DR01 - The Neon Rain

  "I don't have a tank full of piranha here, and I'll take you to the hospital if you want to go," I said to him through my Cuban friend, whose name was Jaime.

  He did not need a hospital; the injuries were not serious; but he would very much appreciate a glass of Bacardi, no ice, please.

  I opened the morning newspaper, pulled my chair around next to him, held up the front section between us so the headline and date were visible, and told Jaime to take our picture with the Polaroid. The Nicaraguan's breath was awful, as though there were something dead in his lungs. He drank the rum and wiped his lips, and the wispy gray scars around his mouth shone like pieces of waxed string.

  "I want you to understand something," I said. "You're going to be a cooperative person, but not because of Didi Gee's hoods and the business with your fingers. Those guys will not get to you again, at least not because of me. If you want, you can file assault and kidnapping charges against them. I'll drive you to either the police station or the FBI."

  He watched me carefully as Jaime translated. The thought of reporting Didi Gee's people to the authorities was evidently so absurd to him that his eyes didn't even register the proposal.

  "But our photograph here is another matter," I said.

  "I'll make copies, many of them, and circulate them around town for those who might be interested. Maybe you have the trust of your friends, and this will be of little consequence to you. Maybe you are in command of your situation and this is childishness to you."

  His face clouded, and his eyes flicked meanly at me for a moment, the way an egg-sucking dog might if you pushed it inside a cage with a stick.

  "Qué quiere?" his voice rasped.

  It was a strange tale. It was self-serving, circumventive, filled in all probability with lies; but as with all brutal and cruel people, his most innocent admissions and most defensive explanations were often more damning and loathsome in their connotations than the crimes others might accuse him of.

  He had been a sergeant in Somoza's national guard for seven years, a door gunner on a helicopter, and he had flown in many battles against the communists in the jungles and the hills. It was a war of many civilian problems, because the communists hid among the villagers and posed as workers in the rice fields and coffee plantations, and when the government helicopters flew too low they often took hostile fire from the ground, where the peasants denied there were any Sandinistas or weapons. What was one to do? Surely Americans who had been in Vietnam could understand. Those who fought wars could not always be selective.

  The soldiers went forth in uniform, as men, in plain sight, while the communists threaded their way among the poor and fought with the methods of cowards and homosexuals. If I did not believe him, witness his eye, and he pulled down the skin on one side of his face and showed me the dead, puttylike muscle under the retina. Their gun-ship had come in low over a secured area, and down below he could see Indians stacking green hay in the field, then a rocket exploded through the armored floor of the helicopter, blew one man out the door, and left a steel needle quivering in Andres's eyeball. The American journalist who visited the army hospital in Managua did not seem interested in his story, nor did he take pictures of Andres as the journalists did of the communist dead and wounded. That was because the American press's greatest fear was to be called rightist by their own membership. Like the Maryknoll missionaries, they kept their own political vision intact by compromising the world in which others had to live.

  If I was offended by his statement, I must remember that he did not choose exile in this country any more than he chose the ruination of his vocal cords and lungs.

  "I heard his regular punch gave him some special gargle water," I said.

  "What?" Jaime said.

  "He and some other guys gang-raped a girl before they executed her. Her sister poured muriatic acid in our friend's drink."

  "This is true?" Jaime asked. He was a small and delicate man with a sensitive face. He always wore a New York Yankees baseball cap and rolled his own cigarettes from illegal Cuban tobacco. His toylike face looked from me to the Nicaraguan.

  "Our man from Managua is a big bullshitter, Jaime."

  The Nicaraguan must have understood me.

  The story about the execution and the acid was a lie, he said, a fabrication of Philip Murphy and the maricón Starkweather. They took pleasure in the denigration of others because they were not real soldiers. Murphy was a morphine addict who made love to his own body with his syringes. He pretended courage but was flaccid like a woman and could not bear pain. Did I really want to know how he, Andres, had his throat and lungs burnt out, how this terrible odor came to live in his chest like a dead serpent?

