A Stained White Radiance by James Lee Burke Page B

up the front drive, the rain spinning in the blue and red kaleidoscopic flashing of emergency lights. I felt in my pocket for my flashlight, but it was gone. I ran down the stairs and out the front door just as LeBlanc and Thibodeaux pulled abreast of the porch, their faces looking at me expectantly through the open passenger window.
    â€œThey’re headed for the bayou, three of them. They’re armed. One guy’s hurt. Nail ’em,” I said.
    The driver stepped on the accelerator, and the car shot around the side of the house, scouring skid marks in the gravel, gutting a big potted plant by the edge of the rose bed. I pulled the empty clip from the magazine of the .45, inserted a full one, and followed them through the rain toward the back of the property.
    But it was all comedy now. They drove through Weldon’s bamboo, destroyed his vegetable garden, and spun sideways into the coulee. The back wheels of the car whined and smoked in the mud. Out in the darkness I heard an outboard engineroar away from the dock, up the bayou toward St. Martinville.
    The driver rolled down his window and looked at me in exasperation.
    â€œGet on the radio,” I said.
    â€œSorry, Dave. I didn’t know that goddamn coulee was there.”
    â€œForget about it. Call an ambulance, too.”
    â€œAre you all right?”
    â€œYeah. But I think Garrett’s not.”
    â€œWhat happened in there?” the other deputy said, getting out of the passenger’s seat.
    But I was already walking back toward the house, the rain cold on my head, the .45 heavy and loose in my coat pocket. I found him at the bottom of the cellar stairs. The green dragon on his right forearm was laced with blood. I didn’t even want to look at the rest of it.
    A N HOUR LATER the medical examiner and I stood on the columned marble front porch and watched the two ambulance attendants load the gurney into the ambulance and close the doors on it. The rain had stopped, and the ambulance lights made swinging red patterns in the oaks. I could hear the frogs out on the bayou.
    â€œHave you ever seen one like that before?” the medical examiner said. He was a thin elderly man who wore gold-rimmed glasses and a white shirt and tie and carried a pocket watch on a chain. His sleeves were rolled, and he kept brushing at his wrist with a piece of wet paper towel.
    â€œIn New Orleans. When I was at the First District,” I said.
    He wadded up the towel and threw it into the flower bed. His face looked disgusted.
    â€œIt’s a first for me,” he said. “Maybe that’s why I’ll stay in New Iberia. Does he have family here?”
    â€œI think he was single. I don’t know if he has relatives back in Houston or not.”
    â€œIf you have to talk with any of them, you can tell them he was probably out of it with the first shot.”
    â€œIs it true?”
    â€œIt’s what you can tell them, Dave.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œHis eyes were open when he got the next one. He probably saw it coming. But where’s the law say that relatives need to know everything?” A fingerprint man went out the door, and a deputy locked it behind him. They both got in their cars. “So you figure the shooter’s from the mob?” the examiner said.
    â€œWho knows? It’s their signature.”
    â€œWhy do they do it that way? Just to be thorough?”
    â€œMore likely because most of them are degenerates and sadists. But maybe I say that just because I’m tired.” I tried to smile.
    â€œHow’s your shoulder?”
    â€œAll right. I’ll put some ice on it.”
    â€œI scraped a blood specimen off the corner of the garage. It might help you later.”
    â€œThanks, doctor. I’d appreciate it if you’d sendme a copy of the autopsy report as soon as it’s ready.”
    â€œYou’re sure you’re all right? It got pretty close in there, didn’t