DR09 - Cadillac Jukebox (39 page)

     
"They treating
you all right, Jody?" I said after the deputy locked me and Helen inside.

     
"I don't like
the echoes, man. I can't tell what's out in the hall and
what's inside," he said, grinning, pointing at his head. He
wore skintight black jeans and a black leather vest with no shirt. His face
seemed filled with a merry, self-ironic glow, like a man who's become an amused
spectator at the dissolution of his own life.

     
Helen and I sat down
on the wood bench against the far wall. In the center of the cell was a
urine-streaked drain hole.

     
"They say your
saddlebags were full of crystal meth," I said.

     
"Yeah, dude I
lent my Harley to probably really messed me over. Wow, I hate it when they do
that to you."

     
I nodded, as though
we were all listening to a sad truth.

  
   
"I thought you were in Haiti," I
said.

     
"Got cut loose,
man. You saw that on TV about the firelight at the police station? That was my
squad. See, this native woman was cheering us up on a balcony and an attache
busted her upside the head with a baton. That's why we was down at the police
station. We camied-up and set up a perimeter 'cause we didn't want these guys
hurting the people no more. The Corps is peace makers, not peace keepers, a lot
of civilians don't understand that. We got the word these guys was gonna light
us up, so this one dude comes outside and starts to turn toward us with an Uzi
in his hand, and
pow,
man, I see the tracer come out of the lieutenant's
gun, and then a shit storm is flying through the air and before I knew it I
burned a whole magazine on just one guy, like chickens was pecking him to death
against the wall. I wasn't up for it, man. That's some real cruel shit to
watch."

     
He was seated on a
wood bench, his wrists crossed on his knees, his fists clenched, his face staring
disjointedly into space.

     
"Tell Detective
Robicheaux about the Mexican cowboy," Helen said.

     
"We already
covered that, ain't we? I don't like remembering stuff like that." He
puckered his mouth like a fish's.

     
"You got to work
with us, Jody, you want some slack on the meth," Helen said.

     
"It was right
before I went in the Crotch. I met the Mexican guys in a bar in Loreauville. I
was doing dust and rainbows and drinking vodka on top of it, and we all ended
up out in a woods somewhere. It was a real weirded-out hot night, with
fireflies crawling all over the
trees and bullfrogs croaking and nutrias
screaming out on the water. These guys had some beautiful meth, high-grade
clean stuff that don't foul your blood. But this one cowboy tied off and
slapped a vein till it was purple as a turnip, then he spikes into it and
whop,
he doubles over and crumples on the ground, with the rubber tourniquet
flopping in his teeth like a snake with its head cut off.

     
"It's not like
skag. You don't drop the guy in cold water or a snowbank. The guy's eyes
rolled, all kind of stuff came out of his mouth, his knees started jerking
against his chest. What are you gonna do, man? I was wasted. Jesus, it was like
watching a guy drown when you can't do nothing about it."

     
"Is that all of
it, Jody?" I asked.

     
"Tell him,"
Helen said.

     
"They dug a hole
and buried him," he said.

     
"Who?" I
asked.

     
"Everybody. I
run off in the trees. I couldn't watch it. . . Maybe he wasn't dead . . . That's
what keeps going through my head . . . They didn't get a doctor or nothing . .
. They should have put a mirror in front of his nose or something . . ."

     
"Who was there,
Jody?" I asked.

     
"The guy who
just got elected governor."

     
"You're sure?"
I said.

     
"He was strung
out, crying like a little kid. There was some other Americans there had to take
care of him."

     
"Who?" I
asked.

     
"I don't know,
man. I blacked out. I couldn't take it. I can't even tell you where I was at. I
woke up behind a colored bar in St. Martinville with dogs peeing on me."

     
His face was swollen,
glazed like the red surfaces on a lollipop, decades older than his years. He
wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand.

B
ack in my office, Helen said, "What do you think?"
      

     
"Take his
statement. Put it in the file," I answered.
      

     
"That's
it?"

     
"Somebody
snipped Jody's brain stem a long time ago."
      

     
"You don't
believe him?"

     
"Yeah I do. But
it won't stand up. Buford LaRose won't go down until he gets caught in bed with
a dead underage male prostitute."
      

     
"Too much,"
she said, and walked out the door.

S
aturday morning Clete Purcel drove in from New Orleans, fished for
two hours in a light mist, then gave it up and drank beer in the bait shop
while I added up my receipts and tried to figure my quarterly income tax
payment. He spoke little, gazing out the window at the rain, as though he was
concentrating on a conversation inside his head.

     
"Say it," I
said.

     
"After I got to
Vietnam, I wished I hadn't joined the Corps," he said.

     
"So?"

     
"You already
rolled the dice, big mon. You can't just tell these cocksuckers you don't want
to play anymore."

     
"Why not?"

     
"Because I keep
seeing Jerry Joe's face in my dreams, that's why . . . That's his jukebox back
there?"