  "I was blind in one eye, but I could not stop in the fight for my country," Jaime translated for him. "Just as they posed as priests and labor organizers, I went among them as a radical who hated the Somoza family. But a diseased puta, a worthless army slut, betrayed me because she thought I had given her the foulness in her organs. The Sandinistas cocked a pistol at my head and made me drink kerosene, then they lighted matches to my mouth. I suffered greatly at their hands, but my country has suffered more."

  "Where are Philip Murphy and the Israeli?" I asked.

  "Who knows? Murphy lives in airports and pharmacies and finds people when he needs them. Jews stay with their own kind. Maybe Erik is with the rich Jew who owns the warehouse. They're a close and suspicious people."

  "What Jew? What warehouse?"

  "The warehouse where the weapons to free Nicaragua are kept. But I don't know where it is, and I don't know this Jew. I'm only a soldier."

  His face was empty. His eyes had the muddy, stupid glaze of someone who believed that the honest expression of his ignorance was an acceptable explanation to those who had the power to make judgments.

  "I'll give you an easier question, then," I said. "What did you all do to Sam Fitzpatrick before he died?"

  Jaime translated, and the Nicaraguan's face became as flat as a shingle.

  "Did you wire up his genitals?" I asked.

  He looked out at the lake, his mouth pinched tight. He touched the rum glass with his fingers, then withdrew them.

  "Murphy gave the orders, but I suspect you and Bobby Joe carried them out with spirit. Your experience stood you well."

  "I think this one has a big evil inside him," Jaime said. "I believe you should give him back to the people who brought him here."

  "I'm afraid they're not interested in him, Jaime. The man they work for just wanted to knock his competition around a little bit."

  His small face was perplexed under the brim of his baseball cap.

  "We use them. They use us. It keeps everybody in business," I said.

  "If you don't need more of me, I'll go. Sunday is a bad day to be with this type of man. I've smelled that odor before. It comes out of a great cruelty."

  "Thank you for your help. I'll see you at the track."

  "Send him away, Dave. Even a policeman should not look into the darkness of this man's soul."

  I reflected upon Jaime's statement after he had gone. Yes, it was about time that the Nicaraguan became somebody else's charge, I thought.

  I locked a handcuff on one of his wrists, walked him out to my rental car, and hooked the other end through the safetybelt anchorage on the back floor. I went back inside the houseboat, dropped the tape cassette in my pocket, and looked up the number of Nate Baxter, from Internal Affairs, in the phone book.

  "I've got one of the guys that killed Fitzpatrick," I said. "I want you to meet me down at the office."

  "You've got who?"

  "I've got the Nicaraguan in cuffs. I'm going to bring him in."

  "You're suspended, Robicheaux. You can't bring anybody in."

  "I can't book him, but I can sign the complaint."

  "Are you drinking?"

  "Maybe I ought to drop by your house with him."

  "Listen, I can deal with you personally on any level you want. But you be
tter not drag your bullshit into my life. If you haven't figured it out by this time, there's a lot of people that think you should be locked up in a detox unit. These are your friends I'm talking about. Other people think you're a candidate for a frontal lobotomy."

  "The last time you talked to me like this, I was in a hospital bed. Don't take too much for granted, Baxter."

  "You want to clarify that, make it a little more formal?"

  I looked out at the sun beating on the water.

  "I've got the man that helped kill a federal agent," I said. "He can clear me, and I'm bringing him in. If you want to ignore this phone call, that's your choice. I'm going to call Captain Guidry now, then I'm going down to the First District. Are you going to be there?"

  He was silent.

  "Baxter?"

  "All right," he said, and hung up.

  Then I called Captain Guidry. His mother said he had gone to a band concert in the park. I poured out the rum remaining in the Nicaraguan's glass and started to wash the glass in the sink. Instead, I threw it as far as I could into the lake.

