A Private Cathedral

Chapter Seven

It was still raining hard when we drove into Mississippi the next morning. The house that Clete’s musician friend had told him about was a sun-faded pink art deco place stuck back in a cove where a desiccated shrimp boat lay on its side in a slough overgrown with vines and palm and persimmon trees. A half-dozen vehicles were parked in the driveway or partially on the grass. I thought I could hear music playing.

Clete parked the Caddy and cut the engine, the rain hitting like drops of lead on the convertible’s top. Out of a clear sky on the southern horizon, jagged bolts of lightning struck the water without making a sound. “Something keeps eating on me,” Clete said.

“We got ourselves in the cook pot,” I said. “What’s new about that?”

“This is different. Everything we’re doing. The way the world looks. Like we’re going in and out of time.”

Somehow I knew what he meant, although the right words wouldn’t form in my mouth and the right image wouldn’t come clear in my mind. The rain, the defused light, the storm debris in the waves, our visits to the homes of the Balangie and Shondell families, vicious deeds out of the past, the rip-sawed bodies packed in an oil barrel, all these things seemed part of a fantasy but one that had become real. Let me put it differently. It was like waking from a bad dream as a child only to find, as the sunlight crept into the room and drove away the shadows, that your nocturnal fears were justified and that the creatures you couldn’t flee in your sleep waited for you in the blooming of the day.

“We’ve seen the worst of the worst, Clete,” I said. “Let’s get on it.”

“I got it.”

“Got what?”

“The feeling I couldn’t explain. When I woke up this morning, it was like I’d walked off a cliff and was standing on air. What’s a dream like that mean?”

“It means take it easy on the flak juice.”

“I wish I had all the answers,” he said. “Like knowing the mind of God. I’d love to get in on that.”

I made a mental note to write that one down.

We ran splashing across the yard to the front door and rang the bell, the wind blowing the rain in our faces. A thin, deeply tanned man in a white linen suit and a black silk shirt unbuttoned at the collar opened the door. His hair was copper-colored and streaked with gray and worn like a matador’s, pulled back in a pigtail; a gold cross and chain gleamed on his chest hair. “What can I do for you fellows?”

“We’re looking for Johnny and Isolde,” I said.

He looked over his shoulder, then back at us. People were drinking at a wet bar, and a couple of long-haired young guys with pipe-cleaner arms covered with all-blue tats were tuning their guitars on a platform. All of them looked half-wrecked. The house had a cathedral ceiling, the blond wood in the walls glowing against the darkness outside.

“Sorry, but who are you?” the man said.

“Friends,” I said.

“This is kind of a private gig, fellows.”

“We’re friends of Adonis Balangie,” I said.

“That’s cool. But that don’t cut no ice here. You got an invitation from one of the musicians?”

“Yeah,” Clete said.

“So who invited you?” the man said. He tried to smile.

“Guy who plays on Bourbon Street,” Clete said.

“The guy with no name on Bourbon?” the man in the white suit said. “Know him well. Come see us another time.”

A girl in a bikini leaned down and sniffed a line off the bar. The man with the pigtail followed my eyes. He started to shut the door.

Then I saw Isolde. She was wearing jeans low on her hips and flowers in her hair and a halter top over her breasts. The roses and orchids tattooed on her shoulder looked real rather than made of ink, as though they had been pressed flat and pasted on her skin. Her mouth opened with surprise when she saw me. She had changed since I’d seen her on the pier in a way I couldn’t explain. Her complexion glowed; her whitish-blond hair seemed thicker, her mouth waiting to be kissed. She walked over to us. “Let him in, Eddy,” she said. “That’s Mr. Robicheaux. He’s a friend of ours.”

“It’s an invitation-only party, baby doll,” Eddy said.

Baby doll?

“Come on, Mr. Robicheaux is one of the gang,” she said.

“What can I say? Come in, fellows. Don’t steal my ashtrays.”

