Dixie City Jam

'Call Ben Motley, Dave. He's left two messages,' she said.

'What's he want?'

'Something about Tommy Lonighan.'

'How you doing?'

'Fine.'

'You want to go out to eat tonight?'

'Sure. What's the occasion?' she said.

'Nothing special.'

'Is anything wrong?'

'No, why do you think that?'

'Because you always suggest going out to dinner when you feel guilty about something.'

'Not me.' I looked out at the rain striking against the half-opened windows of the streetcar.

'I'm sorry about last night,' she said.

'See you later, kiddo.'

'Hang on to your butt in the Big Sleazy.'

That's more like it, Boots, I thought.

I called Motley at headquarters in the Garden District.

'I got a strange story for you, Robicheaux,' he said. 'We've had some fag bashers running around the city. A couple of them are UNO pukes; the others are just ugly and stupid or probably latent queerbait themselves. Anyway, they're always on the prowl for fresh meat down in the Quarter. This time they picked up a transvestite on Dauphine and took him to a camp out in St. Charles Parish. I think he blew a couple of them, then they got him stinking drunk, pulled his clothes off, and poured pig shit and chicken feathers all over him. Nice boys, huh?

'Anyway, the transvestite is no ordinary fruit. He looks like Frankenstein in a dress and panty hose. He starts sobering up and realizes this isn't a Crisco party. That's when he starts ripping puke ass, I mean busting slats out of the walls with these guys. The pukes made an instant conversion to law and order and called the sheriffs office.

'Right now Frankenstein's in a holding cell, scared shitless. Guess who he called to bail him out?'

'Lonighan?'

'Right. Then twenty minutes go by, and guess who calls back on the fruit's behalf?'

'I don't know, Ben.'

'A lawyer who works for the Calucci brothers. That's when the St. Charles sheriff called us. Why do the Caluccis want to help a cross-dresser with feathers and pig flop in his hair?'

'Is the guy's name Manuel?'

'Yeah, Manuel Ruiz. The sheriff thinks he's a lobotomy case. He's probably illegal, too.'

'How long has he been in custody?'

'Two hours.'

'I'll get back to you. Thanks, Ben.'

An hour later Manuel Ruiz was still in the holding cell, a narrow, concrete, barred room with a wood bench against one wall and a drain hole and grate in the floor. There were dried yellow stains on the grate and on the cement around the hole. He was barefoot and wore a black skirt with orange flowers on it and a torn peasant blouse with lace around the neck; his hair was matted and stuck together in spikes. His exposed chest looked as hard and flawless in complexion as sanded oak.

'You remember me, Manuel?' I asked.

The eyes were obsidian, elongated, unblinking, lidless, his wide, expressionless mouth lipsticked like a fresh surgical incision.

'I just talked with the prosecutor's office,' I said. 'The boys aren't pressing charges. You can go home with me if you want.'

The skin at the corner of one eye puckered, like tan putty wrinkling.

'Or you can wait for the Caluccis' lawyer to get here. But he left word he's running late.'

'Caluccis no good. No want.' His voice sounded as though it came out of a cave.

'Not a bad idea. The other problem we might have is the INS, Manuel.'

He continued to stare at me, as though I were an anomaly caged by bars and not he, floating just on the edge of memory and recognition.

'Immigration and Naturalization,' I said, and saw the words tick in his eyes. 'Time to get out of town. Hump it on down the road. ?Vamos a casa? Tommy's house?'

He hit at a fly with his hand, then looked at me again and nodded.

'I'll be back in a minute,' I said.

I walked back to the jailer's office. The jailer, a crew-cut man with scrolled green tattoos and black hair on his arms, sat behind his desk, reading a hunting magazine.

By his elbow, a cigar burned in an ashtray inset in a lacquered armadillo shell.

'He's agreed to leave with me,' I said. 'How about a towel and a bar of soap and some other clothes?'

'He hosed down when he come in.' He looked back at his magazine, then rattled the pages. 'All right. We want everybody tidy when they leave. Hey, Clois! The Mexican's going out! Walk him down to the shower!' He looked back down at his magazine.

'What about the clothes?'

'Will you mail them back?'

'You got it.'

'Clois! Find something for him to wear that don't go with tampons!' He smiled at me.

It was cool and raining harder now as we drove toward New Orleans on old Highway 90. Manuel sat hunched forward, his arm hooked outside the passenger's door, his jailhouse denim shirt wet all the way to the shoulder. We crossed a bridge over a bayou, and the wind swirled the rain inside the cab.

'How about rolling up the window?' I said.

'Don't want smell bad in truck,' he said.

'You're fine. There's no problem there. Roll up the window please.'

He cranked the glass shut and stared through the front window at the trees that sped by us on the road's edge and the approaching gray silhouette of the Huey Long Bridge.

'Do you do some work for the Calucci brothers, Manuel?' I said.

'Trabajo por Tommy.'

'Yeah, I know you work for Tommy. But why do Max and Bobo want to get you out of jail, partner?'

His jug head remained motionless, but I saw his eyes flick sideways at me.

'Max and Bobo don't help people unless they get something out of it,' I said.

He picked up the paper sack that held his soiled clothes and clutched it in his lap.

'Where you from, Manuel?'

His face was dour with fatigue and caution.

'I'm not trying to trap you,' I said. 'But you're living with bad people. I think you need help with some other problems, too. Those boys who took you out in the marsh are sadists. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?'

But if he did, he gave no indication.

I shifted the truck into second and began the ascent onto the massive steel bridge that spanned the Mississippi. Down below, the water's surface was dimpled with thousands of rain rings, and the willow and gum trees on the bank were deep green and flattening in the wind off the gulf.

'Look, Manuel, Tommy Lonighan's got some serious stuff on his conscience. I think it's got to do with dope dealers and the vigilante killings in the projects. Am I wrong?'

Manuel's hands closed on the sack in his lap as though he were squeezing the breath out of a live animal.

'You want to tell me about it?' I said.

'?Quien es usted?'

'My name's Dave Robicheaux. The man you saw at Tommy's house.'

'No. Where work? Who are?'