I touched my tongue to her skin, and she said, “Sleepin’.”
Her back was salty with sweat dried from the hours before. The bed and the room smelled of us and our lovemaking and the warmth of our bodies, and under it was the sweet smell of her fragrance and shampoo and soap. I lay there for a time, enjoying the warmth of her and the memories that the smells triggered, and after a while I could smell the food from the night before and the jessamine that grew around her home. Lucy’s bedroom was large, her bed facing toward double French doors that opened toward the backyard.
There were drapes, but the drapes were open so that I could see the used-brick patio and the Weber where we’d grilled the hamburgers. Three or four cardinals and maybe a half dozen sparrows were clustered around the bird feeder, chirping and scratching at the seed. We had cardinals in L.A., but you rarely saw them. The patio and the yard beyond it were filled with bright light, and somewhere there was the two-cycle whine of a lawn mower. It seemed as if there was always the sound of a lawn mower in Louisiana. Maybe that was the nature of this place, that the land was so fertile that life grew and expanded so quickly that a never-ending maintenance was in order, and without it the people who lived here would be overcome. I wondered for an instant if it could be that way with love, too, but then the thought was gone.
I eased out of the bed, careful not to wake her, then pulled on my underwear and went into her bathroom. I brushed my teeth with my finger, then went out to the kitchen. We had probably burned twenty thousand calories last night, and it was either make breakfast or fall upon Lucy and end up arrested for cannibalism.
I washed the dishes from the night before, then searched through her cupboards and fridge until I found Bisquick and frozen blueberries and some low-fat cottage cheese. There was a pancake griddle in a tall drawer beside the dishwasher, but I found a large skillet instead. Old habits. I poured a cup of the blueberries into a little bowl and covered them with water, then found a larger bowl and made a batter with the Bisquick and the cottage cheese and some nonfat milk. I sprayed the pan with butter-flavored Pam, then put it on a medium fire. While it was heating I ran out into the garden, clipped a pink rose, then ran back inside. I drained the blueberries and was mixing them in the batter when Lucy Chenier squealed, “Somebody help! There’s a strange man in my house!”
She was standing on the other side of the counter, wrapped in a sheet. I gave her Groucho. “Don’t be scared, little girl. That’s not a chain saw. I’m just happy to see you.”
“Ho, ho. Keep dreaming.”
I held out my hand, fingers spread. She laced her fingers between mine. Her fingers were warm and felt good. I said, “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” We grinned at each other. She made a big deal out of looking around and shook her head. “You cleaned up. You’re making breakfast.”
I turned back to the berries. “We’re a full-service agency, ma’am.”
She let the sheet drop and came around the counter and snuggled against me. “You can say that again, trooper.” She looked ort from under my arm at the batter. “Pancakes. Yum. What can I do?”
“Find me a spatula?”
She did.
I gave her a kiss. “Will you go in today?”
She snuggled against me again. “Maybe after lunch. I can barely walk, you animal.”
I increased the heat under the pan, then spooned in four equal amounts of batter, making sure each pancake had a like number of berries. I made the batter dry so that the cakes would be thick and fluffy. I said, “A woman of your advancing years needs regular workouts, else she gets out of shape.”
“Pig.” She dug her thumb between my ribs, then hugged me again and widened her eyes. “Hmm. I could think of something to eat besides pancakes.”
I adjusted the heat down. When they’re thick like that you have to be careful with the heat, hot at first to set the cake and keep it from spreading, then low so that it will cook through without burning. “A man of my advancing years needs enormous sustenance to even pretend to keep up with a woman of your years.”
“I guess that’s right. Female superiority.”
“Tell me about it.” I put down the spatula, touched the tip of her nose, then her lips. I said, “You are deva-statingly beautiful.”
She nodded. “Um-hm.”
I ran my finger down between her breasts and along the flat plane of her belly. “Perfect in all discernible ways.”
She made a purring sound. “Ah.”
“And a pretty fair lay.” I turned back to the pancakes.
