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I walked through the litter and cigarette smoke and out the back door to the canvas-shaded brick patio where Clete often ate his lunch. He had planted palms and banana trees on the edge of the bricks, and had set up a huge electric fan by a spool table and sway-backed straw chair that served as his dining area. He was hunched over a crab burger, reading the Times-Picayune, the wind flapping the canvas over his head, when he heard me behind him.
"What's the gen, noble mon?" he said.
"You heard about Raphael Chalons's death?" I said.
"Yeah, tragic loss."
"I saw him just before he died. He asked me to stop his son."
"From doing what?"
"He didn't get a chance to say."
Clete set down his food and wiped his mouth. He gazed out at the whiteness of the sun on the bayou. "You're saying Val Chalons is a serial killer, maybe?"
"You tell me."
"He's a punk who thinks he can wipe his ass on other people. He made you out a perve and that's why I —"
"What?"
"Called up Jericho Johnny Wineburger after I'd been toking on some substances I should have left alone."
"That's the second reason I'm here. I saw him last night at Henderson Swamp."
Clete twisted in his chair, the straw weave creaking under his weight. "You saw Wineburger? Here?"
"I told him he wasn't going to do business in Iberia Parish. He told me to go screw myself."
"Dave, I called this guy back. I said I shouldn't have bothered him, that I was wired, that we didn't need his help, that Chalons is not worthy of his talents. We had an understanding."
"I didn't get that impression."
"Look, here's how it went down. Originally I told Johnny we didn't need Val Chalons as a factor in our lives right now. Don't look at me like that. Johnny owes twenty grand to a couple of shylocks. The vig is a point and a half a week. If he doesn't get his act together, he's going to lose his saloon. I told him the shylocks owe me a favor and I could get them to give him two free months on the vig if he could get the principal together. But I called him back when I was sober and told him it was hands-off on Chalons. I told him the deal with the shylocks was still solid — no vig for two months. But he doesn't hurt Chalons. That was absolutely clear."
"Maybe his pride won't let him take a free ride."
"Wineburger? That's like a toilet bowl worrying about bad breath."
"Then what is he doing here?" I said.
"With a guy like that —" Clete blew air up into his face and gave me a blank look. "Don't let me roll any more Mexican imports, will you?"
A thunderstorm pounded through town that afternoon, then disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. When I got home from work, the lawn was scattered with wet leaves and the birdhouse Molly had nailed in the fork of a live oak had split across the nail holes and cracked apart on the ground, spilling all the birdseed in a yellow pile. I gathered up the broken pieces, dropped them in the garbage can, and found the listing for Andre Bergeron in the Jeanerette section of our local telephone directory.
"This is Dave Robicheaux," I said when he picked up the receiver. "I'd like to buy one of your birdhouses."
"You called at the right time. I got a sale on. One for twenty-five dol'ars or two for forty-nine ninety-five."
"I think I'll stick with one."
"Installation is free."
"Don't worry about it. Just drop it off at Molly's office and I'll send you a check."
"No, suh, I give door-to-door complete service. That's what you got to do to make a bidness a success today. Me and Tee Bleu got to go to the Wal-Mart. You gonna be home?"
Twenty minutes later he was at the house, balancing on a stepladder while he wired the birdhouse to an oak limb. His son. Tee Bleu, was throwing pecans into the bayou. I wrote a check for Andre on the back steps.