Then we were inside, the door closed behind us. Through the picture windows, I could see the bay striped with foam, electricity dancing on the horizon, which was growing darker by the minute. At the bar, I saw two men who didn’t fit with the others. They wore green cargo pants and black T-shirts emblazoned with crossed white M-16s and military-style boots that were part leather and part canvas. Their stomachs were as flat as boards inside their belt buckles, their heads shaved.

Isolde gripped my upper arm with both hands. “I want to apologize for saying ‘fuck you’ on the pier,” she said.

“I considered it a compliment,” I said. “This is Clete Purcel.”

She touched his arm, too, as though sharing a secret message. I had the feeling Johnny Shondell wouldn’t be delivering Isolde to his uncle’s home. “It’s all so wonderful,” she said.

“What is?” Clete said.

“Everything,” she said. “We recorded an album at Muscle Shoals. I sing on three of the songs. Eddy’s company is going to sell them all over the country. Isn’t that right, Eddy? We’re signing the contract today.”

“Yeah, we better get on that,” Eddy said. “You fellows get yourself a drink.”

“You from the Bronx?” I said, smiling.

“Miami,” he said.

“Nothing for me,” I said.

“Same here,” Clete said.

Eddy circled his fingers around Isolde’s wrist as though he were picking up a dog leash. “Let’s get on it, doll. I got to get back to Fort Lauderdale tonight.”

Johnny Shondell waved at us from the bar, then headed toward us. He was sure a good-looking kid, the kind who seemed to float through a crowd of his peers rather than walk. It was no wonder the girls loved him, but I had a feeling he was a one-woman man. His eyes never left Isolde, even when he was shaking hands with us. Eddy was trying to get his attention. “Johnny, I got a business to run, here. Hey, what am I, a fire hydrant waiting for somebody to piss on? Look at me.”

“I got you covered, Eddy,” Johnny said. “We’re about to play a couple of numbers. Get the marimbas. You can play along.”

“The marimbas can wait,” Eddy said. “These guys can wait. The whole fucking world can wait. But the banks in the Islands do not wait. You hearing me, here?”

“Calm down, Eddy,” Isolde said.

“I’m telling you, I don’t got time for this,” he said.

“Put an ice cube in your mouth,” she said. “It’ll help you think.” Then she saw the look on his face. “You’re adorable, Eddy. Don’t be sensitive.” She kissed him on the cheek. His eyes were lumps of coal focused on nothing, his nostrils dilating.

“You own a record company?” Clete said to him.

“Do I own a record company?” Eddy said. He turned up his palms, as though he couldn’t fathom the question. “My house looks like I drive a bread truck?”

“Johnny, don’t you need a lawyer when you sign contracts?” I said.

“I’m the lawyer,” Eddy said.

“You?” I said.

“I don’t look or talk like a lawyer?” he said.

“Ole Miss?” Clete said.

“I went to law school in the Dominican Republic,” Eddy said.

“Can I use your bathroom?” Clete said.

“Through the hallway,” Eddy said. “Make sure you flush.”

But I knew the bathroom wasn’t on Clete’s mind. He had been glancing at the two men in cargo pants at the bar. He walked down the hallway and into the bathroom, then came back out and stood at the bar next to the two men, studying the bay through a picture window, his back to the men.

Johnny rejoined his musician friends and hung a Gibson Super Jumbo acoustic guitar from his neck, then went into Larry Finnegan’s “Dear One.” The keyboard and the rumble of the drums and the resonance of the Gibson and the four/four beat created a throbbing combination reminiscent of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. When Johnny finished singing, the room went wild. Johnny was way beyond good. He was painted with magic. His voice, his lack of pretense, his obvious love of music for its own sake, and his appreciation of Larry Finnegan’s tribute to the 1950s were like an invitation into a cathedral you never wanted to leave.

Isolde’s eyes were damp. Eddy had gone into the back of the house. Isolde and I were alone.

“You okay?” I said.

“I don’t want it to ever end,” she replied.

“The song?”

“All of it. I don’t want it to end.”

“Why should it end, Isolde?”

“Because we’re not meant to be.”

“Not meant to be? Who’s not meant to be?”