“That’s not what you said last night, big guy.” She pressed her breasts into my back, and then she stepped back and touched the places on my lower back and side. “What are these?”
“I caught some frag in Vietnam.”
I felt her fingers move from scar to scar. They’re lit-de scars. “How did that happen?”
“I was trying to hide in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
She bent low and kissed one of the marks and then she touched the puckered scar high on the top of my left trapezius. “What happened there?”
“A hood named Charlie DeLuca shot me.”
She ran her finger along the scar. It’s a little crater shaped like an arrowhead. She said, “Do you get shot often?”
“Only the once.”
She came around in front of me and pulled my face down and looked deep into my eyes, frowning. “Do me a favor and don’t get shot anymore, okay?”
“Aw, shucks. Not even a little bit?”
She shook her head. Slow. “Uh-uh.”
When the pancakes were done we heaped them with sliced bananas and maple syrup, then sat at the counter with our knees touching. She said, “These are wonderful.”
I nodded. “Old family recipe. Ideal for restoring one’s energy reserves and reinvigorating the libido.”
“Ah. Something to look forward to.”
I wiggled my eyebrows.
She said, “So are you going to be able to help the Boudreauxs?”
“I don’t know. Jo-el isn’t going to cooperate, so I’ll have to figure out what Milt has going and how to make him back away. I’ll probably need help to do that, so I’ll have my partner come in.”
“You have a partner?”
“An ex-police officer named Joe Pike. He owns the agency with me.”
She ate a piece of the pancake, then a slice of the banana. “Do you have any leads?”
“Sandi.”
“The name in Jimmie Ray’s papers?”
I nodded and kept eating. I was getting close to the end of the pancakes and was thinking I should make a couple more. “I found two messages on his answering machine from a woman who implied some sort of romantic relationship. If that’s Sandi, maybe Jimmie Ray told her what was going on.”
“And maybe she’ll tell you.”
“Maybe.” I finished my plate and frowned at the batter. Enough for one more, maybe two.
Lucy split what was left on her plate and pushed the larger piece onto mine. Mind reader. “I won’t be able to finish.”
“Thanks.” I dug in.
She took a last bit of pancake, then set her fork onto her plate. “How will you find her?”
“Shouldn’t be hard. If they were close, they would’ve talked often. I’ll go back through his phone bills and try the most frequently dialed local numbers. I’ll dial them and hope that someone named Sandi answers.”
Lucy leaned forward on her elbows and grinned “You make it sound easy.”
“Private detecting has very little in common with multidimensional calculus, Lucille.” I finished the last of the pancake and touched my napkin to my lips. “Also, it is only easy if the call from Jimmie Ray’s to Sandi’s was a toll call. If she lived across the street, her number won’t show up on the bills and we’re screwed.”
Lucy grinned wider and looked devilish. “There’s no way I’m going to work without knowing this.” She slid off the stool and came back wi
th her briefcase and we went through the papers I had taken from Jimmie Ray Rebenack. It didn’t take long. We had four phone bills stretching back five months, the two most recent, then a missing bill, and then the two earlier bills. We started with the earliest bill and found fourteen calls to the same number in Baton Rouge. This was during the same month in which he’d made the calls to Jodi and Sid. The next month showed twelve calls to that number, and the two most recent bills showed six calls and two calls respectively. Lucy said, “Do you think it’s her?”
I used Lucy’s kitchen phone and dialed the number. It rang four times, and then a woman’s voice said, “Hi! I can’t come to the phone right now, but please leave your message and I’ll get back to you! Promise!” The voice was bright and cheery, and was exactly the same voice I’d heard on Jimmie Ray Rebenack’s machine.
I hung up and spread my hands. “ Voilei,” Lucy said, “You sonofagun.”
I tried to look modest. “The kid’s a pistol.”
Lucy wrote down the number and made a note beside it. “I can run the number through our office and get a name and address. Would that help, oh great seer, or can you just sort of infer those things from the way her phone rang?”
“It’s important for the little people to feel helpful. You can take care of it.”
