CLETE HAD A working relationship with skells of every stripe. One of the most resourceful was a totally worthless human being by the name of Ozone Eddy Mouton, who had cooked his head by shooting up with paint thinner and sniffing gas tanks and airplane glue and drinking dry-cleaning fluid in Angola. For a long time Ozone Eddy worked as a stall for a bunch of street dips in the Quarter, then upgraded as a money washer at the track, which cost him an ice pick through both kneecaps. On his last bust, the judge took mercy on him and gave him probation, contingent on his attendance at twelve-step meetings.
The lowest of the low-bottom groups in Jefferson and Orleans parishes was the Work the Steps or Die, Motherfucker meeting, a collection of outlaw bikers, prostitutes, street bums, wet-brains, and violent offenders known in Angola as “big stripes.” After six weeks of dealing with Ozone Eddy, the Work the Steps or Die, Motherfuckers held what is called a group-conscience meeting, and Eddy was told to hit the bricks and never come back unless he wanted his head shoved up a Harley-Davidson exhaust pipe.
That was when he teamed up with No Duh Dolowitz, the Merry Prankster of the Mafia. No Duh and Ozone Eddy became legendary as architects of mayhem from Camden to Miami. They shot a paintball into the mouth of a right-to-work politician at a Knights of Columbus dinner. At a tar roofers’ convention in Atlantic City, they put cat turds among the breakfast sausages and flushed twenty-five M-80s down the plumbing and blew water out of the commodes all over the hotel. They freeze-wrapped the severed parts of a stolen cadaver and submerged them in the punch bowls at a bridal shower for the daughter of a Houston button man. They arranged for a busload of dancing transvestites to show up on a middle-school stage at a charitable event in Mississippi. I always thought their masterpiece was the night they hauled away a corrupt judge’s sports car from his driveway and returned it to the same spot before dawn, compacted into a gleaming block of crushed metal not much larger than a footlocker.
Ozone Eddy was to New Orleans what mustard gas was to trench warfare; you tried to stay upwind from him, but it was not an easy task.
MONDAY EVENING EDDY drove his car down a narrow street a couple of blocks from Audubon Park, the air as dense as a bruise, the trees throbbing with birds. He backed his vehicle into the driveway of a white one-story Victorian home that was elevated high above the lawn and had square pillars on the gallery, then he got out and mounted the steps and tapped on the door. The man who answered had a face that looked like it had been poured out of a pitcher of cream, the eyes the most brilliant blue Ozone Eddy had ever seen. The man was holding a book in one hand; behind him, a reading lamp burned inside a flowery shade. “Glad I caught you. I’m returning your tire,” Eddy said.
“What tire?”
“The one I borrowed. I got mine fixed, and I’m returning yours. I’m about to put it back on. I thought I’d tell you so you’d know what was going on.”
“Who are you? What are you talking about?”
“I ran over a nail and didn’t have a spare tire. I saw you had the same size tire as me. So I took yours and got mine fixed. Now I’m putting yours back on. Why are you making that face?”
“Your hair. It’s orange. Say that about my tire again.”
“I hate to tell you this, but you look like you haven’t seen sunlight in five hundred years. You got a vampire coffin in there? What’s with this about my hair? I just told you about your tire. You want it back or not?”
Lamont Woolsey walked down the steps and stared at his SUV. One corner of the frame was almost flush with the concrete. “You left it on the rim?”
“What if a neighborhood kid came by and pushed your SUV on top of himself? Besides, I needed the jack to change my own tire. Want to give me a hand? I’m late for my bridge club.”
“I told you what would happen,” a woman said from the passenger seat of the car. “Leave him his tire and forget it.”
“Who’s that?” Lamont asked.
“That’s Connie Rizzo, my cousin. She lives in your neighborhood. I was trying to do the right thing. Instead, how about you jam your bad manners up your nose?”
Lamont pushed Eddy in the chest with one finger. Eddy was surprised by the force and power in the man’s thrust. “You want trouble?” Lamont said, and speared him in the sternum again.
The woman got out of the van. She was dark-haired and lovely and had youthful skin and a bright red mouth. She wore a beige T-shirt and baggy strap overalls spotted with paint. “Keep your hands to yourself, you freak,” she said.
