DR07 - Dixie City Jam Read Free

to speak,
but I didn't give him the chance.
    I held my Iberia Parish Sheriff's Department badge high above
my head and walked toward the front door of the bar.
     
    Clete had dropped the Venetian blinds
over all the windows and
was leaning on the bar counter, one foot on the rail, drinking Mexican
rum from a shot glass and sucking on a salted lime. He wore his powder
blue porkpie hat slanted on the front of his head, his pants hanging
two inches below his navel. His round, pink face was smiling and happy,
his green eyes lighted with an alcoholic shine. Through one eyebrow and
across the bridge of his nose was a scar, as thick as a bicycle patch,
perforated with stitch holes, where he had been bashed with a pipe when
he was a kid in the Irish Channel. As always, his tropical print shirt
looked like it was about to split on his massive shoulders.
    The bar was empty. Rain was blowing through the broken front
window and dripping off the Venetian blinds.
    'What's happenin', Streak?' he said.
    'Are you losing your mind?'
    'Harsh words, noble mon. Lighten up.'
    'That's Nate Baxter out there. He'd like to paint the woodwork
with both of us.'
    'That's why I didn't go out there. Some of those other guys
don't like PI's, either.' He looked at his watch and tapped on the
crystal with his fingernail. 'You want a Dr Pepper?'
    'I want us both to walk out of here. We're going to throw your
piece in front of us, too.'
    'What's the hurry? Have a Dr Pepper. I'll put some cherries
and ice in it.'
    'Clete—'
    'I told you, everything's copacetic. Now, disengage, noble
mon. Nobody rattles the old Bobbsey Twins from Homicide.' He took a hit
from the shot glass, sucked on his sliced lime, and smiled at me.
    'It's time to boogie, partner,' I said.
    He looked again at his watch.
    'Give it five more minutes,' he said, and smiled again.
    He started to refill his glass from a large, square, brown
bottle that he held in his hand. I placed my palm lightly on his arm.
    'Look, let me give you the big picture, noble mon,' he said.
'I'm involved with a lady friend these days. She's a nice person, she
never hurt anybody, she's intelligent, she goes part-time to the Ju-Co,
she also strips in a T and A joint on Bourbon owned by the Calucci
brothers. We're talking about Max and Bobo here, Dave, you remember
them, the two guys we ran in once for pulling a fingernail off a girl's
hand with a pair of pliers? Before I met Martina, my lady friend, she
borrowed two grand off the Caluccis to pay for her grandmother's
hospitalization. So when she didn't make the vig yesterday, Max, the
bucket of shit I put through the window glass, called her in this
morning and said it was time for her to start working out of the back
of a taxicab.'
    He took off his porkpie hat, combed his sandy hair straight
back on his head, clipped the comb in his shirt pocket, and put his hat
back on.
    'The Caluccis aren't going to make a beef, Dave, at least not
a legal one. They get along in police stations like shit does in an ice
cream parlor,' he said. He filled his shot glass, knocked it back, and
winked at me.
    'Where's the other one—Bobo?'
    He glanced at his watch again, then looked across the counter,
past a small kitchen, toward the massive wood door of a walk-in meat
locker.
    'He's probably wrapping himself in freezer foil right now,' he
said. 'At least that's what I'd do.'
    'Are you kidding?'
    'I didn't put him in there. He locked himself in. What am I
supposed to do about it? He's got an iron bar or something set behind
the door. I say live and let live.'
    I went to the locker and tried to open it. The handle was
chrome and cold in my hand. The door moved an inch, then clanked
against something metal and wouldn't move farther.
    'Bobo?' I said.
    'What?' a voice said through the crack.
    'This is Dave Robicheaux. I'm a sheriff's detective. It's
over. Come on out. Nobody's going to hurt you.'
    'I never heard of you.'
    'I used to be in Homicide in the First District.'
    'Oh yeah, you were