not just own up to it? It's not the worst admission in the world.'
Perry rose to his feet. 'You want it in here or out in the street?' he said.
'I'm the least of your problems. I just left your law office. Legion Guidry not only terrified your secretary, he literally blew his nose on your Confederate battle flag.'
I turned and started to walk away from him. He grabbed my arm and whirled me around, swinging his fist at the same time. I caught the blow on my forearm and felt it graze the side of my head. I could have walked away, but I didn't. Instead, I let the old enemy have its way and I hooked him in the jaw and knocked him through the chairs onto the floor.
The entire cafeteria was suddenly quiet. Barbara Shanahan knelt beside Perry, who was trying to push himself up on one elbow, his eyes glazed.
'I know where Clete gets it now. You're, unbelievable. You belong in front of a cave with a club in your hand,' Barbara said to me.
'Don't listen to her! Way to go, Robicheaux!' one of the city cops yelled. Then the other cops applauded.
I went back to the department and soaked my hand in cold water, then ate two aspirin at my desk and pressed my fists against my temples, my face still burning with embarrassment, wondering when I would ever learn not to push people into corners, particularly a tormented man like Perry LaSalle, who had every characteristic of an untreated sexaholic, psychologically incapable of either personal honesty or emotional intimacy with another human being.
Three deputies in a row opened my door and gave me a thumbs-up for decking Perry. I nodded appreciatively and ate another aspirin and tried to bury myself in my work.
I pulled out my file drawer and began going through some of the open cases I had been neglecting since the murders of Amanda Boudreau and Linda Zeroski. Many of these cases involved crimes committed by what I call members of the Pool, that army of petty miscreants whom nothing short of frontal lobotomies or massive electroshock will ever change. Some of the cases were a delight.
For six months the department had been looking for a burglar we named the Easter Bunny, because witnesses who had seen him said he was an albino with pink eyes and silver hair. But it was not only his appearance that was unusual. His attitude and methods of operation were so outrageous we had no precedent for dealing with him.
In one home he left a handwritten note on the refrigerator door that read:
Dear Folks Who Own This House,
I rob homes in this neighborhood only because most people who live hereabouts try to keep up decent standards. But after breaking into your house I think you should consider moving to a lower rent neighborhood. You don't have cable TV, no beer or snacks in the icebox, and most of your furniture is not worth stealing.
In other words, it really sucks when I spend a whole day casing a house only to discover the people who live in it take no pride in themselves. It is people like you who make life hard on guys like me. Sincerely,
A guy who doesn't need these kinds of problems
He took a shower and shaved in one home, ordered delivery pizza in another, and sometimes answered the telephone and wrote down phone messages for the home owners.
Two nights ago he robbed a city councilman's house, a short distance from City Park. Evidently the councilman had locked his pet poodle in a pantry by mistake and the poodle was dying to go to the bathroom. The Easter Bunny leashed him up and took him for a walk along the bayou, then returned him to the house and filled his bowls with fresh water and dog food.
The phone on my desk rang.
'What are you doing, Streak?' Bootsie said.
'Looking for the Easter Bunny,' I replied.
'If that's a joke, it's not funny. I just heard you punched out Perry LaSalle in Victor's Cafeteria.'
'I guess that's fair to say,' I replied.
I expected a rejoinder, but in the silence I realized she had called for another reason.
'The homeless man, the ex-soldier you told me about, he's down at the bait shop,' she said.
'What's he want?'
'He said he thought you usually came home for lunch. He wanted to talk to you.'
'What's he doing now?'
'Reading the newspaper. Is he dangerous, Dave?'
'I'm not sure. Is Batist there?'
'Yes.'
'I'll call the shop, then ring you back,' I said.
The phone at the bait shop was busy. Five minutes later Batist picked up the receiver.
'That homeless fellow in the shop? He's a couple of quarts down. Everything okay there?' I said.
'All our boats is full of water. That's about it,' he replied.
'Give me a call if you need to.'
'Ain't no problem here, Dave,' he said.
After I hung up I called Bootsie back, then began replacing the case folders I had removed from my file cabinet. A piece of lined yellow paper on which I had scribbled several notations with a felt pen became unstuck from the outside of a manila folder and floated to the floor.
The notations had to do with the telephone call I had received from Marie Guilbeau, the cleaning lady in St. Mary Parish who had been molested by an intruder at her house and had felt obliged to tell me she had flirted the same day with a guest at the motel where she worked.
It took about ten minutes to create what is called a photo lineup,, in this case six mug shots that I pulled from the department's files. Actually, her identifying the man at the motel would do little to make a case against the intruder, but the report she had filed had been treated casually by the authorities in St. Mary Parish and by me as well, and perhaps now was an opportunity to make it right. I called Marie Guilbeau's home and was told by a niece that her aunt was at the motel on the four-lane where she worked.
But I didn't drive directly to the motel. First I called Batist at the bait shop.
'Is that fellow still there?' I asked.
'It's raining too hard for him to go nowhere. I'll give him a ride to town later on,' Batist replied.
'Tell him to stay there. I'll be along in a few minutes,' I said.
When I got to the bait shop, the swamp looked colorless and stricken in the rain, except for the canopy of cypresses, which was a dull green against an infinite gray sky. Most of the concrete boat ramp was under water and a flock of mallards and pintails had taken shelter under the dock. I opened an umbrella over my head and ran for the bait shop.
The man who claimed to have been a medic from my outfit was looking out the window at the rain dancing on the bayou. He was dressed in clean denims, his short sleeves turned up in cuffs, steel-toed oil-field boots laced on his feet.
'Take a ride with me down to St. Mary Parish, Doc,' I said.
'What for?' he asked.
'Nothing in particular. You got anything else to do?' I said.
'Nope,' he said.
We walked up the dock together, under the umbrella, while lightning banged and flashed around us and thunder peeled across the sky like incoming mail from a distant war.
The motel out on the four-lane was a run-down two-story building that had once belonged to a chain but was now operated by the owner of the truck stop next door. I parked the cruiser by a walkway and asked my friend, the ex-soldier, to wait for me. I found Marie Guilbeau in a laundry room, stuffing sheets into a washing machine. Her dark hair was pinned on the back of her head, her maid's uniform stretched tight against the thickness of her body when she bent over the machine.
'I'd like for you to look at a man for me, Ms. Guilbeau,' I said.
'The one who was staying at the motel?' she said, her face stark
