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“Where are you going?”
“To find Desmond.”
“Take Clete Purcel with you. Helen is on her way.”
I looked into the magical light that lived in her eyes, and I knew I would never get over her, no matter what she might have done in her younger years. “See you later.”
“I said Desmond was sentimental. That doesn’t mean I trust him. Watch your ass, Dave.”
“Don’t use that kind of language,” I said. I even tried to smile. But I couldn’t believe I’d said that, and in that moment I knew I was fixated on the image of Clementine Carter as much as Desmond was, and that I would have a secret longing for both Clementine and Bailey the rest of my life and I would share it with no one.
• • •
I WENT OUTSIDE INTO the wind and picked up Clete and headed north up the two-lane. I told him of my conversation with Bailey about Desmond.
“So where do you think he is?” Clete said.
“At Lucinda Arceneaux’s crypt or his birthplace.”
“You’re buying in to that crap again?” he said.
“Buying in to what crap?”
“Cormier as the great artist. Great artists bully and degrade people on the set. Because that’s what he did, right?”
We drove in silence. The sun hung as bright as a bronze shield over the bay. Pelicans were plummeting from the sky like dive-bombers, their wings tucked back, disappearing under the water, then rising aga
in with baitfish pouched inside their beaks.
“I got to say something,” Clete said.
“Go ahead.”
“I want to believe Butterworth isn’t a suicide and our guy is still out there. I want to believe that because I planned to blow up his shit. No, worse than that. I want to take him down in pieces.”
“So?”
“So, nothing. You talked to Butterworth before he did the Big Exit. If someone was holding a gun on him, he could have sent you a signal any number of ways.”
“Maybe it was that statement about reading between the lines.”
“Titty babies who beat up hookers like to sound profound. The truth is, they’re titty babies who beat up hookers, usually small ones.”
“He was listening to a recording of Jazz at the Philharmonic and maybe playing along with it. He might have stopped to clean his mouthpiece. Why would he suddenly call me up and commit suicide?”
“Suicide isn’t a rational act. I knew mercenaries in El Sal. They were all looking for the boneyard. They just didn’t know it. You know what I think?”
“No.”
“Butterworth and Cormier had some kind of complicated relationship going on. I also think we’ll never know. We’ll never know what it is either.”
Maybe he was right; maybe not. I didn’t care. I had always believed in Desmond in the same way I’d believed in Bella Delahoussaye. They came from the Louisiana I loved, and I loved Louisiana in the same way you love a religion. You don’t care if your obsession is rational, and you’re not bothered that your love is partly erotic. The Great Whore of Babylon is a commanding mistress. Once she widens her thighs and takes you inside her, she never lets go.
“Forget the crypt,” Clete said. “Go to the res.”
“Why the res?”
“The casino is there, and probably some of the scum-suckers out of Jersey who have been backing Desmond’s films. Maybe they brought their skanks and he can get his knob polished before he continues his life as a great artist.”
