“‘The night of the storm I went in your garage and stole gas. We also stole what is called “blood stones” from a man who stole them from somebody else. I hid them where the map on the bottom shows. They are yours. They won’t make up for what we done. But Eddy is ruined and Andre is dead and I think I have already lost my soul. So that’s all I got to say, except I apologize for what we done.

“‘Thank you, Bertrand Melancon.’”

She stared at him, stupefied. “You raped Thelma?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You piece of shit, you come to our house offering us blood diamonds? You goddamn piece of shit.”

“I ain’t meant to upset you.”

The cream he used in his hair had started to run and she could smell it on his skin. It smelled like aloe and body grease and candle wax. In her mind, she saw a bullet punch through a black man’s throat and, behind him, the skullcap of a teenage boy explode in a bloody spray. She thought she was going to be sick to her stomach but she wasn’t sure why. One thing was clear, however. She viscerally hated the black man standing on her gallery.

“You’ve ruined our lives. You destroyed my husband’s career. We’re losing everything we own because of you. You ask for forgiveness? You have the arrogance to ask that from us?”

He saw the knife in her hand. The blade was short, deep at the hilt, tapering triangularly to a honed point. “I’m sorry I bothered y’all, ma’am. I t’ought it was the right thing to do. I ain’t gonna do it again.”

He tried to offer her the letter he had written on the paper towel. She tore it from his hand and threw it in his face. He backed away from her, through the screen, then fell down the steps into the yard.

“Take this with you,” she said. She picked up the paper towel from the gallery, crumpling it into a ball, and threw it at him. “Did you hear me? I hope you do go to Hell.”

But Bertrand was already running for his grandmother’s car, looking back over his shoulder, wondering if redemption would ever be his or if insanity was the rule in human beings and not the exception.

Then he saw the lavender automobile again, the one with the chrome radiator cap on the outside of the engine. The driver was standing by the front headlight, watching Bertrand, his polished, elongated head unmistakable against the glow of the drawbridge.

Just won’t give it up, will you, motherfucker? Okay, let’s see if you got a pair of peaches or a pair of acorns on you, Bertrand said to himself.

He fired up his grandmother’s car, dropped the transmission clanking into reverse, and floored the accelerator. The tires spun a shower of mud and water into the air, and oil smoke bloomed in black clouds from under the hood as the car sped toward the front of the strange-looking vehicle with the radiator cap outside the engine.

Here I come, Toot’brush Face.

Bertrand was twisted all the way around in the seat as he steered, aiming through the back window at the man who called himself Ronald, the bald tires slick with mud, spinning serpentine lines on the asphalt and the shoulder. Ronald tried to hold his ground, but at the last moment he leaped aside and took cover behind the trunk of a live oak.

Figured you for gutless, Bertrand said to himself.

He took his foot off the accelerator and jammed on the brakes, expecting to slide within an inch of the lavender automobile with the outside radiator cap.

Instead, the brake pedal went all the way to the floor, as though it were totally disconnected from the rest of his grandmother’s car. The rear bumper crashed into Ronald’s restored Rolls-Royce, exploding the front end, scattering the asphalt with bits of headlight glass and wiring and pieces of chrome.

oh shit.

Bertrand dropped the transmission into drive, floored the accelerator again, and spun back out on the road, taking pieces of Ronald’s collectible with him. When he looked in the mirror, he saw Ronald staring in horror at the destruction that had just been done to his vehicle.

Tough luck, chuck. Sorry to skin your hide, Clyde. But you been sacked, Jack. So adios, Toast.

Bertrand’s mouth was wide with laughter as he roared down the road. There was only one problem. He had left behind his grandmother’s bumper as well as her license tag.

Chapter 26

FRIDAY MORNING I called Bo Diddley’s office in Lafayette. The receptionist answered, the same one who was a master at saying as little as possible.

“This is Detective Dave Robicheaux, with the Iberia Sheriff’s Department. Has Mr. Wiggins returned from his business trip to Miami?”

“He’s in a meeting right now,” she replied.

“Is his secretary there, the lady with the white-gold hair?”

“She’s on vacation.”

“Put Mr. Wiggins on.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can. Go do it,” I said.

I marked the time on my watch. Almost two minutes went by before Bo picked up. “What’s the problem, Dave?”

“I have the feeling you don’t want to see me.”

“Where would you get an idea like that?”

“Did your receptionist tell you I was in your office Wednesday?”

“I probably didn’t see the message slip. Don’t take it out on her.”

I waited a beat before I spoke again. “I’ll be at your office in about forty minutes. If I were you, I’d be there. If you’re not, we’ll have you picked up by Lafayette PD.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

I thought it was time for Bo to experience a little anxiety. “You’re about to find out,” I said, and hung up.

The traffic was thin and I made it to the Lafayette Oil center in a half hour. Bo’s office was spacious and full of windows that gave a sense of airiness to an environment that was purely utilitarian. He was standing at his desk behind his glass partition, talking on the phone. He peered at me over his reading glasses and gestured for me to come in, as though he were anxious to see me.

“You tie one on last night?” he said.

“Where’s your secretary, the woman who was at the casino with Bobby Mack Rydel?”

“She’s out sick.”

“That’s funny. Your receptionist said she’s on vacation.”

Bo made an exasperated expression, as though his newly acquired Christian charity were indeed being tested. “Why do you want to treat me like this, Dave? Something I did back in college? Maybe I punched you when I was drunk? I always got the sense you thought I was hard on black people, hard on folks that maybe had more than I did. Well, if that’s how you felt, you were right. But I’m not like that today.”

He grinned, his eyes on mine, waiting for me to respond. His modesty, his candor, his vulnerability were a study in manipulation. But to portray him as a hypocrite would not be fair. James Boyd Wiggins had learned his value system from the oligarchy that had created him. In Louisiana, as in the rest of the South, the issue was always power. Wealth did not buy it. Wealth came with it. Televangelist preachers and fundamentalist churches sold magic as a way of acquiring it. The measure of one’s success was the degree to which he could exploit his fellow man or reward his friends or punish his enemies. In our state’s history, a demagogue with holes in his shoes forced Standard Oil to kiss his ring. Bo Diddley might have valued money, but I suspected he would fling it into an incinerator a shovelful at a time rather than take down the name of James Boyd Wiggins from the entrance of his office building.

“Why you looking at me like that?” he said, a grin still on his mouth.

I shook my head. “How long has Bobby Mack Rydel been working for you?”

“A security guy?”

“Among other things.”

“I retain a security service out of Baton Rouge for all my shipyards. They subcontract some of the work. I think Rydel might be a subcontractor for them, but I’m not sure. He’s out of Morgan City, isn’t he? Is this about the fight between him and your friend at the casino?”