She put the note and the papers into her briefcase, then put the briefcase aside and leaned close to me. “The pancakes were wonderful, Elvis. Thank you.”
“Darlin’, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
She slid off the stool and patted my arm. “Perhaps I’ll see it this evening. I’ve got a one o’clock that I can’t miss and I smell. I’m going to take a shower.”
I watched her disappear into the rear of her home, put the dishes into the sink, and then I used her kitchen phone to call Joe Pike. He answered on the second ring and said, “It’s you.” That Pike is something, isn’t he?
“How did you know it was me?”
He didn’t answer.
I gave him the short version on Edith and Jo-el Boudreaux and Milt Rossier and what we wanted to do. I told him about Sandi. When I was done he said, “I can come in tonight or tomorrow.”
I said, “Tomorrow’s fine. Tonight I have plans.”
He said, “Uh.”
I said, “Call Lucy Chenier’s office with your arrival time. I’ll pick you up.”
Joe hung up without another word. Some partner, huh?
I put the dishes in the sink, then walked back to Lucy’s bedroom and into her bath. The water was running, and the steam from the water had fogged the mirror. I peeled off my underwear and let myself into the shower and ran my hands over her back and down along her sides and across her belly. She was slick and glistening, and her flesh was firm. Her hair was white with bubbles. She said, “Well, I guess the old family recipe is working.” She turned and pressed into me. “Let’s not forget my one o’clock. I don’t have very much time.”
“Efficiency,” I said. “Efficiency is the key to all happiness.” I worked my fingers into her hair.
“Perhaps I could be ravished and cleaned at the same time. Do you think?”
I worked the soap down along her neck and shoulders. “I think I’m up for the try.”
She smiled and sank down to her knees. “You are,” she said. “But not for long.”
The next morning, Lucy and I were in the Baton Rouge Airport at 11:40, waiting for Joe Pike. We had been together twenty-eight minutes and had done a fine job of keeping our clothes on. I was pleased with my self-control. I had cramps, but I was pleased.
When Pike’s plane taxied in, she said, “How will I recognize him?”
“He’s six-one and he weighs right at one-ninety. He has short brown hair and large red arrows tattooed on the outside of each deltoid. He’ll be wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off and dark glasses.”
“How do you know what he’ll be wearing?”
“It’s what he wears.”
“All the time?”
“If it’s cold, he wears a Marine Corps parka.”
She smiled. “And if the occasion were formal?”
“Think of it as consistency. Joe Pike is the most consistent person I know.”
“Hm.”
“And if he speaks, he will be direct. He won’t say much. That’s just his way.”
“It sounds like you’re warning me.”
“Preparing. Preparing is a better word.”
Joe Pike materialized in the file of passengers as if he were there yet not there, as separate from them as one photograph superimposed upon another. He came to us, and we shook. I said, “Lucy Chenier, this is Joe Pike. Joe, Lucy.”
Lucy put out her hand and said, “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Pike.”
Pike’s head swiveled toward her and he gave her the full focus of his attention. He is like that with people. You are either there to him, or you are not. If you are there, he gives you all of himself. He said, “Joe.” He took her hand, held it for a moment, then kissed it. Gracious.
Lucy beamed. “Why, thank you.”
“You’re a couple.”
That pleased her, too. “Is it that obvious?”
Joe nodded.
I said, “You can let go of the hand, now, Joe.”
Joe’s head swiveled my way, his eyes hidden and secret behind the black lenses of his glasses. His mouth twitched, and he let go of Lucy’s hand. Joe will never smile, but his mouth will twitch, so you know he found this funny. He looked at Lucy again, then came back to me. The mouth twitched a second time. A riot, for Joe. Absolute insane hysteria. He said, “I’ve got a bag.”
We collected an olive green duffel bag from the claim area, then picked up the car, and drove across town toward Lucy’s office. Pike rode in the back and Lucy was in the front. She sat sideways so that she could see him. “Have you been to Louisiana before, Joe?”
Pike said, “Uh-huh.”
