I locked up the bait shop and let no one in it for the rest of the day. I thought about the events of that morning for a long time. Things had worked out for Joey Gouza in better ways than he could have ever planned. I had been responsible for springing him on the phony assault-and-battery charges filed by Drew Sonnier; Weldon's long-sought-after film evidence had turned out to be worthless; Eddy Raintree, a superstitious nimwit as well as a pervert, who would have probably ratted out Joey Gee for an extra roll of toilet paper in his cell, had had his face blown into a bloody mist by Jewel Fluck while he was locked in my handcuffs; then Gates had gotten to Fluck, and I in turn had killed Gates, the only surviving person who could implicate Joey in the Garrett murder.
I wondered if Joey Gee got up in the morning and said a prayer of thanks that I had wandered into his life.
In the meantime one of his hired sociopaths had terrified my daughter, then he had ordered his chief button man to deliver a human head and severed finger to our family business.
I suspected that today had proved special for Joey, a day in which he took an extra pleasure in chopping up lines with his whores, sipping iced rum drinks with them by the pool, or maybe inviting them out to the clubhouse at the track for lobster-steak dinners and rolls of six-dollar parimutuel tickets. I suspected at this moment that Joey Gee did not have a care in the world.
After I wrote up my report at the office, I went back home and sat in the shade on the dock by myself, staring at the sun's hot yellow reflection on the bayou, the dragonflies that seemed to hang motionless over the cattails and lily pads. Even in the shade I was sweating heavily inside my clothes. Then I unlocked the bait shop and used the phone inside to call Clete Purcel. The heat was stifling, and the plastic bag that hung from the post in the center of the room had clouded with moisture.
When I had finished talking with Clete, the damp outline of my hand looked like it had been painted on the phone receiver.
I worked in the yard the rest of the afternoon, and when it rained at four o'clock, I sat on the gallery by myself and watched the water drip out of the pecan trees and tick in the dead leaves and ping on top of Tripod's cage. Then at sunset I went back into the bait shop with a hat box, and five minutes later I was on my way to New Orleans.
'You look tired,' Bootsie said at the breakfast table the next morning.
'Oh, I'm just a little slow this morning,' I said.
'What time did you come in last night?'
'I really didn't notice.'
'How's Clete?'
'About the same.'
'Dave, what are you two doing?'
I kept my eyes on Alafair, who was packing her lunch kit for a church group picnic.
'Be sure to put a piece of cake in there, Alf,' I said.
She turned around and grinned.
'I already did,' she said.
'Do you want to talk about it later?' Bootsie said.
'Yeah, that's a good idea.'
Ten minutes later Alafair raced out the screen door to catch the church bus. Bootsie watched her leave, then came back into the kitchen.
'I just saw Batist carrying some lumber into the shop.
What's he doing?' she asked.
'A few repairs.'
'Did that man Gates do something in our shop? Is that why you wouldn't let anybody in it yesterday?'
'It just wasn't a day for business-as-usual.'
'What's Clete's involvement with this?'
'It was Gouza's goons who put him in the hospital. That makes him involved, Boots.'
She took the dishes off the table and put them in the sink.
She gazed out the window into the backyard.
'When you go to see Clete, it always means a shortcut,' she said.
'You don't know everything that's happened.'
'I'm not the problem, Dave. What bothers me is I think you're hiding something from the people you work with.'
'Joey Gouza ordered this man Gates to throw Gouza's brother-in-law into an airplane propeller. Then he sent this same man to our house with a-'
'What?'
I caught my breath and pinched my temples with my fingers.
'Gouza has a furnace instead of a brain,' I said. 'He's left his mark on our home, and I can't touch him. Do you think I'm going to abide that?'
She rinsed the plates in the sink and continued to look out the window.
'Two of the men who murdered the deputy are dead,' she said. 'One day it'll be Joey Gouza's turn. Can't you just let events take their course? Or let other people handle things for a while?'
'There's another factor, Boots. Gouza's a paranoid.
Maybe today he feels wonderful, he's hit the daily double, the dragons are dead. But next week, or maybe next month, he'll start thinking again about the individuals who've hurt or humiliated him most, and he'll be back in our lives. I'm not going to let that happen.'
She dried her hands on a dish towel, then used it to mop off the counter. She brushed back her hair with her fingers, straightened the periwinkles in a vase. Her eyes never looked at mine. She turned on the radio on the windowsill, then turned it off and took a pair of scissors out of a drawer.
'I'm going to cut some fresh flowers. Are you going to the office now?' she said.
'Yes, I guess so.'
'I'll put your lunch in the icebox. I have to run some errands in town today.'
'Boots, listen a minute.'
She popped open a paper bag to place the cut flowers in and went out the back door.
That afternoon the sheriff came into my office with my report on Gates's shooting in his hands. He sat down in the chair across from me and put on his rimless glasses.
'I'm still trying to puzzle a couple of things out here, Dave. It's like there's a blank space or two in your report,' he said.
'How's that?'
'I'm not criticizing it. You were pretty used up when you wrote this stuff down. But let me see if I understand everything here. You went down a little early to open up your bait shop?'
'That's right.'
'That's when you saw Gates?'
'That's correct.'
'You called the dispatcher, then you went after him in your truck?'
'Yeah, that's about it.'
'So it was already first light when you saw him?'
'It was getting there.'
'It had to be, because the sun was up when you nailed him.'
'I'm not following you, sheriff.'
'Maybe it's just me. But why would a pro like Gates come around your house at sunrise when he could have laid for you at night?'
'Who knows?'
'Unless he didn't mean to hurt you, unless he was there for some other reason-'
'Like Clete once told me, trying to figure out the greaseballs is like putting your hand in an unflushed toilet.'
He looked down at the report again, then folded his glasses and put them in his shirt pocket.
