't you give some thought to the way you talk to other people, Clete?"
"Did you ever get it on with her or not?" he asked.
"Maybe."
"Maybe?" He nodded profoundly. "So after you made your ex-punch's father look like a vindictive prick in front of his friends, you don't think she would lure you to a slop chute in hopes you'd either get killed or drunk again? Perish the thought."
I stared at the rain dimpling the surface of Bayou Teche. "Theo isn't connected with people like Tito and Caesar Dellacroce," I said.
"Merchie worked for the Teamsters in Baton Rouge. They'd force guys to buy a union book, then get them fired after a month so they could crank up their membership numbers. That's how he got into the pipeline business."
"That doesn't mean he's mobbed up today."
"A guy who trucks oil waste into black neighborhoods? Not a chance. When I was a kid we had a rumble with the Ibervilles. It was supposed to be fist, feet, and elbows, no shanks, no chains. Merchie opened a switchblade and busted it off in my cousin's arm. In my opinion he's still a project street rat as well as full-time punk and gash hound. Quit defending these assholes."
"Gash hound?" I said.
"Forget it, big mon. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Your head is encased in cement."
I had long ago learned there was no point in arguing with Clete or expecting him to understand that the people he resented most were those who came from the same background he did. He pushed his porkpie hat down on his brow and stared disgustedly at the rain. "I'm going to cripple the motherfuckers behind this, Dave. I mean that literally," he said.
