People from the bar crowded through the entranceway to watch. A waiter’s loaded tray exploded on the floor and I saw a strobe light flare in the gloom and burn away all the shadows in the room. I hooked Val Chalons in the eye, then drove a right cross directly into his mouth, bursting his lips against his teeth. I knew it was time to back away, in the same way a fighter in the ring knows when he has taken his opponent’s heart. A woman I had never seen was screaming incoherently and an elderly man was patting the air with his hands, as though his years had given him the power to impart wisdom and restraint to a dervish.
I started to step back, but Val Chalons tried to clench me, his mouth draining blood and spittle on my cheek and neck, the thickness of his phallus pressing against me. He forced us both against a table, his mouth as close to my ear as a lover’s. “My father screwed your wife, Robicheaux,” he said.
In my naïveté, I had believed the succubus that had governed my life for decades had been exorcised by the coming of old age. But it was still there, like a feral presence hiding in the subconscious, redblack in color, shiny with glandular fluids, waiting for the right moment to have its way. Some call it a chemical assault upon the brain. I can’t say what it is. But the consequence for me was always the same: I committed acts as though I were watching them on film rather than participating in them. When it was over, I was not only filled with disgust and shame and self-loathing but genuinely frightened by the gargoyle that held sway over my soul.
In this case, that meant I genuinely invested myself in the deconstruction of Val Chalons. I buried my fist up to my wrist in his stomach and drove his head into the wall, clubbed him to the floor, and stomped his face when he was down. Then I felt Clete Purcel’s huge arms lock around me, pinning my hands at my sides, dragging me backward through the tables and broken dishware and spilled food into the bar area, where someone pointed a camera strobe straight into my eyes.
Like a drowning man who has just popped to the surface of a vortex that has crushed his hearing, I saw Clete’s lips moving without sound, then heard his words become audible in midsentence: “…took us upcountry into Shitsville, Streak. Why you’d have to load their gun? Why you’d do it, big mon?”
Chapter 24
VALENTINE CHALONS was taken by ambulance to Iberia General and I was taken by five policemen to a holding cell at the city jail. Molly got me out at midnight, but I was to be arraigned the next morning and I had no doubt about the seriousness of the charges. At the top of the list was felony assault.
At the house, Molly filled a tin pan with ice cubes and water for me to soak my hands in. Through the window I could see the humid glow of sodium lamps across the bayou and hear Tripod running up and down the clothesline on his chain.
“Were you trying to kill him?” she asked.
“Maybe.” Then I thought about it. “Yeah, I probably was.”
“Why?”
“He had it coming. He’s a fraternity pissant and should have been blown out of his socks a long time ago.”
“You can’t live with that kind of anger in you, Dave.”
“He threw his drink in my face. He dealt the play. He got his sticks broken. That’s the way it flushes sometimes. Can we give it a rest?”
She was at the sink, the water running loudly. She turned off the faucet and stared at me. “Why are you talking like this?”
“He said his old man screwed you.”
“Val Chalons said that?”
“I just told you.” I watched her face, my heart beating.
“Did you believe him?” she asked.
“Of course not.”
“Then why did you tear him apart?”
“Because that’s what I’ll do to any sonofabitch who insults my wife.”
In the silence I could hear the creak of the trees in the yard. Snuggs rubbed himself against my leg, his tail stiff, his head butting into my calf. I picked him up, my hands numb from the ice water in the pan. I flipped him on his back and scratched him under the chin. “What do you think about it, Snuggs?” I said.
Molly took him from my lap and set him on the floor. Then she leaned over me and held my head tightly against her breasts, squeezing so hard it hurt, her mouth pressed into my hair. “I love you, Dave Robicheaux,” she said.
I felt Bootsie step inside her skin.
AT 8:00 a.m. the next day I went directly into Helen Soileau’s office. The arrest report from the Iberia city police was already on her desk. “I just can’t believe this,” she said, picking up the typed pages and dropping them as though they were smeared with an obscene substance.
“Why not?” I said.
“You want to look at the photos of your handiwork? Val Chalons looks like he was chain-dragged behind a car.”
“He threw a glass of gin in my face. He made a filthy statement about my wife. I think he got off easy.”
“He set you up, bwana.”
“Am I on the desk?”
“Guess,” she said.
It was 8:16 a.m. My arraignment was at eleven. I knew my time as a viable member of the sheriff’s department was running out. I picked up my desk phone and called Mack Bertrand at the crime lab. “I got into some trouble last night,” I said.
“I heard about it,” he replied.
“I think I’m about to go on suspension. You remember those casts you made under my bedroom window?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Can you run some comparisons between them and the casts you made at the Chalons crime scene?”
“I already did. Your prowler wore workboots, size ten and a half. Our person of interest at the Chalons guesthouse probably had on rubber boots, around size eleven. No help there, Dave.”
“Why’d you make the comparison?”
“Probably for the same reason you wanted it done. We don’t have one clue indicating who might have gone into the Chalons guesthouse and chopped that sad girl to death. Let me run something else by you a second.”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“Raphael Chalons has called me three times. But I’m not quite sure what he wants.”
