she might have told you what it was.'
'Oh. Oh, no, I'm afraid not. It was hectic here yesterday. Lindsay had several appointments in the morning. Then Donnie showed up unannounced, and they had a bit of a row over the business dealings and all. They never did get along, you know. Then the new listings arrived. I had an obligation in the afternoon at my grandson's school. He's in second grade at Sacred Heart. It was law enforcement day, oddly enough. McGruff the Crime Dog came with an officer. The grandparents were invited to attend.'
'I hear that's very popular,' Annie said flatly.
'I found it rather strange, to be perfectly frank. Anyway, Lindsay and I never had a chance to talk. I know she had something on her mind, but I assumed she told the detective. You may want to ask him.'
'The-' The words caught in Annie's throat. 'Who? Which detective?'
'Detective Stokes,' Grace Irvine said. 'She saw him over the lunch hour.'
29
Mouton's was the kind of place few men entered without a gun or a knife. Squatting on stilts on the bank of Bayou Noir south of Luck, it was the hangout of poachers and thieves and others living on the ragged hem of society. People looking for trouble looked at Mouton's, where just about anything could be had for the right price and no one asked any questions.
It was the latter truth that appealed to Nick on a Tuesday afternoon. He was in no mood for the Voodoo Lounge, wanted no one patting his back or expressing their useless sympathy for his situation. He wanted whiskey, settled for a beer, and waited for Stokes to show.
He had dragged himself out of bed at noon and forced himself through the Tai Chi forms, meditating on the movement of each aching muscle, trying to force the pain out with the power of his mind. The process had been excruciating and exhausting, but his sense of being was clearer for it.
His mind was sharp, his nerves coiled tight as springs, as he nursed his beer, his back to a corner.
A couple of bikers were playing pool across the room with a barfly hooker hovering around them in a short skirt and push-up bra. Nearer, a pair of swamp rats sat at a table, trading stories and drinking Jax. John Lee Hooker was moaning on the juke, black delta blues in a redneck bar. There was an illegal card game going on in the back room, and horse racing on the color television mounted over the bar. The bartender looked like Paul Prudhomme's evil twin. He watched Nick with suspicion.
Nick took a slow pull on his beer and wondered if the guy had made him for a cop or for trouble. He knew he looked like the kind of trouble no one wanted on his doorstep, his face cut and bruised, the butt of the Ruger peeking out of his open jacket. He had left his mirrored sunglasses on, despite the gloom of the bar.
One of the swampers scraped his chair back and rose, scratching at the giant middle finger screened on the front of his black T-shirt. A filthy red ball cap was stuck down on his head, the brim bent into an inverted U to frame a pair of eyes too small for a bony face. Nick watched him approach, sitting forward a little on his chair, ready to move. If nothing else, the beating at the hands of DiMonti's thugs had knocked the rust off his survival instincts.
'My buddy and me, we got a bet,' the swamper said, weaving a little on his feet. 'I say you're that cop what beat the shit outta that killer, Renard.'
Nick said nothing, pulled a long drag on his cigarette, and exhaled through his nose.
'You are, ain't you? I seen you on TV. Let me shake your hand, man.' He stepped in close and popped Nick on the arm with his fist like an old buddy, as if seeing him on the news had somehow forged a bond between them. 'You're a fuckin' hero!'
'You're mistaken,' Nick said calmly.
'No way. You're him. Come on, man, shake my hand. I got ten bucks on it.' He cuffed Nick's arm again and flashed a bad set of teeth. 'I say they shoulda let you put that asshole's lights out in a permanent way. Li'l bayou justice. Save the taxpayers some money, right?'
He moved to make another friendly punch. Nick caught his fist and came up out of the chair, twisting the man's arm in a way that turned the swamper's face into the rough plank wall.
'I don't like people touching me,' he said softly, his mouth inches from his erstwhile friend's ear. 'Me, I don't believe in casual intimacy between strangers, and that's what we are-strangers. I am not your friend and I sure as hell am nobody's hero. See the mistake you've made here?'
The swamp rat tried to nod, rubbing his mashed cheek against the wall. 'Hey-hey, I'm sorry, all right? No offense,' he mumbled out the side of his mouth, spittle running down his chin.
'But you see, I've already taken offense, which is why I've always found apologies to be ineffectual and the products of false logic.'
Out of the corner of his eye Nick could see the bartender watching, one hand reaching down under the bar. The screen door slammed, the sound as sharp as gunfire. The swamp rat's buddy shot up from his chair, but he made no move to come any closer.
'Now you have to ask yourself,' Nick murmured, 'do you want your friend's ten dollars only to put it toward your doctor bills, or would you rather walk away a poorer but wiser man?'
'Jesus H., Nicky.' Stokes's voice came across the room, punctuated by the sound of his footfalls on the plank floor. 'I can't leave you alone ten minutes. You keep this up, you're gonna need a license to walk around in public.'
He came up alongside Nick, shaking his head. 'What'd he do? Touch you? Did you touch him?' he asked the swamp rat. 'Man, what were you thinking? Don't cross that line. The last guy that touched him is sucking his dinner through a straw.'
He tipped his fedora back and scratched his head. 'I'm telling you, Nicky, the inherent stupidity of humankind is enough to make me give up hope on the world as a whole. You want a drink? I need a drink.'
Nick stepped back from the swamper, his temper defused and dissipating, disappointment in himself coming in on the backwash. 'Sorry I lost my cool there,' he said. The corners of his mouth twitched at the joke. 'See? It doesn't mean shit.'
Rubbing a hand against his cheek, the swamp rat stumbled back to his buddy. The pair vacated their table and moved to the far end of the bar.
'You don't play well with others, Nicky,' Stokes complained, pulling a chair out from the table and turning it backward to straddle it. 'Where'd you learn your social skills -a reformatory?'
Nick ignored him. Shaking a cigarette out of the pack, he lit it on the move, needing to pace a bit to burn off the last of the energy spike.
'Long as I'm asking questions, what happened to your face? You run into the business end of a jealous husband?'
'I interrupted a business meeting. Mr. DiMonti took exception.'
Stokes's brows lifted. 'Vic 'The Plug' DiMonti? The wiseguy?'
'You know him?' Nick asked.
'I know of him. Jesus, Nicky, you're a paranoid son of a bitch. First you think I set you up. Now you think I'm on the pad with the mob. And here I am-the best friend you got in this backwater. I could get a complex.' He shook his head sadly. 'You're the one lived in New Orleans, man, not me. What's DiMonti's beef with you?'
'I went to see Duval Marcotte. Marcotte is in real estate. DiMonti owns a construction company. Donnie Bichon is all of a sudden looking to sell his half of Bayou Realty. The realty company owns a fair amount of property 'purchased' by Pam from Bichon Bayou Development to keep Donnie's ass out of bankruptcy. And now I hear Lindsay Faulkner, of Bayou Realty, was attacked last night.'
'Raped. Probably the same guy did those other two,' Stokes said, motioning to catch the bartender's attention. 'This is some hard case with his pecker in overdrive. It wasn't no mob hit, for Christ's sake. You shoulda gone into the CIA, Nicky. They would love the way your mind works.'
'I don't make it for a mob hit. Me, I just don't like coincidence, that's all. You talk to Donnie?'
He nodded, glancing at the bar again. 'Christ, you scared the bartender off. I hope you're happy,' he muttered,
