“You popped him because of something he said about me?” she said.
“He called you a queer. He accused me of performing cunnilingus on you.” I cleared my throat and shifted in the chair, unconsciously touching my knuckles.
She took her thumbs out of her belt and gazed out the window, her lips pursed. She fooled with one ear, her jaw flexing on a piece of chewing gum. There were ridges of muscle, like rolls of dimes, in the backs of her arms. “He hasn’t filed charges yet,” she said.
“He’s not going to, either.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Because he’s a gutless fraud.”
“Pops, you have one character defect I’ve never been able to deal with.”
“Really?”
“I can never guess what your feelings are on a given subject. God, you’re a case. Dropping the district attorney in his own office. That’s a beaut.” She smiled at me, her face infused with genuine warmth. In fact, it was radiant and filled with the kind of humanity that I suspect is purchased by living in two genders, and lovely in ways I cannot adequately describe.
GOVERNOR HUEY LONG, known as the Kingfish, became the prototype for all the southern demagogues who would follow him. According to legend, Huey kept a little black book he called his “sonofabitch file.” Whenever he met a man he disliked, he wrote his name in it. If someone wondered why Huey had entered the individual’s name in the book, the answer was simple: When the opportunity presented itself, Huey would destroy that man’s life.
What I had not said to Helen was that men like Lonnie Marceaux and Huey Long had ice water in their veins and kept long memories. I still believed Lonnie would not come after me immediately because a public airing of our confrontation would cause him political embarrassment. But for three years he would have the option of filing charges against me, and that option would hang over me during the entirety of our investigation into the murder of Tony Lujan. My guess was Lonnie would eventually have his revenge, but like all cowards, he would use a three- cushion shot to get it.
In the meantime, I had to keep an investigative clarity of line in the death of Tony Lujan, regardless of my feelings about Lonnie Marceaux. I didn’t buy Monarch Little for the murder. He was just too easy a target. Black dirtbags make wonderful dartboards for prosecutors in need of defendants with cartoonlike dimensions. Unfortunately for Monarch, he had the social grace of a hog on ice and was the kind of defendant juries love to boil into grease and pour down a sewer grate. But nevertheless, Monarch was not stupid. Even if he had shot the Lujan boy, he would not have left the murder weapon on the floor of his Firebird. Also, Monarch was a pragmatist. The person who had murdered Tony Lujan had deliberately disfigured the body postmortem and I suspected had been driven by the kind of insatiable rage we associate with sexually motivated psychopaths.
Just when I had convinced myself that Monarch was being set up, that the old southern incubus of racial scapegoating was once again rearing its head in our midst, I received a telephone call that was like a brick toppling down a stone well.
“Mr. Robicheaux?”
The voice was young, female, threaded with trepidation.
“Yes, this is Dave Robicheaux. What can I do for you?”
“It’s Lydia Thibodaux, Tony’s friend.”
“How are you?” I said, straightening up in my chair.
“You questioned me the night Tony died. I told you things-” She stopped and started over. “Dr. Edwards is my academic adviser at UL. He was kind of like a friend to Tony. Slim was in one of his classes, too. I told him the truth about what happened. He said I needed to talk with you and straighten everything out. A lot of people say Dr. Edwards is gay, but I don’t care. What does it matter if he’s gay?”
I couldn’t follow her. “Straighten out what?”
“I told you I wasn’t sure it was Monarch who called up and asked Tony to meet him. That wasn’t true. I know Monarch’s voice. I bought some weed from him. More than once.”
“Can you come to my office?”
For a moment I thought the line had gone dead. Don’t lose her, I told myself. “It’s all right. We’ll talk on the phone. I appreciate your cooperating with us. You’re sure it was Monarch Little?” I said.
“As sure as you can be just by listening to somebody over the phone. How many people lisp like that? He sounds like he has wires all over his teeth.”
“What else did you want to straighten out, Lydia?”
“Sir?”
“You said there were ‘things’ you told me that were not correct. You used the plural.”
“Maybe Slim was with Tony.”
“Say that again.”
“Before Tony left to meet Monarch, I told him it was crazy to go meet a drug dealer when he was already in so much trouble. Tony said he’d be all right because Slim would go with him. He said, ‘Slim can handle the action. Monarch already learned he’d-’”
“Say it, Lydia.”
“He said, ‘Monarch already learned he’d better not fuck with Slim.’ Tony always looked up to Slim. It never made sense to me. Slim is no good.”
“What do you base that on?”
“He’s mean. His fraternity brothers act like he’s their friend, but the truth is they’re afraid of him. I told Dr. Edwards that. I mean, I told him Slim scared me.”
I was writing on a yellow legal pad while she talked. “What did Dr. Edwards have to say about that?”
“He said Tony and Slim both wore masks. He said not to be afraid of someone who can’t live with the person who’s inside his skin. He said it was too bad Tony couldn’t have learned that lesson. I don’t know what he meant. What do you think he meant?”
“I’m not sure. Was Tony maybe unusual or different in some way?” I asked, wondering if I was now pushing the envelope.
“Sir?”
“Let me meet you someplace.”
“I have to go to work now. I’m helping my father at the restaurant.”
“Your father runs the restaurant at the new casino?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“I was just trying to undo a lie I told you. Now you’re trying to make me say bad things about Tony. Monarch Little killed him, didn’t he? Why are you protecting a piece of scum like that? I wish I hadn’t called you, Mr. Robicheaux. You’re on the side of black people. It’s always like this. They do whatever they want.”
I started to reply, but she broke the connection.
Had I been completely wrong? Did Monarch do it after all? Was my enmity toward Lonnie Marceaux so extreme that I would take up the cause of a dope dealer who had set up and murdered a hapless college kid whose father had already psychologically damaged him beyond repair? Was I one of those who always saw a person of color as a victim of social injustice?
I didn’t like to think about the answer.
THE TEMPERATURE HIT ninety-nine that afternoon. The trees along East Main were almost indistinguishable from one another inside the haze of heat and humidity and dust that covered the town. The tide was out and Bayou Teche had sunken inside its banks, and in the harshness of the sunlight, alligator gars roiled the water next to clumps of lily pads that had burned yellow on the edges. As I drove home, the wind was hot and smelled of tar and carbon monoxide, and even though I had left my air-conditioned offices only five minutes ago, I could feel sweat running down my sides like trails of ants.
Molly was not an angry or resentful woman, nor was she one who judged or sought to punish. But her disappointment in others could lie buried in her face as deep as a stone bruise. Perhaps she thought violence could
