benignly on him as though she were
addressing an abstraction rather than an enraged man at her elbow.
'You're a dumb mick who's embarrassing everybody at the table. It's not
your fault, though. You probably come from a dysfunctional home full of
ignorant people like yourself. But you should join a therapy group so
you can understand the origin of your rude manners.'
The crow's-feet around Lonighan's eyes were white with anger
and disbelief. I looked at Martina in amazement and admiration.
----
chapter
five
I slept on Clete's couch that night,
and in the morning I
called Nate Baxter at his office and asked about the other homicides
that involved mutilation.
Nate had never been a good liar.
'Mutilation? How do you think most homicides are committed? By
beating the person to death with dandelions?'
'You know what I'm talking about.'
'Yeah, I do. You got to somebody under my supervision.'
'Your office is a sieve, Nate.'
'No, there's only one broad I smell in this. Nothing racial
meant. Stay out of the investigation, Robicheaux. You blew your career
in New Orleans because you were a lush. You won't change that by
sticking your nose up that broad's cheeks.'
He hung up.
I got back home just before lunch. The air was already hot and
breathless and dense with humidity, and I put on my tennis shoes and
running shorts, jogged three miles along the dirt road by the bayou,
then did three sets of arm curls, dead lifts, and military presses with
my barbells in the backyard. My chest was singing with blood when I
turned on the cold water in the shower.
I didn't hear Bootsie open the bathroom door.
'Do you have a second?'
'Sure,' I said, and twisted the shower handle off.
'I acted badly. I'm sorry,' she said.
'About what?'
'About Batist. About the money. I worry about it sometimes.
Too much, I guess.'
'What if I had a wife who didn't?'
I eased the water back on, then through the frosted glass I
saw her undressing in muted silhouette. She opened the door, stepped
inside with me, and slipped her arms around my neck, her face uplifted,
her eyes closed against the spray of the shower over my shoulders.
I held her against me and kissed her hair. Her body was
covered with tan, the tops of her breasts powdered with freckles. Her
skin was smooth and warm and seemed to radiate health and well-being
through my palms, the way a rose petal does to the tips of your
fingers, but the reality was otherwise. Lupus, the red wolf, lived in
her blood and waited only for a slip in her medication to resume
feeding on her organs and connective tissue. And if the wolf was not
loosed by an imbalance in the combinations of medicine that she took,
another even more insidious enemy was—temporary psychosis
that was
like an excursion onto an airless piece of moonscape where only she
lived.
She was supposed to avoid the sun, too. But I had long since
given up trying to take her out of the garden or force her back into
the shade of the cabin when we were out on the salt. I had come to
feel, as many people do when they live with a stricken wife or husband,
that the tyranny of love can be as destructive as that of disease.
We made love in the bedroom, our bodies still damp and cool
from the shower, while the window fan drew the breeze across the
sheets. She moved her stomach in a circular motion on top of me, her
arms propped against the mattress; then I saw her eyes close and her
face become soft and remote. Her thighs tensed, and she bent forward
suddenly, her mouth opening, and I felt her heat spread across my loins
just as something crested and burst inside me like water edging over a
dam and cascading in a white arc through a dark streambed.
She was one of those rare people for whom making love did not
end with a particular act. She lay beside me and touched the white
patch in my hair, my mustache, the rubbery scar high up on my chest
from a .38 round, the spray of lead gray welts along my right thigh
where a bouncing Betty had painted me with
addressing an abstraction rather than an enraged man at her elbow.
'You're a dumb mick who's embarrassing everybody at the table. It's not
your fault, though. You probably come from a dysfunctional home full of
ignorant people like yourself. But you should join a therapy group so
you can understand the origin of your rude manners.'
The crow's-feet around Lonighan's eyes were white with anger
and disbelief. I looked at Martina in amazement and admiration.
----
chapter
five
I slept on Clete's couch that night,
and in the morning I
called Nate Baxter at his office and asked about the other homicides
that involved mutilation.
Nate had never been a good liar.
'Mutilation? How do you think most homicides are committed? By
beating the person to death with dandelions?'
'You know what I'm talking about.'
'Yeah, I do. You got to somebody under my supervision.'
'Your office is a sieve, Nate.'
'No, there's only one broad I smell in this. Nothing racial
meant. Stay out of the investigation, Robicheaux. You blew your career
in New Orleans because you were a lush. You won't change that by
sticking your nose up that broad's cheeks.'
He hung up.
I got back home just before lunch. The air was already hot and
breathless and dense with humidity, and I put on my tennis shoes and
running shorts, jogged three miles along the dirt road by the bayou,
then did three sets of arm curls, dead lifts, and military presses with
my barbells in the backyard. My chest was singing with blood when I
turned on the cold water in the shower.
I didn't hear Bootsie open the bathroom door.
'Do you have a second?'
'Sure,' I said, and twisted the shower handle off.
'I acted badly. I'm sorry,' she said.
'About what?'
'About Batist. About the money. I worry about it sometimes.
Too much, I guess.'
'What if I had a wife who didn't?'
I eased the water back on, then through the frosted glass I
saw her undressing in muted silhouette. She opened the door, stepped
inside with me, and slipped her arms around my neck, her face uplifted,
her eyes closed against the spray of the shower over my shoulders.
I held her against me and kissed her hair. Her body was
covered with tan, the tops of her breasts powdered with freckles. Her
skin was smooth and warm and seemed to radiate health and well-being
through my palms, the way a rose petal does to the tips of your
fingers, but the reality was otherwise. Lupus, the red wolf, lived in
her blood and waited only for a slip in her medication to resume
feeding on her organs and connective tissue. And if the wolf was not
loosed by an imbalance in the combinations of medicine that she took,
another even more insidious enemy was—temporary psychosis
that was
like an excursion onto an airless piece of moonscape where only she
lived.
She was supposed to avoid the sun, too. But I had long since
given up trying to take her out of the garden or force her back into
the shade of the cabin when we were out on the salt. I had come to
feel, as many people do when they live with a stricken wife or husband,
that the tyranny of love can be as destructive as that of disease.
We made love in the bedroom, our bodies still damp and cool
from the shower, while the window fan drew the breeze across the
sheets. She moved her stomach in a circular motion on top of me, her
arms propped against the mattress; then I saw her eyes close and her
face become soft and remote. Her thighs tensed, and she bent forward
suddenly, her mouth opening, and I felt her heat spread across my loins
just as something crested and burst inside me like water edging over a
dam and cascading in a white arc through a dark streambed.
She was one of those rare people for whom making love did not
end with a particular act. She lay beside me and touched the white
patch in my hair, my mustache, the rubbery scar high up on my chest
from a .38 round, the spray of lead gray welts along my right thigh
where a bouncing Betty had painted me with
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