feet, open the pint bottle of Matusalem rum laced with the magic mushroom, and swallow deeply. Then I slowly, carefully, light the cigar.
La madrina mia.
Why did she begin her own madness this night?
The man on the floor begins to move.
I think about her as I set about my business. It has been so long since I have said the words I love you to a woman that it seems I might hesitate when I tell her. This is a fear. Another fear is that she will resist me. And although romance is as important to me as it is to the next man, I do not have time to court her properly. Not now.
There will be time for romance.
The man on the floor groans.
Now I must gather.
Now I must take my hands from my ears and willfully let in the discord, the shrill fury of my father’s violence. Now I must be strong and urgent and bestial. Now I must go to work.
The volume in my head soars as the Amanita muscaria takes me in its dark embrace.
I select my sharpest knife.
And set upon the body.
9
“Where y’at , Jackie?” the man behind the counter asks. “ Comment ça va? ”
“I’m good, Ronnie,” Paris says. “As good as can be expected from a man my age, on a day such as this.”
The big man winks, hands Paris a red Thermos, takes the empty. “It is all bon, oui? ”
It is a rhetorical question. An old, comfortable routine. Paris studies the man, again marveling at Ronnie Boudreaux’s grace at more than three hundred pounds. “You are definitely the hardest-working man in show business, Ronnie. When are you going to take a vacation?”
Ronnie Boudreaux laughs, pulls a rack from the glass display case. “I get a vacation when my two ex-wives get married or die, mec .” He bags a pair of beignets, hands the bag to Paris. “Or my chouchou love me six feet under.”
This draws a laugh from the regulars at the five-stool counter.
Paris had been in a zone car one sweltering night, years earlier, and had helped to foil an armed robbery at Ronnie’s Famous Louisiana Fry Cakes on Hough Avenue. Most likely a rape, too. When Paris and Vince Stella had answered the call they found Ronnie unconscious behind the counter. They also found the robber and Ronnie’s terrified, half-dressed daughter in the back room. Lucia Boudreaux was ten years old at the time.
Jack Paris and Vince Stella brought the suspect down that night. Hard .
Since then, there has been a Thermos of fresh coffee waiting for Paris at Ronnie’s Famous, right next to the register, no matter when he stops by. They are currently on a two-Thermos rotation since Paris decided to make a science out of obtaining Ronnie’s fresh beignets at precisely seven A . M . or seven P . M ., the two times of day when you can get the delicately sweet, square little doughnuts right out of the oil.
It has been this way for many years.
“Gotta run,” Paris says, grabbing the bag and his freshly filled Thermos. “See you, Ronnie.”
“ Laissez les bon temps roulet ,” Ronnie replies, on cue.
Let the good times roll , he says.
Paris drops a couple of dollars into the tip jar—he had stopped trying to pay for the coffee and doughnuts a long time ago—and steps out into the frigid morning. He opens the white bag, removes a warm beignet and sinks his teeth into it, eyes shut, chewing slowly, enraptured by the light dusting of powdered sugar, by the extraordinary little pockets of air. He pauses, lost in the present, until that sound destroys the moment again, as it always does. The sound of his pager.
The sound of another body falling to the earth.
There are a few things for which homicide detectives, even veteran homicide detectives, are never fully braced. One is dead children. Another—or perhaps it is a horror that dwells exclusively in the minds of male police officers—is castration. Paris had seen it only once before, a Mafia payback hit. That time, like this time, he was stupefied at the amount of blood.
The forensic activity in Room 116 of the Dream-A-Dream Motel on
La madrina mia.
Why did she begin her own madness this night?
The man on the floor begins to move.
I think about her as I set about my business. It has been so long since I have said the words I love you to a woman that it seems I might hesitate when I tell her. This is a fear. Another fear is that she will resist me. And although romance is as important to me as it is to the next man, I do not have time to court her properly. Not now.
There will be time for romance.
The man on the floor groans.
Now I must gather.
Now I must take my hands from my ears and willfully let in the discord, the shrill fury of my father’s violence. Now I must be strong and urgent and bestial. Now I must go to work.
The volume in my head soars as the Amanita muscaria takes me in its dark embrace.
I select my sharpest knife.
And set upon the body.
9
“Where y’at , Jackie?” the man behind the counter asks. “ Comment ça va? ”
“I’m good, Ronnie,” Paris says. “As good as can be expected from a man my age, on a day such as this.”
The big man winks, hands Paris a red Thermos, takes the empty. “It is all bon, oui? ”
It is a rhetorical question. An old, comfortable routine. Paris studies the man, again marveling at Ronnie Boudreaux’s grace at more than three hundred pounds. “You are definitely the hardest-working man in show business, Ronnie. When are you going to take a vacation?”
Ronnie Boudreaux laughs, pulls a rack from the glass display case. “I get a vacation when my two ex-wives get married or die, mec .” He bags a pair of beignets, hands the bag to Paris. “Or my chouchou love me six feet under.”
This draws a laugh from the regulars at the five-stool counter.
Paris had been in a zone car one sweltering night, years earlier, and had helped to foil an armed robbery at Ronnie’s Famous Louisiana Fry Cakes on Hough Avenue. Most likely a rape, too. When Paris and Vince Stella had answered the call they found Ronnie unconscious behind the counter. They also found the robber and Ronnie’s terrified, half-dressed daughter in the back room. Lucia Boudreaux was ten years old at the time.
Jack Paris and Vince Stella brought the suspect down that night. Hard .
Since then, there has been a Thermos of fresh coffee waiting for Paris at Ronnie’s Famous, right next to the register, no matter when he stops by. They are currently on a two-Thermos rotation since Paris decided to make a science out of obtaining Ronnie’s fresh beignets at precisely seven A . M . or seven P . M ., the two times of day when you can get the delicately sweet, square little doughnuts right out of the oil.
It has been this way for many years.
“Gotta run,” Paris says, grabbing the bag and his freshly filled Thermos. “See you, Ronnie.”
“ Laissez les bon temps roulet ,” Ronnie replies, on cue.
Let the good times roll , he says.
Paris drops a couple of dollars into the tip jar—he had stopped trying to pay for the coffee and doughnuts a long time ago—and steps out into the frigid morning. He opens the white bag, removes a warm beignet and sinks his teeth into it, eyes shut, chewing slowly, enraptured by the light dusting of powdered sugar, by the extraordinary little pockets of air. He pauses, lost in the present, until that sound destroys the moment again, as it always does. The sound of his pager.
The sound of another body falling to the earth.
There are a few things for which homicide detectives, even veteran homicide detectives, are never fully braced. One is dead children. Another—or perhaps it is a horror that dwells exclusively in the minds of male police officers—is castration. Paris had seen it only once before, a Mafia payback hit. That time, like this time, he was stupefied at the amount of blood.
The forensic activity in Room 116 of the Dream-A-Dream Motel on
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