  I could see the Nicaraguan's hot eyes looking at me in the rearview mirror. He had to bend forward because of the way his wrist was handcuffed to the floor, and his face was flushed and beaded with sweat in the seat.

  "Adónde vamos?" he said.

  I didn't answer him.

  "Adónde vamos?"

  I wondered which he feared most: Didi Gee's people, the city police, or Immigration. But, regardless, I wasn't going to help him out about our destination.

  "Hijo de puta! Concha de tu madre!" he said.

  "Wherever it is, I don't think it's Kansas, Toto," I said.

  I parked in front of the First District headquarters on Basin, cuffed both of the Nicaraguan's wrists behind him, and led him by the arm into the building.

  "Is Nate Baxter back there?" I asked the sergeant at the information desk.

  "Yeah, he's sitting in your office. What are you doing, Dave?"

  "Give Purcel a call for me. Tell him I have some freight he ought to check out."

  "Dave, you're not supposed to be down here."

  "Just make the call. It's not a big deal."

  "Maybe you should make it yourself."

  I set the Nicaraguan down on a wooden bench and used the phone on the sergeant's desk to call Clete at home. I don't know what I had in mind, really. Maybe I was still pulling for him. Or maybe like a jilted lover I wanted to deliver a little more pain in a situation that was beyond bearing it.

  "I can't come down there now. Maybe later. Lois is going apeshit on me," he said. "She took all the beer bottles out of the icebox and busted them all over the fucking driveway. On Sunday morning. The neighbors are watering their lawns and going to church while beer foam and glass are sliding down my drive into the street."

  "Sounds bad."

  "It's our ongoing soap opera. Drop around sometime and bring your own popcorn."

  "Clete?"

  "What is it?"

  "Get down here."

  I led the Nicaraguan through the traffic squad room, which was filled with uniformed cops doing paperwork, into my office, where Nate Baxter sat on the corner of my desk. His sports clothes and two-toned shoes and styled hair gave you the impression of a Nevada real-estate salesman who would sell you a house lot located on an abandoned atomic test site.

  I threw the tape cassette into his lap.

  "What's this?" he asked.

  "His confession. Also some information about gun smuggling."

  "What am I supposed to do with it?"

  "Listen to it. I've got an interpreter on the tape, but you can get your own."

  "You taking coerced statements from suspects?"

  "He had his options."

  "What the hell are you doing, Robicheaux? You know this isn't acceptable as evidence."

  "Not in a courtroom. But you have to consider it in an IA investigation. Right?"

  "I can tell you now it's got about as much value as toilet paper."

  "Look, you're supposed to be an impartial investigator. There's a murder confession on that tape. What's the matter with you?"

  "All right, I'll listen to it during working hours tomorrow. Then I'll tell you the same thing I told you today. But let's look at your real problem a minute. An unverifiable tape-recorded statement brought in by a suspended cop is worthless in any kind of investigation. You've been here fourteen years and you know that. Secondly, while you were on suspension you got yourself busted with a concealed weapon. I didn't do that to you. Nobody else around here did, either. So why not quit pretending I'm the bad actor that kicked all this trouble up your butt? You got to deal with your own fall, Robicheaux. That's real. Your rap sheet is real, and so is your drinking history."

  "How about Andres here? Does he look like something I made up?"

  My office enclosure was half glass, and the door was open and our voices carried out into the squad room.

  "Is he going to make a statement?" Baxter asked.

  "Is he go—"

  "That's right. You got a tape. You got a guy. Now the tape's no good, so is the guy going to talk to us?"

  I didn't answer. The backs of my legs were trembling.

  "Come on, tell me," Baxter said.

  "He did it. He tortured a Treasury agent with a telephone crank, then burned him to death in my automobile."

  "And he's going to waive his rights and tell us all that? Then he's going to put his signature on it?"

  "I'm still signing the complaint."

  "Glad to hear it."

  "Baxter, you're a sonofabitch."

  "You want to call names, be my guest."

  "Ease off, Lieutenant," the desk sergeant said quietly in the doorway behind me.

