Clete sat on the side of his bed, his electric coffeepot bubbling on the counter in his small kitchen, the early sun glowing through the closed slats of his blinds. He knew Trish liked him, but that didn’t mean she loved him, nor did it mean she wouldn’t use him. He had learned in Vietnam there were three groups of people who got you killed—pencil pushers, amateurs, and idealists. Trish didn’t fit into the first category but she qualified for the other two. So far, his involvement with her had cost him a visit from the FBI, a stab wound in the shoulder, and possibly a warrant for the fire hose caper and bomb scare at the casino on Canal. How big a bounce was he willing to take in order to feel he was thirty again?
He ate four scrambled eggs and a slab of ham in his skivvies, shaved and showered, then dressed in a new suit, fitted on his porkpie hat, and went outside to greet the day.
The previous night he had pulled a vinyl cover over his Caddy to protect it from bird droppings. But someone had unhooked the elastic loops from the bumpers and folded back the cover in a neat stack on the ground, then had tiger-striped the paint job with acid. There was also a silver indentation the width and flat shape of a screwdriver tip under the gas flap, and Clete guessed the flap had been prized in order to pour sugar or sand into the tank.
He used his cell phone to call Triple A for a wrecker, then called me at the office. “I think Lefty Raguza paid me a visit last night,” he said, and described the condition of his car.
“You should have pressed assault charges against him when you had the chance, Clete,” I replied.
“You know how much business that fire hose situation probably cost the casino? I’ll be lucky if I don’t have to blow the state.”
It was pointless to argue with Clete. Besides, he was right. His history of mayhem and environmental destruction both inside and outside the New Orleans Police Department preempted any chance of his being presumed innocent in a conflict between Clete and a business enterprise that brought millions of tourist dollars into Orleans Parish. “You’ll need an investigative report for your insurance. I’ll send somebody out,” I said.
“Thanks. Raguza didn’t do this on his own. Whitey Bruxal had to give his approval.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Wake up, Streak. These guys have used the state of Florida for toilet paper since the 1920s. You’re spending your time on people at the bottom of the food chain. Fraternity pissants and black street pukes aren’t the problem. The word is Whitey Bruxal has bought juice with a televangelical lobbyist who closes down Bruxal’s competition. Like Trish says, you hurt the big guys in their pocketbook.”
“Stay away from that woman,” I said.
But he had already closed his cell phone.
I HAD ALWAYS BELIEVED Colin Alridge was far too complex a man to be dismissed as a tawdry charlatan. His father had been an insurance executive who mixed pleasure with business in both Fort Lauderdale and New Orleans, his mother a survivor of internment by the Japanese in the occupied Philippines. After the father drank up the family money and shot himself, Colin attended a poor-boy Bible college in South Carolina, wandered around the Upper South as an encyclopedia salesman, then became a regular on a Sunday-morning religious program that was broadcast out of Roanoke, Virginia. Colin quickly learned that his good looks, corn-bread accent, and family-oriented Christian message were a combination that could ring like coins bouncing on gold plate. More important, he discovered that beyond the television camera there was a huge political constituency hungry for conversion and affirmation, provided that it was conveyed by someone they could trust.
It’s inadequate to describe him as handsome. It was the totality of his appearance that charmed his audiences and made him an iconic figure sought out by political and religious groups all over the country. He was clean-cut, immaculately groomed, straightforward, his face marked with an ever present serenity that was obviously born of inner conviction. Working-class women who touched his hand called him “godly.” When he whispered his message of love and redemption into a microphone, their faces crumpled and their eyes swam with tears.
He returned to his birthplace and bought a modest home on Camp Street, in the Garden District, and often appeared at shelters for battered women and the homeless. But there were stories about a second home outside Bay St. Louis, one with a breathtaking view of the Gulf. The deed was in the name of the incorporated ministry that others administered for him, but the rich and the powerful were often seen dining on the deck with Colin at sunset, the blood-streaked skies and rustle of palms a triumphal backdrop to those who had successfully managed to give unto both God and Caesar.