“When was that?”
“A while back.”
“Did you enjoy yourself?”
Pike didn’t answer.
She twisted more in her seat to get a better look at him. “Joe?”
Pike was staring out the window, the passing scenery racing across the dark lenses. Immobile.
Lucy looked at me and I patted her leg. You see?
As we drove I brought Joe up to speed on Milt Rossier and Jodi Taylor and what Jodi wanted us to do. I told him what I had uncovered about Leon Williams, and how Rossier was using it against the Boudreauxs, and I told him about Jimmie Ray Rebenack and Sandi. “Lucy ran a DMV check on Sandi through her firm and got us a name and an address.”
Lucy said, “Sandi’s last name is Bergeron. She’s twenty-eight years old, unmarried, and she works in the Social Services Department here in the capitol building.”
I said, “A guy like Jimmie Ray couldn’t get sealed state documents without help, so maybe that’s Sandi.”
Pike said, “Um.” It was the first sound he’d made in fifteen minutes. “What about Rossier?”
Lucy took a 9 by 12 manila envelope from her briefcase and passed it to Pike. “My friend in the attorney general’s office gave me a printout of Rossier’s file. Rossier ran prostitution and intimidation rackets through the sixties and seventies until he was convicted of supplying methamphetamines to a local motorcycle gang in nineteen seventy-three. He pulled twenty-four months in Angola, then went into the fish farm business. The fish farm is legitimate, but its primary purpose is to launder money. He was indicted as a co-conspirator in two drug-related murders, and suspected of involvement in six additional homicides.”
Pike looked through the file as they spoke. “So how come this guy’s walking around?”
“Action was dropped on the indictments when the state’s witnesses disappeared. They don’t think Rossier pulled the trigger, but they believe he ordered it. They think LeRoy Bennett did the shooting, or a man named René LaBorde.”
Pike offered the file back, but Lucy shook he
r head. “You can keep it if you’d like. Just be careful with it. My friend could get in trouble if anyone found out he’d given it to me.”
I said, “He?”
Pike tapped my shoulder. Getting my attention. “You think Boudreaux is involved with Rossier in some kind of crime?”
“I don’t think so. I think he’s just looking the other way so that Rossier can do whatever he’s doing.”
Pike said, “But we don’t know what that is.”
I shook my head. “Not yet, but maybe Sandi Bergeron can tell us.”
Pike went back to staring out the window. “Some great gig, helping people who don’t want to be helped.”
Lucy twisted around to again look at Pike. “Mrs. Boudreaux wants the help. She’d like to put this behind her. Jodi Taylor hired us to do that.”
Pike said, “Us.”
Lucy said, “Do you have a problem with that?”
Pike’s mouth twitched. “Not at all.” He squeezed her arm. “Thanks for the help.”
I frowned. “What’s your relationship to this guy in theA.G.?”
Lucy made a big sigh. “I love a man with raging hormones.”
We dropped Lucy at the curb outside her office. She gathered her things and offered her hand to Joe Pike. “It was a pleasure, Joe. You’re an interesting man.”
Pike said, “Yes.”
Lucy gave me a kiss, then let herself out and went into her building. I twisted around in the seat and looked at Joe. “She says you’re interesting and you say yes?”
Pike got out of the back and into the front. “Did you want me to lie?”
We drove to the capitol building and parked in the shade of an enormous oak near the banks of a lake. The Louisiana State capitol building is thirty-four stories of art-deco monolith rising above the Mississippi River, sort of like the Empire State Building in miniature. It’s the largest state capitol building in the nation, and looks like the kind of place that Charles Foster Kane would call home. Huey Long was assassinated there.
A tour group of retired people from Wisconsin were filing through the lobby, and we filed with them, slipping past a couple of guards who were laughing about the New Orleans Saints, and taking an elevator to the sixth floor. The Social Services Department was on the sixth floor. We could have phoned ahead and asked to speak with Sandi Bergeron, and Sandi might have been willing to talk with us, but you never know. Surprise is often your only recourse.