The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke Read Free Book Online Page A

forcibly transferred. Emma was around thirty-five and had gold hair and was slightly overweight, her cheeks always pooled with color, like a North European’s rather than a Cajun’s. A softcover book was stuffed in her back pocket. Before we got to the cell, she glanced behind her and touched my wrist with her fingers. “Does Purcel have flashbacks?” she said.
    “Sometimes.”
    “Get him moved to a hospital.”
    “You think he’s psychotic?”
    “Your friend isn’t the problem. A couple of my colleagues have a real hard-on for him. You don’t want him in their custody.”
    “Thanks, Emma.”
    “You can dial my phone anytime you want, hon.” She winked, her face deadpan. Then waited. “That was a joke.”
    I wouldn’t have sworn to that. She stuck me in the ribs with her finger and walked back down the corridor, her holstered pistol canting on her hip. But I didn’t have time to worry about Emma Poche’s lack of discretion. Clete looked terrible. He was alone in the cell, sitting on a wood bench, his big arms propped on his kneecaps, staring straight ahead at the wall. He didn’t speak or acknowledge my presence.
    Clete was a handsome man, his hair still sandy and cut like a little boy’s, his eyes a bright green, his skin free of tattoos and blemishes except for a pink scar through one eyebrow, where another kid had bashed him with a pipe during a rumble in the Irish Channel. He was overweight but could not be called fat, perhaps because of the barbells he lifted daily and the way he carried himself. When Clete’s boiler system kicked into high register, the kind that should have put his adversaries on red alert, his brow remained as smooth as ice cream, his eyes showing no trace of intent or anger, his physical movements like those of a man caught inside a photograph.
    What usually followed was a level of mayhem and chaos that had made him the ogre of the legal system throughout southern Louisiana.
    He turned his head sideways, his eyes meeting mine through the bars. The knuckles on his left hand were barked. “Just passing by?”
    “Why’d you bust up Herman Stanga?”
    “He spat on me.”
    “So you had provocation. Why’d you run from the St. Martin guys?”
    “I didn’t feel like putting up with their doodah.” He paused a moment. “I’d been smoking some weed earlier. I didn’t want them tearing my Caddy apart. They ripped out my paneling once before.”
    So you wrecked your convertible for them, I thought.
    “What?” Clete said.
    “Did you knock down a screw?”
    “I’m not sure. Maybe he slipped. I told those guys to keep their hands off me.”
    “Clete—”
    “Stanga was playing to an audience. I blew it. I stepped into his trap. He claims to be a member of a street-people outreach program called the St. Jude Project. You ever hear of it?”
    “That’s not the issue now. I’ll have a lawyer down here in the morning to get you out. In the meantime—”
    “Don’t shine me on, Dave. What do you know about this St. Jude stuff?”
    “Either I stay here tonight to protect you from yourself, or you give me your word you’re finished pissing off everybody on the planet.”
    “You don’t get it, Streak. Just like always, you’ve got your head wrapped in concrete.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “We’re yesterday’s bubble gum. We’re the freaks, not Herman Stanga. That guy has wrecked hundreds, maybe thousands, of people’s lives. Guys like us follow around behind him with a push broom and a dustpan.”
    “What happened at the Gate Mouth?”
    “I saw villagers in the Central Highlands. We’d lit up the ville. I heard AK rounds popping under the hooches. All the old people and children and women were crying. The VC had already blown Dodge, but we torched the place with the Zippo track anyway. It was a resupply depot. Their wells were full of rice. We had to do it, right?”
    I leaned my forehead lightly against one of the bars. When I looked up, Clete was