Colin Alridge had remained free of the type of scandals that had brought down many of his predecessors. If there was a repressed libertine inside him, no one ever saw it. He was devoted to his work and I suspect sincere when he often mentioned his mother as the source of his political and spiritual convictions. Even I sometimes wondered if the rumors about his ties to casino gambling were manufactured by his political enemies. Why would anyone who had achieved so much risk it all by involving himself with a Miami lowlife like Whitey Bruxal?
Clete Purcel had his Caddy towed into the shop, then drove in a rental to Whitey Bruxal’s business office on an oak-shaded stretch of Pinhook Road near the Lafayette Oil Center. But Whitey Bruxal was not there and his receptionist said she had no idea where he was.
Clete looked around at the deep carpet and heavy, ornate furniture in the reception area. The office was located next to a motel built of soft South Carolina brick, and through the windows he could see the shadows of the live oaks out on Pinhook Road and the sun winking on the motel swimming pool. “You got a nice location here,” he said. When she didn’t respond, he added, “Whitey just blows in and out but doesn’t tell his employees where he is?”
“Would you like to leave your name and phone number?” the receptionist said. Her hair was platinum, her tan probably chemically induced. She picked a piece of lint off her skin and dropped it in a wastebasket.
“Is Lefty Raguza around?” Clete asked.
“I think Mr. Raguza is at the track.”
“Too bad. Tell Whitey Clete Purcel was by. He doesn’t need to call. I’ll drop by another time. Or maybe catch him at his house. He goes to his house sometimes, doesn’t he, when he’s not blowing in and out of the office?”
Her eyes drifted up into his, her expression as bored as she could possibly make it.
“That’s what I thought. Thanks for your time. Give Lefty my best. Tell him I’ll be getting together with him soon,” he said. “Could I have one of those business cards?”
She nodded her head toward a container on her desk, her attention concentrated on her computer screen.
Clete wrote on the back of the business card and handed it to her. “Give this to Whitey, will you?” he said.
She took the card with two fingers and set it beside her keyboard without looking at it. Then she glanced down at the message written in a tight blue calligraphy across the card. It read:
The guy your people capped in Opa-Locka had the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. Why don’t you give me a call, shitbag? I’d like to chat you up on that.
The receptionist’s face sagged slightly, then she picked up her purse and walked into the restroom, her eyes focused far out in front of her.
Outside, Clete stood in the shade of an oak, wondering what he had just accomplished. The answer was easy: Nothing. In fact, his behavior had been foolish, he told himself. Contrary to his own admonition, he was once again engaging the lowlifes on their own turf, issuing challenges that brought him into conflict with disposable douche bags like Lefty Raguza.
What was it that guys like Whitey Bruxal wanted? Again, the answer was easy: Respectability. The legalization of gambling throughout most of the United States was a wet dream come true for the vestiges of the old Syndicate. The money they used to make from the numbers racket, money that they always had trouble laundering, was nothing compared t
o the income from the casinos, tracks, and lotteries they now operated with the blessing of federal and state licensing agencies. In fact, not only had the government presented them with a gift that was beyond the Mob’s wildest imaginings, they had been able to attach educational funding to gambling bills all over the country, which turned schoolteachers into their most loyal supporters. Was this a great country or not?
Maybe it was time to piss in the punch bowl, Clete thought. He looked at his watch, then headed for New Orleans.
En route he called his part-time secretary at the office he still operated on St. Ann Street in the Quarter. She was a former nun by the name of Alice Werenhaus, a stolid pile of a woman whose veneer of Christianity belied a personality that even the previous bishop had feared. In fact, I think Nig Rosewater and Wee Willie Bimstine’s bail skips were more afraid of facing Miss Alice than they were Clete. But she and Clete had hit it off famously, in part, I suspected, because the pagan in each of them recognized the other.
