The Glass Rainbow

fondness of it. I love the chapters Kermit sent me. I can’t wait to read more,” he said.

“Her father is a sheriff’s detective,” Robert Weingart said. “I think he gives her a lot of material. It’s pretty feisty stuff, if you ask me.”

“No, my father’s experience doesn’t have much to do with what I write,” Alafair said.

Weingart was on his third mint julep. He wore gray slacks and tassel loafers and a blue-and-white-striped shirt with white French cuffs and a rolled white collar; his plum-colored tie had a gold pin in it. There were abrasions around his temples that disappeared like orange rust into his hairline. When he spoke, his mouth seemed to keep twisting into a bow, as though it were cut or bruised inside.

“I understand you’re writing a sequel to The Green Cage,” Oliver Fremont said to Weingart. “That must be a hard act to follow. I thought The Green Cage was a stupendous accomplishment, better than Soul on Ice, maybe better than On the Yard by Malcolm Braly. Did you ever read Malcolm? He was a great talent.”

“Why do you compare my work to prison writing only?”

“Pardon?”

“You ever see Straight Time? Dustin Hoffman, Gary Busey, Harry Dean Stanton. Box-office bomb. Edward Bunker wrote the novel it was based on. I knew him inside. Good writer, good story, commercial bomb. Why? All prison stories are alike. They’re about professional losers, and if there’s any sin in this country, it’s losing. The Green Cage deals with the entirety of the system, neoliberalism and the culture that creates criminality. It deals with the origins of the existential hero. It’s not an account about jails. If it has any antecedent, it’s Shane, not some crap dictated into a recording machine by an Oakland shine who doesn’t know the difference between Karl and Groucho Marx.”

“I think Oliver was saying your book goes way beyond categorical limits, Rob. That’s why it’s such a great accomplishment,” Kermit said.

“Why don’t we ask Alafair?” Weingart said. “I can’t believe at some point you haven’t been influenced by your father and his colleagues. Do they ever discuss their recreational activities? Do you know that most cops will admit, usually when they’re sloshed, that they would have ended up stacking time if they hadn’t gotten badges?”

“No, I didn’t know that,” Alafair said.

Weingart drank from his julep glass, his eyes never leaving hers. “Daddy doesn’t talk about that at the dinner table?” he said.

“Rob, Alafair isn’t responsible for any disagreements Mr. Robicheaux might have had with others,” Kermit said.

“I probably am,” Alafair said. “My father is a fine man and often comes home exhausted from dealing with people who belong in iron boxes that should be sunk in the ocean. Sometimes I lose sight of that fact and only add to his burden. I’ve done this on many occasions.”

“Oh, wilderness enow,” Weingart said. “I suspect the world of chick lit will wet its pants over sentiment like that. I often thought the best title for one of those books was The Cave, a title that suggests an infinitely receding vagina.”

“I’d like to see the rest of your manuscript,” Fremont said.

“That’s very kind of you,” Alafair said.

“Kermit, would you either give me a refill or pass me the bloody shaker so I can do it myself?” Weingart said.

“Sorry, Rob,” Kermit said, tilting the cocktail shaker over Weingart’s glass. “Rob took the speedboat out by himself today and ran through a tree limb. Luckily, he wasn’t hurt more seriously.”

“I don’t think anyone is interested in my boating misadventure. Unless Alafair would like to use it in her novel- in-progress. Otherwise, I’d appreciate the conversation being shifted off of me,” Weingart said.

Kermit folded his hands and gazed at the sunset and at the wind blowing on the sugarcane fields, obviously avoiding eye contact with Weingart. By the time the limo reached the restaurant in Breaux Bridge, Weingart’s resentment seemed to have hardened into silent detachment. After they ordered, he stared out the window at the elevated sidewalks and old brick buildings and wood colonnades on the main street and the rusted iron bridge that spanned Bayou Teche. He broke a breadstick and bit down on it, then winced and touched his lip.

“Hurt yourself?” Oliver Fremont asked.

“I have an impacted tooth.”

“Those are painful,” Fremont said.

“Why are we here?” Weingart said, addressing himself to no one in particular.

“We’re here because they serve fine food. Let’s enjoy ourselves, Robert,” Kermit said.

“Thanks for correcting me, Kermit. Alafair, did you know that Kermit let me read your manuscript?” Weingart said.

“Yes, I became aware of that when I saw the note you wrote on the last page,” Alafair replied.

“What note?” Kermit said.

“Evidently you didn’t see it,” Alafair said. “Why don’t you ask Robert what he had to say?”

A waitress was pouring wine into their glasses. Outside the French doors, the sky was purple, the streets thick with shadow. The lights on the drawbridge had just come on. “Robert, what did you say about Alafair’s manuscript?” Kermit asked.

Weingart lifted his eyes to the stamped ceiling of the restaurant, as though searching for a profound meaning inside the design. “No, it escapes me. Do you remember, Alafair? I hope you found it helpful.”

“I believe you said it might sell a hundred copies if it was packaged with a hygiene promotion.”

“No, I think I said ‘female hygiene.’”

Kermit Abelard looked straight ahead, his gaze focused on the other diners, the white-aproned waiters and waitresses working their way between the tables. “I think Robert probably meant that as an indictment of the industry, not your book,” he said. “Isn’t that true, Rob?”

“I’m afraid I’m clueless. I can’t even remember the story line at this point,” he said. “Can you give me a nudge, Alafair? Something about first love, teenage girls being kissed on the mouth under the trees, Daddy hovering in the background. Sound familiar? It was tingly stuff through and through.”

“That’s not the story at all,” Kermit said.

Weingart leaned forward on the tablecloth, his cheeks sunken, as though he had drawn all the spittle out of his mouth. “Did you tell Alafair what you and I were doing before you gave me the manuscript? In the boathouse? Because you couldn’t wait to go inside?”

“I think you carry a great injury in your soul, Robert. And no matter what you do or say, I forgive you for it,” Kermit said.

“Oh, good try. I think I now know where Alafair gets the unctuous goo she uses in her dialogue,” Weingart said. “You forgive me? Oh, that’s wonderful.”

“You shouldn’t have written that remark on her manuscript,” Kermit said.

“I didn’t just write the remark, I said it to you, Kermit. To your face, two feet from your ear. Tell me I didn’t or that you didn’t hear me. The kitty cat got your tongue?”

“Why are you acting like this?”

“Because you’re just so you, Kermit.” Weingart drank from his wineglass and smiled at the waitress as she placed his food in front of him. “My, red snapper and a stuffed potato. Do you mind if I start now? It’s not very good if it’s cold. Alafair looks a little conflicted. What does your father call you? It’s Alf, isn’t it? Talk with Alf, Kermit.” Weingart inserted a forkful of potato and sour cream and parsley and bacon bits in his mouth.

Alafair’s gaze was fixed on the French doors and the sunset on the bayou. She waited for Kermit to speak again, to say something in his own defense if not hers, to be more than the thing she feared he was. But he remained silent. When she glanced sideways at him, his hands were limp on the table, his eyes lowered, his expression a study in gray wax. The most incongruous aspect of his demeanor was the muscular configuration of his torso, his square, blunt-tipped workingman’s hands, the cut of his jaw, the dimple in his chin, all of the physical elements she associated with his youthful masculine vigor, all of it now insignificant in contrast to the mantle of cowardice that Robert Weingart seemed to have draped on his shoulders.

“Mr. Fremont-” she began.

“It’s Oliver,” he said.