Free DR08 - Burning Angel by James Lee Burke

carry me down to the jail.“ When I got into my pickup the sky was steel gray, the air humid and close as a cotton glove. Raindrops were hitting in flat drops on the cane in the fields. Ruthie Jean came through the side door and limped toward me. She rested one hand on my window jamb. She had full cheeks and a mole by her mouth; her teeth were white against her bright lipstick. ”You saw something out here you gonna use against him?“ she said. The curtains were blowing in the windows and doors of the tin trailers in back.
    ”I was never a vice cop,“ I said.
    ”Then why you out here giving him a bunch of truck?“
    ”Your brother's got a ten-year sheet for everything from concealed weapons to first-degree murder.“
    ”You saw on there he stole something?“
    ”No.“
    ”He hurt somebody didn't bother him first, didn't try cheat him out of his pay, didn't take out a gun on him at a bouree table?“
    ”Not to my knowledge.“
    ”But y'all make it come out like you want.“
    ”I'd say your brother's ahead of the game. If Moleen Bertrand hadn't pulled him out of the death house, with about three hours to spare, Luke would have been yesterday's toast.“ I felt myself blink inside with the severity of my own words.
    ”Y'all always know, always got the smart word,“ she said.
    ”You're angry at the wrong person.“
    ”When y'all cain't get at the people who really did something, y'all go down into the quarters, find the little people to get your hands on, put inside your reports and send up to Angola.“
    I started my truck engine. Her hand didn't move from the window jamb.
    ”I'm not telling the troot, no?“ she said.
    Her gold skin was smooth and damp in the blowing mist, her hair thick and jet black and full of little lights.
    ”Who supplies your girls?“ I said.
    Her eyes roved over my face. ”You're not very good at this, if you ax me,“ she said, and limped back toward the front door of the juke.
    That afternoon, just before five, I received a call from Clete Purcel.
    I could hear seagulls squeaking in the background.
    ”Where are you?“ I said.
    ”By the shrimp docks in Morgan City. You know where a cop's best information is, Streak? The lowly bail bondsman. In this case, with a fat little guy named Butterbean Reaux.“
    ”Yeah, I know him.“
    ”Good. Drive on down, noble mon. We'll drink some mash and talk some trash. Or I'll drink the mash while you talk to your buddy Sonny Boy Marsallus.“
    ”You know where he is?“
    ”Right now, handcuffed to a D-ring in the backseat of my automobile. So much for all that brother-in-arms bullshit.“
    Chapter 8
    GAVE ME directions in Morgan City, and an hour later I saw his battered Cadillac convertible parked under a solitary palm tree by an outdoor beer and hot dog stand not far from the docks. The sky was sealed with gray clouds, and the wind was blowing hard off the Gulf, capping the water all the way across the bay. Sonny sat in the backseat of the Cadillac, shirtless, a pair of blue suspenders notched into his white shoulders. His right wrist was extended downward, where it was cuffed to a D-shaped steel ring inset in the floor.
    Clete was drinking a beer on a wood bench under the palm tree, his porkpie hat slanted over his forehead.
    ”You ought to try the hot dogs here,“ Clete said.
    ”You want to be up on a kidnapping charge?“ I said.
    ”Hey, Sonny! You gonna dime me?“ Clete yelled at the car. Then he looked back at me. ”See, Sonny's stand-up. He's not complaining.“
    He brushed at a fleck of dried blood in one nostril.
    ”What happened?“ I said.
    ”He'd rat-holed himself in a room over a pool hall, actually more like a pool hall and hot pillow joint. He said he wasn't coming with me. I started to hook him up and he unloaded on me. So I had to throw him down the stairs.“
    He rubbed the knuckles of his right hand unconsciously. ”Why do you have it in for him, Clete?“
    ”Because he was down in Bongo-Bongo Land for the same