She called Clete back by the time he crossed the Atchafalaya and gave him the probable schedule for the rest of Colin Alridge’s day.
“High tea at the Pontchartrain Hotel?” Clete said.
“He entertains elderly ladies there. Actually, he doesn’t seem like a bad man,” she said.
“Don’t let this dude snow you, Miss Alice.”
“Have you gotten yourself into something, Mr. Purcel?”
“Everything is copacetic. No problems. Believe me.”
“The police department keeps calling about this episode at the casino. They say a lot of water damage was done to the carpets.”
“Don’t listen to them. It was just a misunderstanding. Thanks for your help. Got to go now.” He closed the cell phone before she could ask any more questions.
But she called back thirty seconds later. “You take care of yourself, Mr. Purcel!” she said.
He could do worse than have Miss Alice on his side, he thought.
Just before 3 p.m. he drove down St. Charles and parked across from the Pontchartrain. Sure enough, inside the cool, pastel-colored reaches of the hotel, he found Colin Alridge seated at a long, linen-covered table, speaking to a group of ladies who must have been in their eighties. A tea service was set at each end of the table, and Colin sat in the center, turning his head back and forth, his eyes lingering on each face, his sincerity and goodwill like a candle in the midst of an otherwise empty dining room.
It was not the scene Clete had anticipated when he left Lafayette. He had envisioned catching Alridge in a crowded restaurant, perhaps among the monied interests that seemed to find their way into Alridge’s inner circle. Maybe even some of the Giacano minions would be there, he had told himself. But what if they had been there? What would he have done: pull a fire hose out of the wall and create another disaster for himself like the one at the casino? He stopped at the bar and ordered a double Jack with a beer back. “How long does Billy Graham Junior work the crowd?” he asked the bartender.
“Sir?” the bartender said.
“When does Boy Bone Smoker get finished with the ladies?”
The bartender, who wore a white jacket and black pants, leaned forward on his elbow. He had a pencil mustache and black hair that was cut short and parted neatly, like a 1930s leading man. “I happen to be gay myself. You don’t like it, drink somewhere else.”
The afternoon was not working out as Clete had planned. He finished his Jack, ordered another, and left three one-dollar bills as a tip for the bartender. The bartender picked them up and stuffed them in a cup on the bottle counter, not speaking, his face without expression. Clete had not eaten, and by three forty-five he was half in the bag. “Sorry about that crack. It’s been one of those days,” he said.
The bartender poured him a shot and waved off the five Clete put on the bar.
“You know who Whitey Bruxal is?” Clete asked.
“He’s a gambler.”
“Ever see him in here?”
“Yeah, he stays here sometimes.”
“Ever see him with the guy over there at the table?”
“Are you kidding?”
At four o’clock, the group of elderly ladies began filing out of the dining room. Clete picked up his drink and walked over to Alridge, who was just saying good-bye to a lady on a walker. He clapped Alridge hard on the shoulder. “Need to talk to you,” he said.
“Pardon me?” Alridge said, turning slowly.
“We’ve got a big mess over in New Iberia. Your name keeps coming up in it. You know Whitey Bruxal and Bellerophon Lujan, right? Lujan’s boy got blown away with a twelve-gauge and it looks like a gangbanger might ride the needle for it. The gangbanger is a bucket of black whale sperm by the name of Monarch Little. Too bad the Lujan kid got mixed up with him. You need a drink?”
But Clete realized his grandiose manner was manufactured, that he was not in control. His face felt hot and swollen, as though it had been stung by bees; his own words sounded foreign and disconnected, outside himself. He propped one hand on a chair to steady himself. Colin Alridge stared at him in amazement.
“I couldn’t process all that. What was that about the Lujan boy?” Alridge said.
“You know him?”
“I know Mrs. Lujan. Sit down. What is your name?”
Clete had not been prepared for Alridge’s response. “Tony Lujan’s old man is part owner of the casinos you front points for,” he said. “You’re in bed with some nasty guys, Mr. Alridge, so I thought you’d like to get an update on their everyday lives.”
