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“Fine,” he said, looking at the shadows.
“When did you go on the spike?”
“A year ago,” he said.
“Why’d you do it?”
“Probably the same reason people climb in a bottle.”
“You wanted to?” I said.
“Nobody held a gun on me.”
“You’re looking good,” I lied.
“Think so?”
“Sure,” I said. “Where’d you get the digger hat?” He didn’t understand what I meant. “The Aussies call those ‘digger hats’ because the prospectors in the Outback wore them.”
He took off the hat and brushed a strand of Spanish moss off the brim, then put it back on. “Maybe don’t tell anybody about this, huh?”
“Your hat?”
“Isolde sent it to me. There wasn’t a return address, but I know it was from her. She knew I wanted one.”
“I’m at a loss about something, Johnny. Your uncle Mark has no feelings about others. Why cover for a man who has done such harm to you and Isolde?”
“Uncle Mark is a man of destiny.”
“What kind of destiny?”
“He won’t say. Something big.”
“Marcel LaForchette was a button man for the Balangie family; more specifically, he helped whack a child molester from New Iberia. I had the impression the molester might have been an employee or a member of your family.”
“I don’t want you talking about the Shondells like that, Mr. Dave. Besides, why would Uncle Mark hire a guy who had killed one of his relatives?”
Because Marcel LaForchette might end up a sack of fertilizer in your rose garden, I thought.
“Know any revelators?” I asked.
His face drained. “Where’d you hear about revelators?”
“Know a guy named Gideon?”
“Gideon Richetti?”
“Yeah, that might be the guy.” I had no idea what Gideon’s last name was. “You’re buds with this character?”
“Don’t do this to me, Mr. Dave. I’m already falling apart.”
“My address was found in his room in the French Quarter.”
Johnny’s lips were gray and chapped, his eyes lustrous, as though he had a fever. I could smell an odor rising from inside his shirt. “You have to get away from Gideon,” he said.
“He’s a killer?”
“He travels through time. He’s the guy who hung up Mr. Clete.”
