Wayfaring Stranger: A Novel (55 page)
Read Wayfaring Stranger: A Novel Online
Authors: James Lee Burke
“Did you hear me?” I said.
“That 911 deputy ain’t gonna find nothing in my truck, ’cause there ain’t nothing to find,” he said. “You asked if I was inside. I got my head lit up with amounts of electricity that make you glad for the rubber gag they put in your mouth. Before you get your nose too high in the air, Mr. Robicheaux, your daughter asked me if that ‘fucking arrow’ was mine. She talked to me like I was white trash.”
He sat back down and began eating his sandwich again, swallowing it in large pieces without chewing or drinking from his soda, his expression reconfiguring, like that of a man who could not decide who he was.
I should have walked away. Maybe he wasn’t totally to blame. Maybe Alafair had indeed spoken down to him. Regardless, he had tried to frighten her, and there are some things a father can’t let slide. I touched him on the shoulder, on the pattern of white stars sewn onto the fabric. “You’re not a victim, partner,” I said. “I’m going to pull your jacket and see what you’ve been up to. I hope you’ve been on the square with us, Mr. Dixon.”
He didn’t turn around, but I could see the rigidity in his back and the blood rising in his neck like the red fluid in a thermometer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Houston, Texas, in 1936, James Lee Burke grew up on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. He attended Southwestern Louisiana Institute and later received a BA and an MA in English from the University of Missouri in 1958 and 1960, respectively. Over the years, he worked as a landman for the Sinclair Oil Company, pipeliner, land surveyor, newspaper reporter, college English professor, social worker on skid row in Los Angeles, clerk for the Louisiana Employment Service, and instructor in the U.S. Job Corps. He and his wife, Pearl, met in graduate school and have been married fifty-four years; they have four children.
Burke is the author of thirty-four novels, including twenty in the Dave Robicheaux series, and two collections of short stories. His work has twice been awarded an Edgar for Best Crime Novel of the Year; in 2009 the Mystery Writers of America named him a Grand Master. He has also been a recipient of Bread Loaf and Guggenheim fellowships and an NEA grant. Three of his novels (
Heaven’s Prisoners, Two for Texas,
and
In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead
) have been made into motion pictures. His short stories have been published in
The Atlantic Monthly, New Stories from the South, Best American Short Stories, Antioch Review, Southern Review,
and
The Kenyon Review.
His novel
The Lost Get-Back Boogie
was rejected 111 times over a period of nine years and, upon its publication by Louisiana State University Press in 1986, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
He and Pearl live in Missoula, Montana.
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
authors.simonandschuster.com/James-Lee-Burke
B
Y THE SAME AUTHOR
D
AVE
R
OBICHEAUX
N
OVELS
Light of the World
Creole Belle
The Glass Rainbow
Swan Peak
The Tin Roof Blowdown
Pegasus Descending
Crusader’s Cross
Last Car to Elysian Fields
Jolie Blon’s Bounce
Purple Cane Road
Sunset Limited
Cadillac Jukebox
Burning Angel
Dixie City Jam
In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead
A Stained White Radiance
A Morning for Flamingos
Black Cherry Blues
Heaven’s Prisoners
The Neon Rain
H
ACKBERRY
H
OLLAND
N
OVELS
Feast Day of Fools
Rain Gods
Lay Down My Sword and Shield
B
ILLY
B
OB
H
OLLAND
N
OVELS
In the Moon of Red Ponies
Bitterroot
Heartwood
Cimarron Rose
O
THER
F
ICTION
Jesus Out to Sea
White Doves at Morning
The Lost Get-Back Boogie
The Convict and Other Stories
Two for Texas
To the Bright and Shining Sun
Half of Paradise
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by James Lee Burke
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition July 2014
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Jacket design by Jackie Seow
Jacket art by Shutterstock
Author photo by Frank Veronsky
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burke, James Lee.
Wayfaring stranger : a novel / James Lee Burke.
pages cm
I. Title.
PS3552.U723W39 2014
813'.54—dc23 2014000147
ISBN 978-1-4767-1079-2
ISBN 978-1-4767-1081-5 (ebook)
Contents
Table of Contents