look at what you made me do. Go get your face, will you?"
Holly Escobar ran toward her house, and Frank wiped blood from his right hand onto his shorts. "Go with her, Ronnie. Make sure she's okay."
Ronnie set off after Mrs. Frank Escobar.
The guy with the shirt said, "You all right, Frank?" Like it was Frank doing the bleeding.
"I'm fine. Fine." Escobar picked up his glass and seemed almost embarrassed. "Jesus. Fuckin' stupid women." Then he looked over at us and must've seen something in Pike's face. Or maybe in mine. He said, "What?" Hard, again. A flush of the purple, again.
Pike's mouth twitched.
Escobar stared at Joe Pike another few seconds, and then he waved his hand to dismiss us. He said, "I'll think about it, okay? I know where to reach you." He motioned toward the guy in the shirt. "Call these guys a car, huh? Jesus, I gotta get another drink."
He walked out and went back to the little round table and picked up someone's glass and drank. Nothing like a gin and tonic to take off the edge after tossing a fit, nosireebob. I stared at him.
The guy in the shirt said that he'd call a cab, and we could wait out front. He said the cabs never took long.
Frank had a deal. He said we could take a sandwich, if we wanted. Joe Pike told him to fuck himself.
We walked out past the pool and down the drive and into the street. The little boy was riding the Big Wheel round and round in circles, looping up into one driveway then along the sidewalk and then down the next drive and into the street again. He looked like a happy and energetic child.
Pike and I stood watching him, and Pike said, "Be a shame to drop the hammer on his old man."
I didn't answer.
"But it wouldn't be so bad, either."
CHAPTER 33
W e were stopped for speeding outside St. Gabriel, Louisiana, and again outside Livonia, but we passed under Milt Rossier's sign at just after five that evening as the air was beginning to lose the worst of the day's heat. The people who worked the ponds were trudging their way toward the processing sheds and the women who worked the sheds were walking out to their cars. Quitting time. Everybody moved with a sort of listless shuffle, as if their lot was to break their backs for Milt Rossier all day, then go home and break their backs some more. It wasn't the way you walk when your body has failed you; it was the way you walk when you've run out of heart, when the day-today has worn away the hope and left you with nothing but another tomorrow that will be exactly like today. It would be the way Holly Escobar would walk in another few years.
We drove up past the processing sheds like we owned the place and headed toward the house. The women on their way home didn't look, or, if they looked, didn't care. It's not like we had a big sign painted on the car, THE ENEMY. Pike said, "This is easy."
"What'd you expect, pill boxes?"
We could see the main house from between the processing sheds, and the little figure of Milt Rossier, sitting out on his lawn furniture, still wearing the sun hat. René LaBorde was standing out between the ponds, staring at their flat surfaces, and didn't seem to notice us, but LeRoy Bennett was coming out of the processing shed with one of the skinny foremen when we passed. He yelled something, then started running after us. He'd have a pretty long run. His Polara was parked at the house.
We drove the quarter mile or so up to the house and left our car on the drive by LeRoy's Polara. The house looked pretty much deserted except for a heavy-set black woman we saw in the living room and Milt Rossier back on the patio. We were going around the side of the house when Milt met us, coming to see who we were. He was in overalls and the wide hat, and he was carrying a glass of iced tea. I said, "Hi, Milt, remember me?"
Milt Rossier pulled up short, surprised. He knew me, but he'd never seen Pike before, and when Pike took out his.357 and let Rossier see it, the old man said, "Well, goddamn."
Pike said, "Let's go back to the patio. Comfortable there."
Rossier looked back at me. "We ran you outta here. I