“We’re supposed to live our lives for others. Me and Johnny.”

“This is still the United States,” I said. “You can be whatever you want and tell other people to kiss your foot.”

“I’m scared, Mr. Robicheaux.”

“Call me Dave. Scared of what? Of whom?”

“The people who are going to take it away from us.”

“Nobody is going to take anything away from you. Not if Clete and I have anything to do with it.”

She wasn’t buying it. In the meantime, something had happened at the bar. I should have known it. William Blake called it the canker in the rose.

Clete had obviously changed his mind about having a drink. He was leaning against the bar, wearing his Panama hat, a bottle of tequila and a shot glass and a salt shaker and a saucer with sliced limes in front of him. As I walked toward him, he poured a shot and knocked it back, then sucked on a salted lime. He wiped his fingers and began talking to two men in paramilitary drag as though continuing a lecture he’d had to interrupt in order to put some more fuel in the tank. “See, I know a little Vietnamese and a little Japanese, but I never took up the study of European languages. So you got to tell me what those words on your medallions mean. They look like artworks. I might want to join your organization.”

“What’s happening, Cletus?” I said.

“No haps,” he said. “I just dig these guys and their medallions. There’s a torch on them, like at the Olympics. What looks like German writing, too. I’m correct, aren’t I? It’s German?”

One man stared at me boldly, then went back to his beer. He was either a pro who knew when to disengage or a man who didn’t like even odds. The second man’s body was as stiff as coat-hanger wire. A tiny swastika was tattooed at the corner of one eye. His face had the angularity of an ax blade, like he was wired on meth or fear.

“You guys mercs?” I said.

“Security,” said the man with the ink.

“Let’s get some food, Cletus,” I said.

“Absolutely not,” Clete said. He poured into the shot glass until it brimmed, then knocked half of it back. He sucked on the lime, then set down the glass and wiped his mouth. “Come on, buddy, don’t leave me in the dark. I know what Juden means. How about the rest of it? You guys work for the Israeli government?”

The man drinking beer laughed to himself, looking out the window at the rain. He was unshaved and had a cleft chin with a scar across it, like a piece of white twine. I put my arm across Clete’s shoulders. “Time to dee-dee.”

He shook off my arm. “There’s coke and weed all over this place,” he said to the two men. “These kids don’t need that. If you guys are doing security, it really blows.”

“We do what Eddy tells us,” said the man with the swastika. His pupils were tiny dots. He touched Clete as though they were brothers-in-arms. “Look around. This is a Caucasians-only environment. That’s because we do our job. If a little product gets in, we keep it under control.”

“I want to know what the German writing means,” Clete said.

“It means whatever you want it to mean,” said the man with the scar on his chin, gazing out the window at the squall. “It could mean haul your fat ass out of here, Bluto.”

“Bluto?” Clete said. “Like the guy in Popeye? That’s probably a compliment, right? Just tell me what the German writing means.”

“Or what?” said the same man, twisting his head.

“I could use a job. Maybe you guys could help me out. I was in the service.”

“Ou-rah,” said the same man.

“Say that again?” Clete said.

“I get sick of you assholes,” the same man said, sipping at his beer, not bothering to turn around.

“Let’s go over in a quiet corner,” said the man with the swastika. “Just us three.” He kept his gaze off me.

“I hate to be obsessive here,” Clete said, fishing in his coat pocket. “I want a translation.”

“Why?” asked the man with the swastika. His mouth moved slowly when he spoke, as though he were afraid to grin and afraid not to.

Clete removed a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He shook one loose and stuck it between his lips. “You might be Jews. You know, undercover.”

The man with the swastika flexed his mouth, almost like rictus. “Us?”

“Maybe you’re with the FBI,” Clete said.

The man with the swastika took a long swig from a beer mug that had been filled with Jack poured on crushed ice. He lowered the mug and looked sideways at Clete, his pulse fluttering visibly in his throat. “We’re trying to be nice, man. We’re a brotherhood. We ain’t out to hurt nobody. Unless we get pushed. My friend Klute here is pretty well known in the movement. He’s not a man you mess with.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Clete said. He tossed his unlit cigarette at a trash can behind the bar. “What’s tod mean?”

