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“Did something happen between you and Felicity Louviere?”
“Dave, I feel like killing myself. I’ve never felt worse in my life.”
How’s that for getting a jump-start on the evening? I got in my pickup and drove down to the saloon. Two rows of motorcycles were parked outside. Clete was standing at the far end of the bar by himself, a longneck Bud and three full jiggers of whiskey in front of him. The bartender stopped me. “You know the guy down there?”
“That’s Clete Purcel. He’s an old friend. My name is Dave Robicheaux. I’m a cop,” I said. “He’s a PI. He doesn’t mean any harm.”
“He needs to go home and take a nap. Maybe start the day over.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“The guys at the pool table paid for those three whiskies and the Budweiser. They were all in Afghanistan or Iraq.”
“There won’t be any trouble,” I said.
I ordered a Dr Pepper and carried it down to the end of the bar. The back of Clete’s neck looked oily and red and pocked with acne scars in the neon glow of the beer sign on the log wall. His coat was folded on top of the bar, with his porkpie hat placed crown-down on it. “What’s the haps, noble mon?” he said.
“You called me on your cell phone.”
“I did? What did I say?”
“You don’t remember?”
He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them and looked into space. “I feel like my brain has been soaked in a septic tank.”
“Did Felicity Louviere cut you loose?”
“You know how to turn a phrase, Streak.”
“You were talking about killing yourself. What am I supposed to say?”
He told me everything that happened at the outdoor table under the awning, on a breezy day in early summer, in the midst of an alpine environment that you would consider the perfect backdrop for star-crossed lovers. When he told me what Caspian had done, I had to drop my eyes and clear my throat and pick up my glass of Dr Pepper and cracked ice and cherries and orange slices, and drink from it and pretend that nothing Clete had told me was that s
erious in nature. At the same time, I wanted to tear Caspian Younger apart.
“I think you did the right thing,” I said.
“Right thing in what way?”
“Walking away. Taking the heat for his wife. You don’t lower yourself to the level of a guy like that.”
“That’s not what I was asking.”
“Then what’s the question?”
“You know what the question is.”
“You mean is a certain someone trying to do a mind-fuck on you?”
“In a word, yeah,” he said.
“How would I know?”
“You’re smarter about women than I am.”
“I say blow it off. Let go of her.”
“She bothers me. I can’t get her out of my head.”