“I’m not following you.”
“In one breath, he wants to know if there’s any evidence the Baton Rouge serial killer murdered his daughter. When I tell him no, he seems relieved, then he gets upset again.”
“Why did you call Honoria Chalons a ‘sad girl’?”
“She attended our church for a while. I always had the feeling she’d been raped or molested. But I’m not an expert on those things.”
“Did she ever say anything on the subject?”
“No, she just seemed to be one of those people who always have reflections inside their eyes, like ghosts or memories no one else can touch. Maybe I watch too much late-night television.”
No, you don’t, Mack, I said to myself.
I HAD SPOKEN BOLDLY to both Molly and Helen Soileau about wiping up the floor with Val Chalons. But my casual attitude was a poor disguise for my real feelings. It was ten minutes to nine now and my stomach was roiling, in the same way it does when an airplane drops unexpectedly through an air pocket. My scalp felt tight against my head and I could smell a vinegary odor rising from my body, like sweat that has been ironed into fabric. I bought a can of Dr Pepper in the department waiting room, ate two aspirin, and called Dana Magelli at NOPD.
“Do you have casts from the area where Holly Blankenship’s body was dumped?” I asked.
“Yeah, there were footprints all over the place. Some homeless guys use it for a hobo jungle. What are you looking for?” he said.
“Size eleven rubber boots or ten-and-a-half workboots?”
“Why don’t you call the task force in Baton Rouge?”
“My prints showed up at a crime scene they were investigating. They’re not big fans.”
“Hang on a minute,” he said. He set the phone down, then picked it up again. “Yeah, there was one set of footprints that could have been made by rubber boots, around size eleven or t
welve. Wal-Mart sells them by the thousands. What was that about your prints at a crime scene?”
I started to tell Dana the whole story, but I had finally grown tired of revisiting my own bad behavior in order to publicly excoriate myself. So I simply said, “Come on over and catch some green trout.”
“Thought you’d never ask,” he replied.
I wished I had come to appreciate the value of reticence earlier in life.
MOLLY AND I MET with my attorney outside the court at 10:45 a.m. He was a Tulane law graduate and a good-natured, intelligent man by the name of Porteus O’Malley. He was a student of the classics and liberal thought, and came from an old and distinguished family on the bayou, one known for its generosity and also its penchant for losing everything the family owned. Because our fathers had been friends, he seldom charged me a fee for the work he did on my behalf.
I was sweating in the shade of the oak where we stood, my eyes stinging with the humidity. Porteus placed his hand on my shoulder and looked into my face. He was larger than I and had to stoop slightly to be eye-level with me. “You gonna make it?” he said.
“I’m fine,” I said.
But I could tell something else besides his client’s anxiety was bothering him. When Molly went inside City Hall to use the restroom, he said, “Ever hear of a woman by the name of Mabel Poche?”
“No, who is she?”
“She’s hired an oilcan to sue you. The oilcan also happens to do legal grunt work for the Chalons family. She’s also filing criminal charges.”
“For what?”
“She claims you took her four-year-old son into a restroom at Molly’s place and molested him.” His eyes shifted off my face.
“It’s a lie,” I said.
“Of course it is. But that’s how Val Chalons and his friends operate. Screw with them and they’ll make a speed bump out of you.”
Judge Cecil Gautreaux was an ill-tempered, vituperative man, disliked and feared by prosecutors and defense lawyers alike. He was also a moralist who liked to bait the ACLU by making references to Scripture while handing down severe sentences. A wrongheaded remark by a defense attorney could make his face tremble with quiet rage. He lectured rape victims and showed contempt for the collection of indigent drunks who were brought daily into morning court on a long wrist chain. Huey Long once said that if fascism ever came to the United States, it would come in the name of anticommunism. I had always believed that Huey had the likes of Judge Gautreaux in mind when he made his remark, and that Judge Gautreaux, given the opportunity, could make the ovens sing.
“You’re entering a plea of not guilty?” he said.
“Yes, Your Honor,” I replied.
He rubbed his little, round chin. His eyes were sky-blue, the size of dimes, and they stayed riveted on mine. His facial skin was soft, translucent, with nests of green veins at the temples, his nostrils thin, as though the air he breathed contained an offensive odor. “Just to satisfy my own curiosity, can you tell me why you had to destroy a man’s place of business in order to satisfy a personal grudge?”
Porteus O’Malley started to speak.
“You be silent, Counselor. I’m talking to your client. Would you please answer my question, Mr. Robicheaux?” the judge said.
“It’s a bit complicated, Your Honor,” I said.
“Why don’t you enlighten me?”
“I guess there are some occasions when words are not quite adequate, Your Honor. I guess there are occasions when you just have to say, ‘Fuck it,’ ” I replied.
“I don’t think you’re a wise man, Mr. Robicheaux. Bail is set at fifty thousand dollars,” the judge said. He snapped his gavel down on a wood block.
I put up my house as a property bond and was back at the department at 1:00 p.m. Helen was waiting by my office door. I started to recount my experience in court, but she held up a hand to stop me.