“Did you people get loose from an asylum?” Lamont said.
“No, but I think you escaped from the circus,” she said. “You lay off Eddy. You want to push people around, try me.”
“You’re cute,” Lamont said.
“Think so? Try this,” she said. She pulled a can of oven cleaner from her overalls and squirted it in his eyes and nose and mouth, stepping back as he flailed his arms, a steady stream flowing into his face.
In under thirty seconds, Lamont Woolsey was in the trunk of Eddy’s car, his wrists tied behind him with plastic ligatures, a black bag pulled down over his head, snugged tight with a drawstring under the chin.
THE STARS WERE out when Clete parked his Caddy behind Ozone Eddy’s tanning parlor on Airline. He went through the back door into the cluttered room that Eddy called his office. Eddy and a woman Clete didn’t know were drinking coffee at a desk while the albino sat shirtless in a heavy chair, his arms secured behind him, his forehead knurled, his skin like white rubber. “What kept you?” Eddy said.
“What kept me? What happened to him?” Clete said.
“You wanted him brought here. So we brought him here,” Eddy said.
“I didn’t tell you to boil his face off. Who’s she?”
“Connie. I pieced off the job. You got any weed on you?”
“Where’s his shirt?” Clete said.
“He puked on it,” Eddy replied. “Actually, he puked inside the bag we put over his head, and it drained on his shirt. What’s with the attitude?”
“I said get him in here. That I’d talk to him when you got him here. That doesn’t mean you turn him into a boiled shrimp,” Clete said.
“You were gonna put an albino in a tanning bed, but you’re lecturing us on abusing people?” the woman said.
“Get her out of here, Eddy,” Clete said.
“You weren’t so choosy that New Year’s Eve when you tried to grab my ass in the elevator at the Monteleone,” the woman said.
Clete tried to think straight, but he couldn’t. Lamont Woolsey was looking at him from under his brow, his face sweaty, his body starting to stink, his slacks streaked with grease and dirt from the car trunk.
“What’s your fucking problem?” Eddy said.
“You don’t hurt people when you don’t have to,” Clete said.
“The guy’s a geek,” Eddy said.
“Beat feet, Eddy, and take her with you,” Clete said. “I’ll lock up.”
“If you haven’t noticed, this is my salon, my office, my girlfriend.”
“You forget what happened here tonight, and with luck, you won’t get melted into soap,” Clete said.
“You don’t throw me out of my own place.”
“What did you say? Melted into soap?” the woman said.
“Did you frisk this guy?” Clete asked.
“What do you think?” the woman said. “I told Eddy to leave this shit alone. I also told him you were a masher. What was that about the soap?”
“I’m going to bet Woolsey here had a fob on a key ring that looked like a dolphin,” Clete said.
The woman and Ozone Eddy glanced at each other. “What about it?” she said.
“That fob means Woolsey has ties to a Nazi war criminal,” Clete said. “I’ve been in a dungeon operated either by him or by his friends. There were chains and steel hooks in that room that had pieces of hair and human tissue on them.”
“Are you drunk?” the woman said.
“Tell her,” Clete said to
Woolsey.
A blue vein pulsed in Woolsey’s scalp. His lifted his eyes to the woman’s. They were electric, the pupils as tiny as pinheads. A solitary drop of sweat rolled off the tip of his nose and formed a dark star on his slacks. “I was a dance instructor at an Arthur Murray dance studio. I’d like to take you dining and dancing some night,” he said. “You have a nice mouth. Your lipstick is too bright, but your mouth is nice just the same.”
The certainty had gone out of the woman’s face.
“Where’s the bag for his head?” Clete said.
“I threw it in the trash. I told you. It had puke on it,” Eddy said.
“It’s not important,” Clete said. “Come on, Lamont. We’re going to take a ride.”
“That stuff about the steel hooks, that was a put-on, right?” the woman said.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Clete said.
He pulled Woolsey from the chair and walked him through the back door to the Caddy. Woolsey’s arms felt as hard as fence posts. “You lift?” Clete said.
“Occasionally.”
“Impressive. The credit card you used in Lafayette was only three weeks old. Otherwise, you’re off the computer.”
