Clete by James Lee Burke

Author:James Lee Burke [Burke, James Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Crime, Thriller
ISBN: 9780802163073
Google: HH8Z0AEACAAJ
Amazon: 0802163076
Barnesnoble: 0802163076
Goodreads: 197525334
Published: 2024-06-11T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

On Saturday morning Dave and I went fishing in his boat at Henderson Swamp outside Breaux Bridge. It was the season for sacalait, and it had rained before sunrise and the bays and channels were high, the waves from our boat slapping the tree trunks.

I told Dave about my prospects as an actor. We had anchored near an island and were casting into the lee of the trees. Dave put a fresh shiner on his hook and dripped his hand clean in the water and flipped his line next to some lily pads, all of them blooming with yellow flowers. “That sounds good, Clete,” he said.

“Think so?” I replied.

“See if you can get me a role.”

But I knew he wasn’t serious. Nor was he happy about my relationship with my client Clara Bow.

“You think I’m crossing the wrong Rubicon, don’t you?”

“Ms. Bow was with her husband a long time, Cletus.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “But people change. Plus, I’m just going through a screen test. Look, her ex is a monster. He burned her breast. Cut her some slack.”

“Then why didn’t she leave him?”

“Maybe she didn’t like working in truck stops.”

“We’re talking about the m-word, Clete. The m-word is ‘money.’”

“Okay, you’re right. So what should I do now?”

Dave reeled his line back in and set the rod on the stern. The shiner, or minnow, was dangling in the air, just above the water. It made me feel sick, actually in pain, as though I were torturing it. This is part of depression. You can’t think your way out of it, either.

“Answer me, Dave,” I said.

“Go ahead with the movie project, Clete,” he said. “You know more about movies than movie people do. It’s a Civil War story?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Fire a cannon ball through Lauren Bow’s house. Somebody should have pulled that guy’s plug a long time ago.”

Dave probably shouldn’t have said that.

# # #

Sunday morning, Clara Bow was at my cottage door with a box of jelly doughnuts in her hand. She wore a white dress, and her hair was curled around her cheeks like a doll’s.

“What’s goin’ on?” I said, standing in my bathrobe.

“I need to confess some things to you,” she replied.

“Can it wait until tomorrow at my office.”

“Please, Mr. Purcel. This really bothers me.”

I stepped back and opened the door wider. “Come in,” I said. “I’ll get dressed in back.”

Five minutes later I returned from the bedroom and picked up the coffeepot and two cups. She was sitting at the breakfast table, her eyes on the bayou, with the intensity of someone whose guilt is so bad they can neither live with it nor own up to it.

“Miss Clara, you don’t have to be ashamed or feel afraid,” I said. “I think you’re a nice lady. Whatever difficulties you’ve had are on their way out. That’s the way to think about it.”

“I need to tell you about Lauren’s finances,” she said. “He’s known for several years that the IRS was going to strip him of the fortune he made in his Ponzi scheme.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.