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I had never heard Julian speak of someone in that way.
“Shondell is going to undo the Civil Rights Act?” I said, trying to smile.
“Do you know how many people secretly wish that were the case?” he said. “I’m going to have a drink now. Probably more than one. Take care of yourself, Dave. And take care of Clete most of all.”
He latched the screen but continued to look through it as we turned around in the yard and headed back to New Iberia. Moths were clustered like wet chicken feathers on the electric light above his gallery.
* * *
ONE WEEK LATER, the sheriff’s department merged with the Iberia City Department and moved into City Hall, a lovely two-story building on the Teche with a reflecting pool in front and a long semicircular driveway shaded by live oaks. The driveway stayed in deep shadow and led past the library and a grotto dedicated to Jesus’ mother. On the other side of the grotto was a canebrake and a Victorian home that once was the residence of Joel Chandler Harris, the former Confederate officer best known for his Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit stories and his passionate concern for people of color.
My office was on the second floor of the building on the Teche. I loved walking down East Main to work, in the shadows of the massive oaks up and down the street, and picking up my mail and pouring a big cup of coffee and taking the stairs to my office and sitting behind my desk, and gazing out the window at the camellias blooming on the far side of the bayou and the urban forest that comprised City Park.
Clete had gone back to New Orleans to take care of his office on St. Louis Street in the Quarter, and I tried to concentrate on the good things in my life and let go of the things I couldn’t control. Our recent election of a sheriff was still in chaos, but in the state of Louisiana, chaos is more the norm than an anomaly. In the meantime, we were stuck with a pro tem sheriff. Guess who that was?
Carroll LeBlanc came into my office on a sun-spangled morning when God seeme
d in His heaven and all was right with the world. “Tell me your secret,” he said.
“About what?”
“Uptown cooze on the hoof.”
“Sorry, that went right past me.”
“This particular uptown cooze drives a maroon Ferrari. My hat is off to you, Robo, but I don’t want you dragging your private shit into the department.”
I tilted back in my chair and swiveled it so I could gaze at the bayou and the park and not look at LeBlanc. “It’s a bluebird day,” I said. “You could strike a match on the sky.”
“Do you have a hearing problem?”
“Nope, I hear just fine.”
He walked behind my desk and interdicted my line of sight. “I’m talking about Penelope Balangie, who happens to be the wife of Adonis Balangie.”
“What’s the news on Ms. Balangie?”
“She was here yesterday afternoon. Looking for you.”
That one got to me. But I kept my face empty. “You took a message?”
“I don’t take messages. I’m the sheriff.”
“I don’t know what to tell you about Penelope Balangie, Carroll. Why don’t you talk to her? Talk to Mark Shondell also. The issue is human trafficking.”
“You got something going with that bitch?”
I stood up and looked down on the bayou and the sun’s reflection wobbling under the surface. “You got a problem, bub.”
“What did you call me?”
I looked him in the face. The line of moles under his left eye resembled a string of black insects; there was dried mucus at the corner of his mouth. I could smell his deodorant. “You have sex on the brain,” I said. “Either get your ass out of my sight or get your ashes hauled. I don’t care which.”
“I can have you up on insubordination.”
“Do it.”
He wore a polyester navy blue suit that looked like it had grease in it, and a gold tie and a white dress shirt with tiny silver fleurs-de-lis. His right hand was clenching at his side. “Maybe I should pop you right here.”
