Pegasus Descending: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Read Free Page B

disrespectful, it’s a form of presumption.”
    “‘Presumption’?” he replied, nodding profoundly.
    “Yeah, you’re indicating you have the right to say whatever you wish to other people. It’s not a good habit.”
    He nodded again. “Right now I’m waiting on somebody and I need a little solitude. Do me a favor and don’t piss in my cage, okay?”
    “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said. “Were you in ’Nam? Dallas was. He’s a good kid.”
    The collector got off the barstool and combed his hair, his eyes roving over the crooked smile on my face, the booze stains on my shirt, the table-wet on the sleeves of my new jacket, the fact that I had to keep one arm on the bar to steady myself. “I stacked time in a place you couldn’t imagine in your worst dreams,” he said.
    “Yeah, I’ve heard the bitch suite up at Raiford is a hard ride,” I said.
    He put away his comb and looked at his reflection in the bar mirror. His cheeks were pooled with tiny pits, like the incisions of a knifepoint. He placed a roll of breath mints by my hand. “No, go ahead and take them. Gratis from Elmer Fudd. Enjoy.”
     
    M Y TENURE WITH the exchange program was running out in June, and I wanted to carry good memories of South Florida back to New Orleans. I boat-fished out of Key West in the most beautiful water I had ever seen. It was green, as clear as glass, with pools of indigo blue in it that floated like broken clouds of ink. I visited the old federal prison at Fort Jefferson on a blistering-hot day and swore I could smell the land breeze blowing from Cuba. I slept in a pup tent on a coral shelf above water that was threaded with the smoky green phosphorescence of organisms that had no names. I saw the ocean turn wine-dark under a sky bursting with constellations and knew that the truth of Homer’s line would never be diminished by time.
    But wherever I went, a frozen daiquiri winked at me from an outdoor bar roofed by palm fronds; beaded cans of Budweiser protruded from the ice in a fisherman’s cooler; a bottle of Cold Duck clamped between a woman’s thighs burst alive with the pop of a cork and a geyser of foam.
    Delirium tremens or not, I knew I was in for the whole ride.
    During my last week in Miami, I drove up to Opa-Locka to pay my bar tab and buy a round for whoever was trying to escape the noonday heat. The bar was dark and cool inside, the street out beyond the colonnade baking under a white sun. I knocked back a brandy and soda, counted my change, and prepared to go. Through the front window I could see dust blowing along the pavement, heat waves bouncing off a parked car, a bare-chested black man drilling a jackhammer into the asphalt, his skin pouring sweat. I ordered another brandy and soda and looked at the order-out menu on the bar. Then I tossed the menu aside, dropped a half dollar into the jukebox, and kicked it on up into overdrive with four inches of Beam and a beer back.
    By three-thirty I was seriously in the bag. Across the street, I saw an armored car pull up in front of the bank. It was a shimmering box-like vehicle with a red-and-white paint job that pulsed in the heat like a fresh dental extraction. Three armed guards piled out, opened up the back, and began to lift big canvas satchels with padlocks on the tops onto the pavement. One of the guards was Dallas Klein.
    I crossed the street, my drink in one hand, shading my eyes from the glare with the other.
    “Where you been, fellow? I’ve had to knock ’em back for both of us,” I said.
    Dallas was standing in the shade of the bank, the armpits of his gray shirt dark with moisture. “I’m on the job, here, Dave. Catch you later,” he said.
    “What time you get off?”
    “I said beat it.”
    “Say again?”
    “This is a security area. You’re not supposed to be here.”
    “You’ve got things mixed up, podna. I’m a police officer.”
    “What you are is shit-faced. Now stop making an ass out of yourself and go back in the