“Who are you?”
“Clete Purcel. I’m a private investigator. I’ve got a hole in my shoulder a guy named Lefty Raguza put there. He also poured acid all over my car early this morning. He works for Whitey Bruxal. You and Whitey pretty tight?”
But Alridge seemed to take no notice of the implication in Clete’s question. He pushed a chair out for Clete, then took one for himself. “You have to start over, sir. Tony Lujan was murdered?”
“You don’t watch the news?”
“No, most of the time I don’t. Who did you say killed him?”
“The Lujan kid had a beef with some gangbangers. But what happened later is a matter of debate. Maybe the larger case involves Whitey Bruxal and the Feds. I thought you might have some feedback on that.”
Alridge rested his forehead on his hand, obviously bereaved, his composure lost. Then his eyes climbed up into Clete’s face. “And you think Tony Lujan’s death has something to do with me?”
“You tell me.”
“You can’t begin to comprehend how offensive you are.”
Now it was Clete who felt undone. The pain and the level of insult in Alridge’s face were real. Clete tried to hold his eyes on Alridge’s but felt himself blink. “Whitey Bruxal gave the orders to blow the head off an armored truck guard. The word is you’re backing his play here in Louisiana, so—”
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. You deal with your own demons, Mr. Purcel. I have to call Mrs. Lujan,” Alridge said.
He rose from his chair, seeming to tower over Clete. Then he hesitated, his face fraught with concern. “Are you all right to drive?” he said.
“Am I all—”
Alridge gestured to the bartender. “Call a cab for this gentleman, will you, Harold?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Alridge,” the bartender replied.
“You hold on, bub,” Clete said, getting to his feet.
Alridge touched him gently on the shoulder. “You did what you thought you had to do, Mr. Purcel. Rest here a little bit and have a cup of coffee. I’m happy to have met you.”
Clete searched for a dignified response but could think of none. He watched Colin Alridge walk out of the room. His hands felt thick and stiff and useless on top of the linen-covered table. His face was dilated like a balloon, his ears ringing in the quiet, his mouth bitter with the aftertaste of midafternoon whiskey. He wondered if the role of public fool came in incremental fashion with a
ge, or if you simply crossed a line one day and found yourself in a room full of echoes that sounded almost like laughter.
THAT EVENING he sat next to me in a canvas chair on the bayou, at the back of my property, flipping a cork and baited hook from a cane pole out on the edge of the current. The evening sky was green, the wind cool in the trees, and the lights had just come on in the park across the water. A dragonfly lit on the Clete’s cork and floated with it past the flowers blooming among the hyacinths.
“I felt like two cents. Did I read this guy all wrong?” he said.
“Who cares? You’re a good guy, Cletus. You’ve always been on the right side of things. You don’t have to prove anything,” I said.
He had eaten and showered after returning from New Orleans, but his face still had an empty look, like that of a man who has just awakened from sleep and isn’t sure where he is. Clete had been on the full-tilt boogie for more than three decades now, and I wondered if the bill was starting to come due.
“The crazy thing is, I don’t even know why I went after this guy,” he said.
“Because you don’t like frauds and guys who use religion to sell wars.”
He rubbed one eye with his fist. “The guy seemed on the square.”
“He’s not, Clete. He’s a con man, and the guy he’s probably conned the most is himself. But let’s get off the dime here. Alridge knows Bello Lujan’s wife?”
“Yeah, he was upset about the kid getting blown away. I think it really put a nail in his head.”
“Like maybe he feels guilt about it?”
“Something like that. Or maybe he knows why Lujan was killed.”
“So I’m glad you went after him.”
“Really?” he said, looking me at me directly for the first time since his return from New Orleans.
“Really,” I said.
ONE TIME WHILE SWACKED on Cambodian red and a quart of stolen Scotch, a sergeant in my platoon who had served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam told me he was the wisest man he had ever known.