Roger that, I thought, more casually than I should have.
“Where are you going?” Molly asked.
“Clete has a lead on Bledsoe.”
“I want to go with you.”
“It’s just surveillance. It’s pretty boring stuff.”
“That doesn’t matter. He broke in our home. He urinated in Alafair’s bedroom. My stomach turns when I think about it. She told me he tried to get on as a volunteer at the shelter.”
“He’s going off the board, Molly. It’s a matter of time.”
She stepped closer to me. “You think I have to be protected from reality? I had maryknoll friends who were raped and murdered in El Salvador. Our government didn’t do a goddamn thing about it. Dave, I’m not going to sit around while this man brings his evil into our lives.”
“I understand how you feel.”
“Do you?”
I looked at the earnestness in her face and wanted to hold her. I put my arms around her back, cupping one hand on her neck. She was wearing a sundress and her skin felt cool and warm at the same time under the wood-bladed ceiling fan. I rubbed my cheek against her hair and squeezed her tighter. “I promise I won’t let him hurt us again,” I said.
She lowered her head and I felt her hands slide off my back. “Why do you think it’s all up to you? Why is it only about you?”
“It isn’t,” I said. “You have to trust me when I say that. For once, just trust me.”
I went outside and started the truck, my face hot, my ears ringing with the harshness of our exchange. The yard had fallen into shadow and cicadas were droning in the trees, like a bad headache that won’t go away. Just as I was backing into the street, regretting my words, trying to accept Molly’s anger and hurt feelings, she came out on the gallery and waved good-bye.
That’s what happens when you marry nuns.
THE CASINO WAS located on reservation land, down Bayou Teche, in what used to be a rural slum. Now the reservation is prosperous and the people there live in neat homes not far from the confluence of the Teche and another waterway which together form into a bay. The house lots have no fences and contain persimmon and pecan trees, live oaks and slash pines. It’s a lovely piece of topography that hides certain economic realities that few care to dwell on.
The patrons of the casino are the working poor, the uneducated, the compulsive, and the addicted. The booze is free as long as the patron continues to gamble. The interior glitters and charms; the restaurant is first-rate. The bands that play there do Cajun and zydeco and shitkicker, too. Inside the hermetically sealed environment, one that has no clocks or windows, all the problems of the outside world disappear.
After Katrina and Rita, the profits at Louisiana ’s casinos soared to all-time highs. If you have already lost most of the ranch, what does it matter if you lose the basement?
Clete was standing by his car in the parking lot, smoking a Lucky Strike, his features taut with anticipation. A thermos rested on his car hood. I parked next to him, took the cigarette from his mouth, and flipped it sparking on the asphalt. “They’re inside?” I said.
“Yeah, they put in their names for a Texas Hold ’ Em table. They ’re at the buffet table now.” He unscrewed the top of the thermos and drank from it but offered me none.
“Did you get anything on Bledsoe’s bud?”
“Joe Dupree at Lafayette PD ran his tag for me. The car is registered to a Bobby Mack Rydel in Morgan City. Joe’s description of the ID photo fits the guy driving the car. I don’t know who the broad is. How do you want to play it?”
“What are you drinking?” I asked.
“Vodka Collins. You mind?”
“How big a gambler is Rydel?”
“The Hold ’Em table is a hundred-dollar buy-in. I’ve seen him buy a grand’s worth with the bills in his shirt pocket.”
“What about Bledsoe?”
“I haven’t seen him in action. There’s one thing about creeps, though. They want to be treated like they’re normal. Particularly in public.”
I thought about it. “Let’s spit in the punch bowl. Where’s their car?”
“It’s the Saab ragtop a couple of rows over.”
“Think it might have a vehicle violation or two?”
“I’ll check it out,” he replied.
Clete walked through the parked cars and looked down at the rear tag on a black Saab. Then he removed his Swiss Army knife from his pants pocket and squatted down below eye level. He was gone from sight longer than I expected. When he returned he was folding a knife blade back into the knife’s casing. “You were right. The guy’s tag is missing. A couple of his tire valves are busted, too. What a shame,” he said.
We entered the casino and walked past banks of slot machines that rippled with color and rang with the sound of coins cascading into metal trays. Hard by the rows of slots were dozens of Hold ’Em card tables, each seating nine players. The game was so popular the players had to get on a waiting list in order to buy a hundred-dollar chair. While the players waited for a vacancy, they fed the slots. When they got tired of waiting, they had another drink on the house and fed the slots some more.
Clete nodded in the direction of two men and a statuesque woman with white-gold hair who were being seated at one of the far tables. Bledsoe was wearing powder-blue slacks, a matching vest, a bolo tie, and a long- sleeved shirt with silver stripes in it. His elongated, polished head and the vacuous smile painted on his face seemed to float like a glistening white balloon above the people around him. His friend, Bobby Mack Rydel, if that was his name, was a heavy, swayback man dressed in brown jeans with big brads on them. He also wore a wide cowboy belt, maroon suede boots, and a dark red shirt with pearl snap buttons. He had long sideburns that flared on his cheeks and a fleshy sag under his chin. He wore an Australian bush hat, the brim turned down all around the crown, the leather chin cord flopping loose on his throat. While he was being seated, he kept his hand in the small of the woman’s back.
A security guard was drinking a cup of coffee at the end of the bar, glancing at his watch, occasionally yawning. “What’s happenin’, Dave?” he said.
“On the job, you know how it is,” I replied.
“Overtime is overtime,” he said.
Clete put a mint in his mouth and snapped it between his molars. “See that dude in the Digger hat?” he said.
“The what?” the guard asked.
“The guy in the Australian flop hat. You might check your Griffin book,” Clete said.
“He’s a regular,” the guard said.
“All griffins are regulars. That’s how they end up in the Griffin book,” Clete said.
The guard looked at me for confirmation. I raised my eyebrows and shrugged.
“Thanks for the tip,” the guard said.
“No problem, noble mon,” Clete said.
We worked our way closer to the table where Bledsoe and Bobby Mack Rydel and the woman with white-gold hair were playing Texas Hold ’Em. Bledsoe had just received his second hole card and was peeling it up with his thumb to peek at it.
“Hey, Dave, look, it’s Ronnie Bledsoe, you know, Ole Ronald McDonald from the motor court,” Clete said. “Ronnie, how’s your hammer hanging?”
Bledsoe turned in his chair, his face uplifted, his mouth puckered, like a guppy at the top of a tank. His eyes seemed to radiate serenity and goodwill. He continued to look up into Clete’s face without speaking.
“Sorry, you’re busy. Catch you later,” Clete said. He pointed at the top of Bledsoe’s hole cards. “Stomp ass with that hand.” He gave him a knowing wink that everyone at the table could see.
Then he went to the bar and ordered a double Jack straight up and a beer back.