“That’s not hard to do. But you’re definitely in the computer, Mr. Purcel. We know everything about you and everything about your family and everything about your friends. Think about that.”
Clete shoved him into the backseat and handcuffed him to the D-ring inset in the floor. “Open your mouth again, and you’ll have that bag full of puke pulled over your head.”
“You’re a stupid man,” Woolsey said.
“You’re right about that,” Clete said. “But check out our situation. I’m driving the car and you’re hooked up like a street pimp. I know where we’re going and you don’t. Your face is fried and you don’t have a shirt to wear and your slacks look like you took a dump in them. You’re not in Shitsville because of bad luck, Mr. Woolsey. You’re in Shitsville because you got taken down by a guy who has hair like Bozo the Clown and a brain the size of a walnut. How’s it feel?”
CLETE DROVE UP the I-10 corridor toward Baton Rouge, then took an exit that accessed a dirt road and a levee bordering a long canal and a flooded woods thick with cypress and gum and persimmon trees. In the moonlight he could see three fishing camps farther up the canal, all of them dark. Clete pulled into a flat spot below the levee and cut the engine. In the quiet he could hear the hood ticking with heat, the frogs croaking in the flooded trees. He went to the back of the Caddy and popped the trunk and pulled a long-sleeve dress shirt from an overnight bag.
“I’m going to unhook you, Mr. Woolsey,” he said. “I want you to put on this shirt. If you get cute with me, I’ll pull your plug.”
“Where are we going?”
“Who said we’re going anywhere? See that cypress swamp? That’s where the Giacano family used to plant the bodies of people they considered a nuisance.”
“I’m not awed by any of this, Mr. Purcel.”
“You should be. When the Giacanos clipped somebody, they did it themselves, up-front and personal. Or they did it up front and impersonal. But they did it themselves. You use the telephone. Like the hit you put on me and Dave Robicheaux.”
Woolsey was slipping on the shirt in the backseat, working it over his shoulders, one cuff hanging from his wrist. “Somebody has been telling you fairy tales.”
Clete cleared his throat. “This gun I’m holding is called a ‘drop’ or a ‘throw-down.’ When cops accidentally cap an unarmed man, the throw-down gets put on his body. Because the throw-down has its numbers burned off and no ballistics history associated with the cop, it’s a convenient weapon to carry when dealing with troublesome people who need a bullet in the mouth. Are you getting the picture?”
“I think so. But speak more slowly, please. You’re probably too intelligent for a man like me.”
“Here’s the rest of it. I wasn’t going to put you in a tanning bed. Why? Because, number one, it doesn’t work. People who are scared shitless tell any lie they think their tormentor wants to hear. Number two, I don’t take advantage of somebody’s handicap. So what does that mean for you? It means you take the contract off me and Dave, and you stay the fuck away from us. If you don’t, I’ll visit you at your pad and break your teeth out with a ball-peen hammer. Then I’ll stuff my drop down your throat and blow one into your bowels. That’s not a threat; it’s a fact.” Clete took a breath. “One other thing, Mr. Woolsey. No payback on Bozo the Clown and his girlfriend. They’re gumballs and are not accountable.”
“I look like a vengeful man?”
“Hook yourself up.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“You don’t have to. Just don’t fuck with me or Dave Robicheaux again,” Clete said.
Lamont Woolsey seemed to think about it in a self-amused fashion, then slipped the tongue of the loose manacle through the D-ring and squeezed it into the locking mechanism.
Clete stuck a green-and-white peppermint stick in his mouth, glanced once at Woolsey in the rearview mirror, and floored the Caddy back onto the levee, his tires sprinkling dirt and gravel into the canal.
THE TRAFFIC WAS thin as Clete drove down I-10 along the edge of Lake Pontchartrain and passed the airport and the cutoff that led to New Iberia. Woolsey was staring out the window like a hairless white ape being transported back to the zoo. Thinking derogatory thoughts about Woolsey brought Clete no consolation. His mockery of Woolsey was, in reality, a bitter admission of his own failure. Woolsey had been taken down by a moral imbecile, but Clete had willingly formed a partnership with one. And Eddy being Eddy, he had immediately factored in his girlfriend, who had almost blinded Woolsey with oven cleaner. On top of that, the two of them had probably told Woolsey he was going to be baked alive in a tanning bed, which Clete had never planned to do.
