Purple Cane Road

'The southern route is straight through now. You can be in New Orleans in two hours and fifteen minutes,' I said.

'The department uses prescribed routes for all transportation of prisoners. This one happens to go through Baton Rouge,' Burgoyne said. He grinned and chewed his gum.

He was young, unshaved, muscular, his arms padded with hair. He wore a faded black T-shirt and running shoes and Levi's with his handcuffs pulled through the back of his belt. He wore his shield on a cord around his neck, and a snub-nosed.38 in a clip-on holster on his belt.

'We've had Remeta in a holding cell since this morning. He didn't eat yet,' I said.

'We'll feed him at the jail. I'll ask him to drop you a card and tell you about it,' Burgoyne said, his eyes merry, his gum snapping in his jaw.

Ten minutes later I watched Ritter and Burgoyne lead Johnny Remeta, in waist and leg chains, to the back of a white Plymouth and lock him to a D-ring anchored on the floor. When they pulled out of the parking lot, Remeta stared out the side window into my face.

I went back inside the building, the residue of a burned-out, bad day like a visceral presence on my skin.

Why had they waited until quitting time to pick up Remeta? Why were they adamant about returning to New Orleans through Baton Rouge, which was the long way back? I was bothered also by the detective named Burgoyne. His clothes and looks and manner reminded me of the description that Micah, Cora Gable's chauffeur, had given of one of the cops who had beaten and terrorized him.

I signed out a cruiser, hit the flasher, and headed for the four-lane that led to Lafayette and Interstate 10 East.

It was almost sunset when I crossed Henderson Swamp on the causeway. There was no wind, and the miles of water on each side of the road were blood-red, absolutely still, the moss in the dead cypress gray and motionless against the trunks. I stayed in the passing lane, the blue, white, and red glow of the flasher rippling across the pavement and cement railings in the dying light.

Then I was on the bridge above the Atchafalaya River, rising above its wide breadth and swirling current and the deep green stands of gum trees along its banks. Only then did I realize the white Plymouth was behind me, off the highway, in the rest area on the west side of the river.

I'd blown it. I couldn't remember the distance to the next turnaround that would allow me to double back and recross the river. I pulled to the shoulder, put the cruiser in reverse, and backed over the bridge to the rest area exit while two tractor-trailers swerved around me into the passing lane.

The rest area was parklike, green and freshly mowed and watered, with picnic tables and clean rest rooms, and a fine view of the river from the levee.

But the Plymouth was not by the rest rooms. It was parked not far from the levee and a stand of trees, in a glade, its doors open, its parking lights on.

I entered the access road and clicked off the flasher and parked behind a truck and saw Ritter and Burgoyne walking from the Plymouth to the men's room. Burgoyne went inside while Ritter smoked a cigarette and watched the Plymouth. Then Burgoyne came back outside and both of them sat at a picnic table, smoking, a thermos of coffee set between them. They watched the Plymouth and the T-shirted, waist-chained form of Johnny Remeta in the backseat.

I thought they would finish their coffee, unlock Remeta from the D-ring, and walk him to the men's room. The sodium lamps came on overhead and still they made no move toward the Plymouth.

Instead, Ritter went to a candy machine. He peeled off the wrapper on a candy bar and dropped the wrapper on the ground and strolled out toward the parking lot and used a pay phone.

The wind started to blow off the river, then I heard a solitary pop, like a firecracker, in a clump of trees by the levee.

Johnny Remeta pitched forward in the seat, his shoulders curled down toward the floor, his chained wrists jerking at the D-ring. There were three more reports inside the trees; now I could see a muzzle flash or light reflecting off a telescopic lens, and I heard the rounds biting into metal, blowing glass out the back of the car.

I pulled my.45 and ran toward the picnic table where Burgoyne still sat, his cigarette burning on the edge of the wood, his hands motionless in front of him. Ritter was nowhere in sight. The few travelers in the rest area had either taken cover or flattened themselves on the lawn.

I screwed the.45 into Burgoyne's spine.

'You set him up, you shitbag,' I said, and hoisted him up by his T-shirt.

'What are you doing?'

'Walk in front of me. You're going to stop it. You touch your piece and I'll blow your liver out on the grass.'

I knotted my fist in the back of his belt, pushing him ahead of me, into the mauve-colored twilight and the smell of cut grass and the wind that was filled with newspaper and dust and raindrops that stung like hail. I tried to see over his shoulder into the clump of trees by the levee, but the limbs were churning, the leaves rising into the air, and the light had washed out of the sky into a thin band on the earth's rim.

'I'm not part of this, Robicheaux. You got it all wrong,' Burgoyne said.

'Shut up. Get your cuff key out. Throw it to Remeta.'

We were on the lee side of the Plymouth now and Burgoyne's face had gone white. He thumbed his key out of his watch pocket and threw it inside the backseat. He tried to turn his head so he could see my face.

'Let me go, man. I'll give you whatever you want,' he said.

The shooter in the trees let off two more rounds. One whanged off the door jamb and the second round seemed to go long. But I heard a hollow throp, just like someone casually plopping a watermelon with his fingers. Burgoyne's head slammed against mine and his knees collapsed under him. My hand was still hooked inside his belt, and his weight took me down with him.

I was kneeling in the grass now, behind the shelter of the car, the events of the last few seconds out of sequence in my head. Johnny Remeta was working furiously to unlock his hands and ankles from his chains. His eyes were riveted on me, a look of revulsion on his face. 'What's the matter with you?' I said.

'The guy's brains are in your hair, man.'

The shooter opened up again, firing indiscriminately, burning the whole magazine.

'Get out of here,' I said.

'What?'

'The keys are in the ignition. When I put down masking fire, you get out of here.'

I didn't wait for him to answer. I crawled to the front of the car, then extended one hand out beyond the fender and began firing the.45 into the clump of trees. The sparks flew into the darkness and the recoil snapped my wrist four inches up in the air with each shot. I fired eight rounds in a row, the brass casings flicking past my eyes, until the breech locked open. Then I released the empty magazine and shoved in a fresh one.

The Plymouth 's engine roared to life and the back tires spun in reverse on the wet grass. Johnny Remeta whipped the car around in the opposite direction, shifted into low, and floored the accelerator across the glade toward the entrance to the highway.

A full minute must have passed; there was no sound except a boat engine starting up on the river and the whir of tires on the bridge. The people by the rest rooms rose to their feet and stood like figures in a trance under the smoky glow of the sodium lamps. I pulled off my shirt, my hands trembling, and wiped my hair and face with it. Then I vomited into the grass. The detective named Burgoyne lay on his side, his head on one arm, his jaws locked open, his eyes looking vacuously into space, as though a terrible revelation about his life had just been whispered in his ear.

15

THE SHERIFF PACED back and forth in his office, reading from the folded-back front page of the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate. While he paced and read, he kept touching one eyebrow with a fingernail and widening his eyes, as though denying himself the luxury of an emotion that would turn his face crimson.