     
"Yeah."

     
"What's on
it?"

     
"Forties and
fifties stuff. Every one of them is a Cadillac."

     
"Give me some
quarters."

     
"I sliced the
cord in half."

     
"That's a great
way to deal with the problem, Streak."

     
A half hour later the
phone rang. It was Buford LaRose. I walked with the phone into the back of the
shop.

     
"Meet me at the
Patio restaurant in Loreauville," he said.

     
"No,
thanks," I said.

     
"Goddamn it,
Dave, I want to get this mess behind us."

     
"Good. Resign
your office."

     
"Crown's a
killing machine," he said.

     
"If he is, you
helped make him that way."

     
"You don't know,
do you?"

     
"What?"

     
"About the guy who
was just fished out of Henderson Swamp."

     
"That's
 
St.
 
Martin Parish.
 
It's
 
not my business.
 
Good-bye, Buford." I hung up the phone.

     
"That was
dickhead?" Clete said.

     
"Yep."

     
"What did he
want?"

     
I told him.

     
"You're just
going to let it slide down the bowl?"

     
"That about sums
it up."

     
"Mistake. Stay
in their faces, Streak. Don't let them blindside you. I'll back your play,
mon."

     
He turned toward me
on the counter stool, his scarred face as flat and round as a pie tin, his eyes
a deep green under his combed, sandy hair.

     
"Listen to me
for once," he said. "That was Mookie Zerrang you saw in the pirogue.
You want the button man out of your life, you got to find his juice."

     
The bayou seemed to
dance with yellow light in the rain. I wiped down the counter, carried out the
trash, stocked the cooler in back, then finally quit a foolish dialogue inside
myself and dialed Buford's answering service in Lafayette so I wouldn't have to
call him at home.

  
   
"This is Dave Robicheaux. Tell Mr.
LaRose I'll be in my office at eight Monday morning."

H
e was in at ten, with Ciro Tauzin from the state police at his
side. The St. Martin Parish sheriff's report on a body recovered from Henderson
Swamp lay on my desk.

     
"You starting to
get a better picture of Aaron Crown now?" Buford said.

     
"Not
really," I said.

     
"Not really? The
victim's stomach was slit open and filled with rocks. What kind of human being
would do something like that?" Buford said.

     
"I have a better
question, Buford. What was a New Orleans gum-ball, a hit man for the Giacano
family, doing at Henderson Swamp?" I said.

     
"He celled with
Crown," Buford said.

     
"So why would
Crown want to kill his cell partner?" I asked.

  
   
"Maybe he was gonna turn Aaron in. The
guy had some weapons
charges against him. Criminals ain't big
on loyalty, no," Tauzin said, and smiled.

     
"I think he was
there to whack Crown and lost. What's your opinion on that, Mr. Tauzin?" I
asked.

     
The coat of his blue
suit looked like it was buttoned crookedly on his body. There were flecks of
dandruff inside the oil on his black hair. He rubbed the cleft in his chin with
his thumb.

     
"Men like Crown
will kill you for the shoes on your feet, the food in your plate. I don't
believe they're a hard study, suh," he said.

     
"You get in
touch with him through his daughter," Buford said. "If he'll
surrender to me, I'll guarantee his safety and I promise he won't be tried for
a capital offense . . ." He paused a moment, then raised his hands off the
arms of the chair. "Maybe down the road, two or three years maximum, he
can be released because of his age."

     
"Pretty
generous," I said.

     
Buford and Ciro
Tauzin both waited. I picked up a paper clip and dropped it on my blotter.

     
"Dave?"
Buford said.

     
"He bears you
great enmity," I answered.

     
"You've talked
with him." He said it as a statement, not as a question. I could almost
hear the analytical wheels turning in his head. I saw a thought come together
in his eyes. There was no denying Buford's level of intelligence. "He
wants a meet? He's told you he'll try to kill me?"

     
"Make peace with
his daughter. Then he might listen to you."

Buford's eyes wrinkled at the corners as he tried to peel the
meaning out of my words.

     
"A short high
school romance? That's what you're talking about now?" he said.

     
But before I could
speak, Ciro Tauzin said, "Here's the deal, Mr. Robicheaux. You can hep us
if you want, or you can tell everybody else what their job is. But if Aaron
Crown don't come in, I'm gonna blow his liver out. Is that clear enough,
suh?"

     
I held his stare.

     
"Should I pass
on your remarks, Mr. Tauzin?" I answered.

     
"I'd appreciate
it if you would. It's quite an experience doing bid-ness with you, suh. Your
reputation doesn't do you justice."

     
I made curlicues with
a ballpoint pen on a yellow legal pad until they had left the room.

     
Two minutes later,
Buford came back alone and opened the door, his seersucker coat over his
shoulder, his plaid shirt rolled on his veined forearms. His curly hair hung on
his forehead, and his cheeks were as bright as apples.