The shorter version was Clete had empowered Ozone Eddy and his girlfriend to torture a man in Clete’s name. Now he was operating a jitney service for the man who had put a hit on him and his best friend. How bad could one guy screw up?
He looked at his passenger in the rearview mirror. “What do you get out of all this, Mr. Woolsey?”
“Enormous sums of money. Want some?”
“You connected to the oil spill?”
“Not me. I’m an export-import man. One of our biggest clients is Vietnam. Some people say it’s the next China. Want to get in on it?”
“I already did. Two tours.”
“Shooting gook and dreaming of nook? Boys will be boys and all that? I bet y’all had some fun.”
“Take a nap. I’ll tell you when you’re home,” Clete said.
“Touch a nerve?”
“Not a chance,” Clete said.
He turned off I-10 and drove up St. Charles Avenue into the Garden District and pulled into Lamont Woolsey’s driveway. Woolsey’s SUV still rested lopsidedly on one of the back rims. The light was burning on the elevated gallery. An Asian girl in a print sundress was standing under it.
“There’s our loyal Maelee,” Woolsey said.
“What’d you say?” Clete asked.
“My sweet young Vietnamese girl. They’re a loyal bunch. And Maelee is as lovely and fragrant as they come.”
“Her name is Maelee?”
“That’s what I said. Do you know her?”
Clete didn’t answer. For a moment he saw a young woman swimming next to a sampan on the edge of the China Sea, her face dipping into a wave.
But the person on the gallery was not a woman. She was a girl, her bare shoulders brown and warm-looking in the light, the flowers on her dress as vibrant as flowers in a tropical garden.
“Is that you, Mr. Lamont?” the girl said. “I was worried. You were gone so long without telling me.”
“See, they’re loyal,” Woolsey said. “The French taught them manners.”
“Why don’t you show some appreciat
ion and answer her?”
“Unlock my handcuffs.”
“I’ve seen her before,” Clete said. “She was the one who waited on Amidee Broussard after his speech at the Cajundome in Lafayette. He sent his steak back.”
“Correct-o. You must have had your eye on her.”
“What’s she doing here?”
“Amidee knew I needed a maid and drove her over. I’ve given her the cottage in back. She seems quite happy with her new situation. Something wrong?”
Clete pulled back the seat in the Caddy and fitted the handcuff key into the lock on Woolsey’s wrist. He could smell onions on Woolsey’s breath and the dried talcum around his armpits. He stepped back while Woolsey got out of the car. Woolsey’s lips looked purple in the gloom, his eyes dancing with light.
“Yeah, there is something wrong,” Clete said. “Neither of you guys has any business around a young girl like that.”
“What’s really bothering you, Mr. Purcel? You still dream about the little flower girls? It’s no fun keeping one’s wick dry, is it? You said you knew a woman named Maelee. She was Vietnamese?”
“She was Eurasian.”
“A taste of two worlds in one package? Yum-yum.”
The crow’s-feet at the corners of Clete’s eyes had gone flat, but his eyes remained placid and bright green and showed no emotion. “I know a couple of Quaker ladies who work with refugees. They’ll be here tomorrow to talk with the girl and take her somewhere else if she wants to go.”
“What is it you’re really after, Mr. Purcel? Your history with women is well known. You can’t keep your eyes off Maelee, can you? Would you like to go in the cottage with her? She won’t mind. She was very accommodating with Amidee. Last night I tried her myself. I highly recommend her.”
“I think we’re square on the damage Ozone Eddy and his girlfriend did to your face,” Clete said. “That means we’re starting with a clean slate. Is that okay with you?”
“Whatever you say. I’m going to go inside now and have a shower and a hot dinner. Then I’m going to bed down Maelee. I’ve earned that, and she knows it. We’re a colonial empire, Mr. Purcel, although you don’t seem to know that. Everyone benefits. The dominant nation takes the things it needs. Our subjects are only too happy to receive what we give them. It’s win-win for everyone.”