Last Car to Elysian Fields: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke

Author:James Lee Burke
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780743466639
Publisher: Pocket Star
Published: 2003-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

The days were growing shorter, and by 6 P.M. the sun had set, the sky was black and veined with lightning, and Bayou Teche was high and yellow and chained with rain rings in the glow of the lamps along the banks of City Park. Father Jimmie walked about in the backyard, his hands in his pockets, examining the sky, the wind swirling leaves around his ankles. He came back in the house smelling of trees and humus, his eyes purposeful.

“I need to work things out with Max Coll,” he said.

“You have to do what?” I said.

“He’s in New Iberia because I’m here. Now, these other criminals are showing up because he’s here. Where does it end? One man is already dead.”

“Frank Dellacroce sexually exploited a retarded girl. I think he got off easy.”

“I had to own up to some things at the retreat, the big one being pride.”

“In what?”

“My feeling of virtuous superiority to others,” he said.

“You don’t call self-flagellation a form of pride?”

“You’re a hard sell, Dave.”

The phone rang like a providential respite. Or at least that’s what I thought until I realized who was on the other end of the line.

“Where do you get off embarrassing my father in a public place?” a woman’s voice said.

“Your father is neither a victim nor a martyr. Cut the crap, Theo,” I said.

“Your anger taints everything in your life. You disappoint me in ways I can’t describe.”

I heard a sheet of rain clatter across the tin roof. I wanted to pretend I was impervious to her words, but the element of truth in them was like a thorn pressed into the scalp. “Where are you?” I said.

“In a bar.” She gave the name, a box of a place squeezed between shacks in New Iberia’s worst neighborhood.

“How much have you had?” I asked.

“I’m drinking a soda and lime, believe it or not. But I’m about to change that. Why, you want to get loaded?”

“You wait there,” I said.

As I backed out of the driveway, the canopy of oaks over the street stood out in lacy, black-green relief against the lightning rippling across the sky. I did not pay particular attention to the car that rounded the corner and followed me past the Shadows.

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