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"What else did he do?" the plainclothes detective named Dale Lou-vi ere said. Even in the open air a gray fog of nicotine and ash seemed to enclose his body. Clusters of veins, like tiny pieces of green string, pulsed in his temples.
"He said he wanted to help me. He was fooling with his fly when he said it," Cash Money said.
"You're a liar," Father Jimmie said.
"We saw you watching those kids, Father," Louviere said.
"How would you like to have your teeth knocked down your throat?" Father Jimmie said.
"Hook him up," Louviere said.
"I ain't putting my hands on him," Cash Money said. His eyes jumped sideways when Father Jimmie looked him directly in the face.
At the police station Father Jimmie was charged with sexual solicitation and threatening a police officer and locked in an empty holding cell that was in full view of anyone, male or female, in the booking area. He made a pillow out of his coat, pulled off his collar, and lay down on a wood bench. He stared up at the graffiti and scratched drawings of genitalia that covered almost all the painted surfaces in the cell, and remembered the admonition of the blues singer Lazy Lester: "Don't ever write yo' name on the jailhouse wall."
He could see Louviere punching in numbers on a phone, calling up first the local newspaper, then a television station in Lafayette and one in Baton Rouge, the Associated Press in New Orleans, and finally the diocese.
Louviere walked to the cell door. "Want your phone call now?" he asked.
"I'd like to ask you a question first," Father Jimmie replied.
Louviere unlocked the door and pulled it open. "If you're wondering whether I'm a Catholic, yeah, I am. And it's perverts like you who give the church a bad name," he said.
"Call yourself whatever you wish, but you're not a Catholic. The real issue is whose pad are you on. Who's paying you to do this to other people, sir? What price have you gotten for your soul?" Father Jimmie said.
I was at the office when Father Jimmie called.
"How much is your bond?" I said.
"I haven't been arraigned yet," he replied.
"Why'd you have to take your petition into St. Mary Parish?"
"What's wrong with St. Mary Parish?"
"It's a fiefdom. They think it's the year 1300 down there."
I heard him laugh. "A fiefdom? With serfs in iron collars and that sort of thing? That's an interesting observation. I see," he said.
No, you don't, Jimmie, I thought. But martyrs and saints fly low with the angels, colliding with telephone poles and the sides of buildings, and consider harm's way their natural environment. Who was I to contend with them?
Max Coll didn't like gambling; he loved it and all the adrenaline rush and glittering ambiance that went with it, as passionately as a man could love a woman or a religion. All men had a vice, his father used to say. It was recognition of our moral frailty that allowed us to retain our humanity, he said. The man who wasn't tempted by drink or women or betting the ponies could easily set himself on a level above Christ, and hence become guilty of the most pernicious of the seven deadly sins, namely arrogance and pride.
Max had always remembered his father's words. Drink robbed a man of his intelligence and his organs; women gave a man satiation for only a little while, and memory of it immediately rekindled lust for and dependence on more of the same.
But gambling gave a man control, allowed him to choose his battleground and make use of his knowledge about both people and mathematics. The losses were only monetary ones, and since gambling was never about money, what difference did the loss make, particularly for a single fellow whose occupation was a bloody affair that should allow for a sybaritic excursion once in a while?
He was discriminating in the games he played. The slots, video poker, and electronic keno were created for natural-born losers. Jai alai was fun and fast, but what reasonable person would bet on players who all came from the same part of Spain and were related to one another? With the ponies you could dope out the morning line, study the track conditions and the animals in the paddock, and have a fair chance at the windows. Craps was for show boats roulette for Cote d'Azur faggots, and dog tracks everywhere strictly for the dogs.
Not to say he didn't bet ball games, boxing matches, and national elections. In fact, Max once bet a window washer on the thirty-first floor of a Chicago hotel that he could climb out on the sill and clean the window faster than the professional washer. He not only won the wager, he enjoyed the experience so much he washed four more windows out of goodwill.
But the game that got Max in trouble was blackjack, the one game that gave the casino player a running chance at beating the house. Max's memory bank was almost like a computer's, and even when going up against a houseman dealing out of a five-deck shoe, Max's ability to count cards and to successfully stay put or risk another hit was uncanny.
Max's weakness at the blackjack table was his inability to put principles ahead of personalities. He didn't resent losing to a machine or to corrupt jai alai players wanting to keep their family members out of the tomato patch. Max did not like to lose to individuals, particularly stolid and dispassionate people who were paid by the hour and could not wait to get off work. To count cards until his brain was bleeding, then have a joyless clod turn up a blackjack on him out of sheer luck made the scalp recede on his skull.
He would retaliate by playing multiple hands, progressively increasing his bets, doubling up on splits, until he was broke, exhausted, and depressed, staring out the window at the ragged edges of dawn in
Vegas or Reno or Atlantic City, wondering if he could get the casino manager to open a credit line for him.