“That’s German for ‘death,’ ” said the man with the swastika.

“How about für?”

“Come on, man.”

“What’s it mean?” Clete said.

“It means ‘to.’ ”

“And Alle?”

“Like it sounds. It means ‘all.’ ”

“What’s the whole thing mean?” Clete said.

“There’s a couple of people over there probably don’t need to hear this,” said the same man. “We got no beef with them. We’re for Aryan people. That don’t mean we’re necessarily against other kinds of people.”

“Don’t make me ask again,” Clete said.

“It means death to all Jews,” said the man with the swastika.

The man named Klute drained the foam out of the bottle and lay the bottle flat on the bar. He spun it in a circle with one finger, then glanced at Clete. His mouth was small, his teeth tiny, spaced apart. “You’re not gonna do something silly, are you?”

“Dave and I are going to eat, then we’re leaving. I shouldn’t have been preaching about weed and such. I’ve got addiction issues myself. I just don’t like to see you screwing up these kids, because if there’s any product in this room, you brought it here.”

“Hang around and see what they’re doing later,” said the man playing with the bottle. “Ever hear of a Crisco party?”

“I think you’re full of it, Jack,” Clete said.

“You’re a familiar kind of guy,” the man said. “You did something in ’Nam you can’t forgive yourself for, so you go around playing the good guy and sucking up to any titty-baby bunch of knee-jerk liberals that’ll let you clean their toilets.”

Clete’s eyes were green marbles, devoid of expression, as though he had floated away into a serene environment no one else could see. He seemed to gaze out the window like a man about to fall asleep. He blinked and rested one hand on top of the bar. He picked up his cigarette lighter and dropped it into his pocket. The crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes had flattened and turned into tiny green threads, the skin white and as smooth as clay. He pursed his lips and breathed slowly through his nose, then smiled at the two men.

The man named Klute seemed bewitched by Clete’s tranquility and appeared to have no idea what was occurring. Clete fitted his hand around the man’s neck and drove his face into the oak bib of the bar, smashing it again and again into the wood. Then he elbowed the other man in the face, kicked his feet out from under him, and proceeded to stomp both men into pulp, coating the brass rail, balancing himself with one hand, breaking bone or teeth or cartilage or anything he could find with the flat of his shoe.

I grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to pull him back. I could smell the heat and funk and rage and trapped beer-sweat in his clothes, see the acne scars and flame on the back of his neck, the grease in his pores, the moisture glistening on the tips of his little-boy haircut, and I knew there was no way I could restrain him, any more than I could save a drowning man who would take down his rescuer if necessary.

Then he went to one knee, fumbling his wallet from his back pocket, spilling the contents, digging out the photo of the Jewish woman and her three children on their way to the gas chamber, sticking it in the unrecognizable faces of the two mercenaries. “See that?” he said. “Look at it! That’s what you’re responsible for. I’d shove this down your mouths, but you’re not worthy to touch these people’s picture.”

He stood up, steadying himself on the bar, and wiped the picture on his shirt and folded it carefully and put it in his shirt pocket. A rivulet of blood slid from the bandaged knife wound in his left arm. The people in the room had become statues, unable to speak, avoiding eye contact with us or each other. Isolde held her hands over her mouth. The only person who reacted was Johnny Shondell. He laid his Gibson on a couch and picked up a bar towel and knelt by the two men on the floor, then looked up at Clete and me. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “What’d these guys do? Mr. Clete, this isn’t you.” He paused. “Is it?”

I gathered up the contents of Clete’s wallet, and the two of us walked outside and left the door open behind us, the rain sweeping inside, the wind shredding the palm trees. In seconds our clothes were drenched, and Clete’s Panama hat was torn off his head and flying end over end down the beach, where it was sucked into the surf. Clete stared at it blankly, his swollen, blood-streaked fists hanging at his sides, seemingly bewildered by the storm taking place around him.