or anybody else.
"Y'all ain't gonna say nothing?" he asked.
"Let go of it, partner," I said.
"The Man always got the answer," he replied.
"Your daddy is an honest and decent person. If you're still
ashamed of him because he shined shoes, yeah, I think that's a problem,
Breeze," I said.
"
Dave
…"Megan said.
"Give it a break, Megan," I said.
"No… Behind us. The G sent us an escort," she said.
I turned and looked back through the hatch at our wake. Coming
hard right up the trough was a large powerboat, its enamel-white bow
painted with the blue-and-red insignia of the United States Coast
Guard. A helicopter dipped out of the sky behind the Coast Guard boat,
yawing, its downdraft hammering the water.
I entered a channel that led to the boat ramp where my truck
and boat trailer were parked. The helicopter swept past us and landed
in the shell parking area below the levee. The right-hand door opened
and the FBI agent named Adrien Glazier stepped out and walked toward us
while the helicopter's blades were still spinning.
I waded through the shallows onto the concrete ramp.
"You're out of your jurisdiction, so I'm going to save you a
lot of paperwork," she said.
"Oh?"
"We're taking Mr. William Broussard into our custody.
Interstate transportation of stolen property. You want to argue about
it, we can talk about interference with a federal law officer in the
performance of her duty."
Then I saw her eyes focus over my shoulder on Megan, who stood
on the bow of my boat, her hair blowing under her straw hat.
"You take one picture out here and I'll have you in
handcuffs," Adrien Glazier said.
"Broussard's been snakebit. He needs to be in a hospital," I
said.
But she wasn't listening. She and Megan stared at each other
with the bright and intimate recognition of old adversaries who might
have come aborning from another time.
----
FIVE
THE NEXT DAY AT LUNCHTIME Clete Purcel
picked me up at the
office in the chartreuse Cadillac convertible that he had bought from a
member of the Giacano crime family in New Orleans, a third-generation
miscreant by the name of Stevie Gee who decided to spot-weld a leak in
the gas tank but got drunk first and forgot to fill the tank with water
before he fired up the welding machine. The scorch marks had faded now
and looked like smoky gray tentacles on the back fenders.
The back seat was loaded with fishing rods, a tackle box that
was three feet long, an ice chest, air cushions, crushed beer cans,
life preservers, crab traps, a hoop net that had been ground up in a
boat propeller, and a tangled trot line whose hooks were ringed with
dried smelt.
Clete wore baggy white pants without a shirt and a powder-blue
porkpie hat, and his skin looked bronzed and oily in the sun. He had
been the best cop I ever knew until his career went south, literally,
all the way to Central America, because of marriage trouble, pills,
booze, hookers, indebtedness to shylocks, and finally a murder warrant
that his fellow officers barely missed serving on him at the New
Orleans airport.
I went inside Victor's on Main Street for a take-out order,
then we crossed the drawbridge over Bayou Teche and drove past the live
oaks on the lawn of the gray and boarded-up buildings that used to be
Mount Carmel Academy, then through the residential section into City
Park. We sat at a picnic table under a tree, not far from the swimming
pool, where children were cannonballing off the diving board. The sun
had gone behind the clouds and rain rings appeared soundlessly on the
bayou's surface, like bream rising to feed.
"That execution in St. Mary Parish… the two brothers
who got clipped after they raped the black girl? How bad you want the
perps?" he said.
"What do you think?"
"I see it as another parish's grief. As a couple of guys who
got what they had coming."
"The shooters had one of our uniforms."
He set down the pork-chop sandwich he was eating and scratched
the scar that ran through his left eyebrow.
"I'm still
"Y'all ain't gonna say nothing?" he asked.
"Let go of it, partner," I said.
"The Man always got the answer," he replied.
"Your daddy is an honest and decent person. If you're still
ashamed of him because he shined shoes, yeah, I think that's a problem,
Breeze," I said.
"
Dave
…"Megan said.
"Give it a break, Megan," I said.
"No… Behind us. The G sent us an escort," she said.
I turned and looked back through the hatch at our wake. Coming
hard right up the trough was a large powerboat, its enamel-white bow
painted with the blue-and-red insignia of the United States Coast
Guard. A helicopter dipped out of the sky behind the Coast Guard boat,
yawing, its downdraft hammering the water.
I entered a channel that led to the boat ramp where my truck
and boat trailer were parked. The helicopter swept past us and landed
in the shell parking area below the levee. The right-hand door opened
and the FBI agent named Adrien Glazier stepped out and walked toward us
while the helicopter's blades were still spinning.
I waded through the shallows onto the concrete ramp.
"You're out of your jurisdiction, so I'm going to save you a
lot of paperwork," she said.
"Oh?"
"We're taking Mr. William Broussard into our custody.
Interstate transportation of stolen property. You want to argue about
it, we can talk about interference with a federal law officer in the
performance of her duty."
Then I saw her eyes focus over my shoulder on Megan, who stood
on the bow of my boat, her hair blowing under her straw hat.
"You take one picture out here and I'll have you in
handcuffs," Adrien Glazier said.
"Broussard's been snakebit. He needs to be in a hospital," I
said.
But she wasn't listening. She and Megan stared at each other
with the bright and intimate recognition of old adversaries who might
have come aborning from another time.
----
FIVE
THE NEXT DAY AT LUNCHTIME Clete Purcel
picked me up at the
office in the chartreuse Cadillac convertible that he had bought from a
member of the Giacano crime family in New Orleans, a third-generation
miscreant by the name of Stevie Gee who decided to spot-weld a leak in
the gas tank but got drunk first and forgot to fill the tank with water
before he fired up the welding machine. The scorch marks had faded now
and looked like smoky gray tentacles on the back fenders.
The back seat was loaded with fishing rods, a tackle box that
was three feet long, an ice chest, air cushions, crushed beer cans,
life preservers, crab traps, a hoop net that had been ground up in a
boat propeller, and a tangled trot line whose hooks were ringed with
dried smelt.
Clete wore baggy white pants without a shirt and a powder-blue
porkpie hat, and his skin looked bronzed and oily in the sun. He had
been the best cop I ever knew until his career went south, literally,
all the way to Central America, because of marriage trouble, pills,
booze, hookers, indebtedness to shylocks, and finally a murder warrant
that his fellow officers barely missed serving on him at the New
Orleans airport.
I went inside Victor's on Main Street for a take-out order,
then we crossed the drawbridge over Bayou Teche and drove past the live
oaks on the lawn of the gray and boarded-up buildings that used to be
Mount Carmel Academy, then through the residential section into City
Park. We sat at a picnic table under a tree, not far from the swimming
pool, where children were cannonballing off the diving board. The sun
had gone behind the clouds and rain rings appeared soundlessly on the
bayou's surface, like bream rising to feed.
"That execution in St. Mary Parish… the two brothers
who got clipped after they raped the black girl? How bad you want the
perps?" he said.
"What do you think?"
"I see it as another parish's grief. As a couple of guys who
got what they had coming."
"The shooters had one of our uniforms."
He set down the pork-chop sandwich he was eating and scratched
the scar that ran through his left eyebrow.
"I'm still
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