  I took my handcuff key from my pocket and unlocked one of the Nicaraguan's wrists, then hooked the loose end to the radiator pipe on the wall.

  "Your trouble is you been making love to your fist so long you think you're the only guy around here with any integrity," Baxter said.

  I swung from my side, hard, with my feet set solidly, and caught him square on the mouth. His head snapped back, his tie flew in the air, and I saw blood in his teeth. His eyes were wild. Uniformed cops were standing up all over the squad room. I wanted to hit him again.

  "You want to pull your piece?" I said.

  "You've finished yourself this time," he said, holding his hand to his mouth.

  "Maybe so. But that doesn't get you off the hook. You want to do something?"

  He lowered his hands to his sides. There was a deep, purple cut, the shape of a tooth, in his lower lip and it was starting to swell. His eyes watched me carefully. My fist was still clenched at my side.

  "Don't you hear well?" I said.

  His eyes broke, and he looked at the uniformed cops watching him from the squad room.

  "Use some judgment," he said almost in a whisper, the threat and insult gone from his tone.

  "Go on home, Lieutenant. It's no good for you here," the sergeant said behind me. He was a big man, built like a hogshead, with a florid face and a clipped, blond mustache.

  I opened my hand and wiped the perspiration off my palm on my slacks.

  "Put my cuffs in my desk drawer for me," I said.

  "Sure," the sergeant said.

  "Look, tell Purcel—"

  "Go home, Lieutenant," he said gently. "It's a nice day out. We can handle it."

  "I'm signing the complaint against this guy," I said. "Get ahold of Captain Guidry. Don't let anybody kick this guy loose."

  "It's no problem, Lieutenant," the sergeant said.

  I walked woodenly through the squad room, the skin of my face tight and dead against the collective stare of the uniformed officers. My hand was still shaking when I filled out the formal complaint of assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping, and homicide against the Nicaraguan.

  Outside, the glare of the sun was like a slap across the eyes. I stepped into the shade to let my eyes adjust to the li
ght and saw Clete walking toward me in a yellow and purple LSU T-shirt cut off at the armpits and a pair of red and white Budweiser shorts. The shadow of the building fell across his face and made him look like he was composed of disjointed parts.

  "What's happening, Dave?" His eyes squinted at me out of the glare, but they didn't actually meet mine. He looked as though he were focusing on a thought just beyond my right ear.

  "I brought in the Nicaraguan. Didi Gee's people dumped him on my dock."

  "The fat boy is rat-fucking the competition, huh?"

  "I thought you might want to check him out."

  "What for?"

  "Maybe you've seen him before."

  He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out into the sunlight.

  "You know you got blood on your right hand?" he said.

  I took out my handkerchief and wiped my knuckles with it.

  "What went on?" he said.

  "Nate Baxter had an accident."

  "You punched out Nate Baxter? Jesus Christ, Dave, what are you doing?"

  "Why'd you do it, Clete?"

  "A lowlife is off the board. What do you care?"

  "A bad cop would have used a throwaway. He would have just said Starkweather came up in his face with it and he had to smoke him. At least you didn't hide behind your badge."

  "You once told me yesterday is a decaying memory. So I got no memory for yesterday. I don't care about it, either."

  "Confront it or you'll never get rid of it, Clete."

  "You think all this bullshit is political and involves principles and national integrity or something. What you're talking about is a bunch of perverts and heroin mules. How you take them out is irrelevant. Bust 'em or smoke 'em, all anybody cares about is they're not around anymore. My uncle used to walk patrol in the Irish Channel back in the forties. When they caught some guys creeping a place, they broke their arms and legs with baseball bats and left one guy to drive the rest of them out of town. Nobody complained then. Nobody would complain if we did it now."

  "These guys don't hire part-time help."

  "Yeah? Well, I'll worry about that when I have the chance. Right now my home life is like living inside an Excedrin ad. I got a little heat rash and Lois thinks it's the gon."