I left the house and went down the street to Clementine’s, where I knew I would find Clete Purcel at the bar. He was wearing cream-colored pleated slacks and oxblood loafers and a starched short-sleeved shirt printed with big gray and white flowers, his porkpie hat tilted forward on his head. He was sipping from a frosted mug of draft beer while the bartender poured his shot glass to the brim with Johnnie Walker. Clete looked at my reflection in the yellowed mahogany-framed mirror behind the bar. His eyes were lit with an alcoholic shine.
“You see the story about Elmore Latiolais?” he asked.
“Helen showed it to me.”
“That gunbull friend of yours capped him?”
“Jimmy Darl Thigpin is not my friend.”
“But he’s the guy who capped Latiolais, right?”
“He’s the one.”
“How do you read it?”
“I’m not sure. Why are you drinking boilermakers?”
“I only do it when I’m alone or with people. It’s not a problem.”
“It’s not funny, either.”
“Give Dave a soda and lime, will you?” Clete said to the bartender.
“Where have you been?” I asked.
“Chasing dead ends in Jeff Davis Parish.” He squeezed his temples. “My lawyer talked to the DA in St. Martinville today. A half-dozen witnesses from the Gate Mouth club are prepared to testify against me. They photographed me with their cell phones while I was smashing Herman Stanga’s face into a tree trunk. My lawyer says if I plea out, I’ll have to do at least a year.”
“We’re not going to let that happen, Cletus.”
“You know what the DA said? ‘We’re tired of this guy wiping his ass on us.’”
The bartender set a glass of ice and carbonated water, with a lime slice floating in it, on a paper napkin by my hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t order that,” I said.
“You want coffee?” he asked.
“No, thanks.”
“Let me know when you need something,” the bartender said. He threw the carbonated drink into the sink and walked away. I had a hard time taking my eyes away from the back of his neck.
“Trouble on the home front?” Clete said.
“No, none.”
Clete looked at me for a long time. “You dream about it very much?”
“About what?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“What’s in the dream?”
“Why be morbid? Nobody gets a pass on it. We have today. That’s all any of us gets.”
“Tell me what’s in the dream.”
“A square hole in the ground, deep in the forest. The wind is blowing, shredding leaves off the trees, but there’s no sound or color in the woods. It’s like the sun went over the edge of the horizon and died, and this time you know with absolute certainty it’s never coming up again. When I wake up, I can’t go back to sleep. I feel like weevil worms are eating their way through my heart.”
Clete let out his breath, then drank the shot glass of Johnnie Walker all the way to the bottom, never blinking. He chased it with beer from his mug, his cheeks turning as red as apples. “Fuck it,” he said.
A man on the next stool who had been talking with a woman turned and stared at Clete.
“Help you with something?” Clete said.
“No, sir,” the man said. “I was just looking at the clock.”
“Glad to hear it,” Clete said. “Ralph, give this man and his lady a drink.”
I got up from the bar stool and placed my hand on Clete’s shoulder. I could feel the heat in his muscles through his shirt. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.
“Don’t let them get behind you,” he replied. “The Bobbsey Twins from Homicide are forever. We were the only two beat cops the Panthers allowed into the Desire. Let somebody top that.”
Clete’s words would make no sense to anyone else. But what he said was true. In 1970 the Black Panthers took control of the Desire Project and reduced crime to almost zero. But the Panthers also had a violent relationship with the NOPD. Ironically, that era, in retrospect, seems innocent contrasted with the times we now live in.
Unfortunately, none of those thoughts were of comfort to me when I walked home under the glow of the streetlamps. I still had not resolved my situation with Alafair and was not sure that I could. At ten o’clock Molly went to bed and I sat in the living room and watched the local news. Then I turned out the light and sat in the darkness, the windows open, the wind sifting pine needles across our tin roof. At eleven-thirty I saw Kermit Abelard’s car pull to the curb, and I saw Kermit and Alafair kiss on the mouth. Then he drove away without walking her to the door. I could hear myself breathing in the dark.
“You scared me,” Alafair said, realizing I was in the living room.
“I was watching the news and fell asleep.”
She looked at the darkened screen of the television set. “What did you want to tell me earlier?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re a case.”
She went into her bedroom and put on her pajamas. I heard her pull back the covers on her bed and lie down. I took a blanket and a spare pillow out of the hall closet and went into her room and spread the blanket on the floor. I lay down on top of it, my arm resting on my forehead.
“Dave, no one is this crazy,” she said.
“I know.”
“I’m not ten years old anymore.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“Stop acting like this,” she said.
“To try to control the lives of other people is a form of arrogance. The only form of behavior that is more arrogant is to claim that we know the will of God. I owe you an apology. I’ve tried to impose my will on you all your life.”
“I appreciate what you say. But that doesn’t change the real problem, does it?”
“What’s the real problem?”
“You don’t approve of Kermit.”
“I think at heart he’s probably a decent man. But that’s not my judgment to make.”
“What about Robert Weingart?”
“I have nothing to say about him.” The only sound in the room was the sweep of wind in the trees and the ping of an acorn on the roof. I propped myself up on my elbow. “You want to tell me something?” I asked.
“Robert met us at Bojangles,” she said. “A Vietnamese girl works in there. She brought us our drinks, and he told her he’d ordered iced tea without sweetener rather than white wine. He said he was going to write tonight and he never drank before he wrote. But I heard him. He ordered wine. When she took it back, he watched her all the way to the bar with this ugly smile. Why would he do that?”
“Maybe he just forgot what he ordered.”
“No, I could see it in his eyes. He enjoyed it.”
“Where was Kermit when this happened?”
“In the men’s room.”
“Did you tell him about it?”
“No.”
I didn’t think it was the time to force her to think about the nature of Kermit’s relationship with Weingart. “Maybe you should just forget about Weingart. Kermit will come to a resolution about him at some point in his life.”
