'Game?'
'He's back in New Iberia. I just saw him.'
'We took his deposition. We don't see any point in keeping him in custody,' she replied.
I could feel my words binding in my throat.
'What's in y'all's minds? You've burned this guy.'
'Burned him?'
'You made him rat out the Giacanos. Do you know what they do to people who snitch them off?'
'Then why don't you put him in custody yourself, Mr. Robicheaux?'
'Because the prosecutor's office dropped charges against him.'
'Really? So the same people who complain when we investigate their jail want us to clean up a local mess for them?'
'Don't do this.'
'Should we tell Mr. Broussard his friend Mr. Robicheaux would like to see him locked up again? Or will you do that for us?' she said, and hung up.
Helen opened my door and came inside. She studied my face curiously.
'You ready to boogie?' she asked.
SWEDE BOXLEITER HAD TOLD me he had a job in the movies, and that's where we started. Over in St. Mary Parish, on the front lawn of Lila Terrebonne. But we didn't get far. After we had parked the cruiser, we were stopped halfway to the set by a couple of off-duty St. Mary Parish sheriffs deputies with American flags sewn to their sleeves.
'Y'all putting us in an embarrassing situation,' the older man said.
'You see that dude there, the one with the tool belt on? His name's Boxleiter. He just finished a five bit in Colorado,' I said.
'You got a warrant?'
'Nope.'
'Mr. Holtzner don't want nobody on the set ain't got bidness here. That's the way it is.'
'Oh yeah? Try this. Either you take the marshmallows out of your mouth or I'll go down to your boss's office and have your ass stuffed in a tree shredder,' Helen said.
'Say what you want. You ain't getting on this set,' he said.
Just then, Cisco Flynn opened the door of a trailer and stepped out on the short wood porch.
'What's the problem, Dave?' he asked.
'Boxleiter.'
'Come in,' he said, making cupping motions with his upturned hands, as though he were directing an aircraft on a landing strip.
Helen and I walked toward the open door. Behind him I could see Billy Holtzner combing his hair. His eyes were pale and watery, his lips thick, his face hard-planed like gray rubber molded against bone.
'Dave, we want a good relationship with everybody in the area. If Swede's done something wrong, I want to know about it. Come inside, meet Billy. Let's talk a minute,' Cisco said.
But Billy Holtzner's attention had shifted to a woman who was brushing her teeth in a lavatory with the door open.
'Margot, you look just like you do when I come in your mouth,' he said.
'Adios,' I said, walking away from the trailer with Helen.
Cisco caught up with us and waved away the two security guards.
'What'd Swede do?' he asked.
'Better question: What's he got on you?' I said.
'What have I done that you insult me like this?'
'Mr. Flynn, Boxleiter was hanging around small children at the city pool. Save the bullshit for your local groupies,' Helen said.
'All right, I'll talk to him. Let's don't have a scene,' Cisco said.
'Just stay out of the way,' she said.
Boxleiter was on one knee, stripped to the waist, tightening a socket wrench on a power terminal. His Levi's were powdered with dust, and black power lines spidered out from him in all directions. His torso glistened whitely with sweat, his skin rippling with sinew each time he pumped the wrench. He used his hand to mop the sweat out of one shaved armpit, then wiped his hand on his jeans.
'I want you to put your shirt on and take a ride with us,' I said.
He looked up at us, smiling, squinting into the sun. 'You don't have a warrant. If you did, you'd have already told me,' he said.
'It's a social invitation. One you really don't want to turn down,' Helen said.
He studied her, amused. Dust swirled out of the dirt street that had been spread on the set. The sky was cloudless, the air moist and as tangible as flame against the skin. Boxleiter rose to his feet. People on the set had stopped work and were watching now.
'I got a union book. I'm like anybody else here. I don't have to go anywhere,' he said.
'Suit yourself. We'll catch you later,' I said.
'I get it. You'll roust me when I get home tonight. It don't bother me. Long as it's legal,' he said.
Helen's cheeks were flushed, the back of her neck damp in the heat. I touched her wrist and nodded toward the cruiser. Just as she turned to go with me, I saw Boxleiter draw one stiff finger up his rib cage, collecting a thick dollop of sweat. He flicked it at her back.
Her hand went to her cheek, her face darkening with surprise and insult, like a person in a crowd who cannot believe the nature of an injury she has just received.
'You're under arrest for assaulting a police officer. Put your hands behind you,' she said.
He grinned and scratched at an insect bite high up on his shoulder.
'Is there something wrong with the words I use? Turn around,' she said.
He shook his head sadly. 'I got witnesses. I ain't done anything.'
'You want to add 'resisting' to it?' she said.
'Whoa, mama. Take your hands off me… Hey, enough's enough… Buddy, yeah, you, guy with the mustache, you get this dyke off me.'
She grabbed him by the shoulders and put her shoe behind his knee. Then he brought his elbow into her breast, hard, raking it across her as he turned.
She slipped a blackjack from her pants pocket and raised it over her shoulder and swung it down on his collarbone. It was weighted with lead, elongated like a darning sock, the spring handle wrapped with leather. The blow made his shoulder drop as though the tendons had been severed at the neck.
But he flailed at her just the same, trying to grab her around the waist. She whipped the blackjack across his head, again and again, splitting his scalp, wetting the leather cover on the blackjack each time she swung.
I tried to push him to the ground, out of harm's way, but another problem was in the making. The two off-duty sheriffs deputies were pulling their weapons.
I tore my.45 from my belt holster and aimed into their faces.
'Freeze! It's over!… Take your hand off that piece! Do it! Do it! Do it!'
I saw the confusion and the alarm fix in their eyes, their bodies stiffening. Then the moment died in their faces. 'That's it… Now, move the crowd back. That's all you've got to do… That's right,' I said, my words like wet glass in my throat.
Swede Boxleiter moaned and rolled in the dirt among the power cables, his fingers laced in his hair. Both my hands were still squeezed tight on the.45's grips, my forearms shining with sweat.
The faces of the onlookers were stunned, stupefied. Billy Holtzner pushed his way through the crowd, turned in a circle, his eyebrows climbing on his forehead, and said, 'I got to tell you to get back to work?' Then he walked back toward his trailer, blowing his nose on a Kleenex, flicking his eyes sideways briefly as though looking at a minor irritant.
I was left staring into the self-amused gaze of Archer Terrebonne. Lila stood behind him, her mouth open, her face as white as cake flour. The backs of my legs were still trembling.