“I’ve already heard about it. You’d better pray Cecil Gautreaux doesn’t preside over your trial,” she said.
I waited for her to go on. Instead, she looked into space, a sad light in her eyes.
“Come on, Helen. Say it.”
“I tried to get you modified duty. Suspension without pay was as good as I could do. The D.A. and others want you canned.”
“Without an I.A. review?”
“The problem isn’t just the beef at Clementine’s. It’s you, Dave. You don’t like rules and you hate authority. You wage a personal war against guys like Val Chalons and take the rest of us down with you. No amount of pleading with you works. People are tired of following you around with a dustpan and broom.”
My face felt small and tight, my throat constricted, as though a chicken bone were caught in it. Helen snuffed down in her nose and touched at one nostril, her jawbone flexing.
“I’ll clean out my desk,” I said.
“I got a call from a TV producer who does exposés on small cities,” she said. “They’re doing one on New Iberia and you’re the centerpiece. They’ve got you on tape at Clementine’s. I also got the feeling your wife is going to be portrayed as a bleeding-heart nun pumping it with a rogue cop.”
“We’ve always wanted film careers,” I said.
“You force your friends to hurt you, Dave. I think that’s a sickness. But you act like it’s funny,” she said.
“My lawyer says I’m about to be charged with child molestation. I’m also going to be sued. The lawyer for the plaintiff is a stooge for Val Chalons.”
“Shit,” she said. She walked away, her fists on her hips, breathing through her nose. Then she walked back toward me, her expression set. “I’m not going to be party to this. You’re on the desk, full pay, until I say otherwise.”
“I don’t think you should—”
She pressed her finger against my lips. “You got that?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“Good,” she said.
TWO HOURS LATER a woman detective who worked sex crimes notified me that Mrs. Mabel Poche had filed molestation charges against me. The location of the alleged crime was the restroom inside Molly’s administrative offices. The date was the day Molly’s agency had sponsored a hot dog roast and a race of hundreds of plastic ducks down Bayou Teche. An incident I hardly remembered—a lost child about to wet his pants, needing someone to take him into the restroom—was now aimed at my breast like a crossbow. The woman detective scheduled an interview with me for Friday morning. The Daily Iberian had already picked up the story.
I signed out of the office early and drove to Molly’s agency. She was under the pole shed, a gunnysack in one hand, picking up chicken heads that had been lopped off on a butcher stump.
“Who’s the ax murderer?” I said.
“We’re going to have a chicken fry tomorrow night. I think one of the kids hijacked my weed cutter. Look at that.” She nodded at a machete that lay across the stump, its blade matted with blood and feathers.
“You remember a white woman by the name of Mabel Poche?” I asked.
“I haven’t seen her in a while. I think she stopped coming around.”
“She says I molested her child in your office building. She’s filing criminal charges as well as a civil suit.”
“It’s been quite a day, huh?” she said.
“I suspect she’ll sue your agency as well.”
“Oh, yes indeed. You can count on Mrs. Poche.”
“Helen Soileau stood up for me. I’ve still got my job. Things could be worse.”
She picked up the machete and knocked it clean of bloody feathers against the stump. “You want to go out for dinner tonight and maybe fool around later?” She tossed a strand of hair out of her eye and waited for my reply.
SATURDAY MORNING MY LAWYER, Porteus O’Malley, called the house. “A couple of lowlifes came by my office yesterday,” he said. “They claim they were at Clementine’s when you remodeled Val Chalons’s head. They’re willing to testify Chalons tried to pick up a steak knife from a table.”
“Who are these guys?” I said.
He told me their names. “They say they’re from around here, but they sound like they grew up in New Orleans,” he said.
“They used to peel safes with Stevie Giacano. Both of them have bonds with Nig Rosewater and Wee Willie Bimstine.”
He paused. “Is Clete Purcel behind this?”
“His heart is in the right place,” I said.
“It’s called subornation of perjury. How bad do you want to do time in Angola, Dave?”
THE CABLE SHOW whose intention supposedly was to expose the underside of our little town on the Teche aired that night. It had probably been in the can for weeks, but the producers had managed to bleed in footage of me destroying Val Chalons’s face and half of Clementine’s Restaurant. Actually, I had to give them credit. The show’s juxtaposition of photography was splendidly done. The documentary began with aerial footage of the Louisiana wetlands, serpentine bayous shadowed by cypress and live oak trees, and huge tracts of young sugar cane bending in the wind, followed by land-based, wide-angle shots of plantation homes, street festivals, and sugar refineries shrouded at night inside clouds of electrified steam.
Then a camera obviously mounted on the window of a moving vehicle, as though the subject material had suddenly became a source of danger to the journalists, panned across New Iberia’s inner-city slum, showing black dope dealers and white crack whores working the trade on Hopkins Avenue. A moment later the scene shifted to my house and Doogie Dugas and several uniformed cops going through the front entrance, while a woman identified as a Catholic nun stood half-undressed in the bedroom doorway, clutching a shirt against her breasts.