Read The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel for Free Online Page B

totally into new kinds of endeavors . . . Are you listening to me? I don’t like talking to somebody’s back.”
    Clete turned around slowly. “I’m all ears.”
    “What you heard me talking about is the St. Jude Project. It’s an outreach program to he’p people nobody else cares about. That’s what I’m doing these days, not pimping off people, not committing no homicides or whatever it is you t’ink I’m doing. Are you hearing me loud and clear on this?”
    “St. Jude, the patron of the hopeless?”
    “Hey, big breakt’rew. Let your brain keep doing those push-ups, you getting there, man. We done here?”
    “No. You signed the paperwork on two of my bail skips. So under the the law, you’re my collateral. Turn around and place your hands on the tree trunk.”
    Stanga shook his head in exasperation, the pixielike quality gone from his face, his expression almost genuine, devoid of guile or theatrics. “You making a big fool out of yourself, man. Busting me ain’t gonna he’p no dead girls, ain’t gonna get no money back for them Jews, ain’t gonna make you look better in front of all these people. Grow up. I don’t sell nothing to nobody they don’t want. How you t’ink I stayed in bidness all these years? ’Cause I was selling stuff people didn’t have no use for?”
    “Turn around.”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyt’ing you want, man. Big pile of white whale shit go in a black man’s club and blow his nose on people, bust some cat with recreational flake, make the world safe, and maybe get your fat ass on COPS ! All of y’all are a joke, man.”
    “You better shut your mouth.”
    “Gets to you, don’t it? Well, that’s the way it ought to be. If you didn’t have people like me around, you’d be on welfare. Look around you, man. Are all these people worried about me, or are they worried about you? Who brings the grief into their lives? Go ax them. There wasn’t no problem here till you come out that back door.”
    Clete turned Stanga around and pushed him against the tree, trying to suppress the dangerous urge that had bloomed in his chest. When Stanga turned to face him again, Clete stiff-armed him between the shoulders. Then he kicked Stanga’s feet apart and started patting him down, his face expressionless, trying to ignore the attention he was drawing from up the slope.
    “What we’re talking about here is hypocrisy, man,” Stanga said over his shoulder. “I can smell weed on your clothes and cooze on your skin. Tell me you ain’t had your dick in a black woman. Tell me you ain’t been on a pad for them New Orleans dagos. You cain’t see past your stomach to tie your shoes, but you t’ink a mail-order badge give you the right to knock around people ain’t got no choice except to take it. I wouldn’t let you clean my toilet, man, I wouldn’t let you pick up the dog shit on my lawn.”
    Clete’s right hand trembled as he pulled his handcuffs free from behind his back.
    “Take out your cell-phone cameras,” Stanga called to the crowd that was gathering up the slope. “Check out what this guy is doing. Y’all seen it. I ain’t done nothing.”
    “Shut up,” Clete said.
    “Fuck you, man. I was in an adult prison when I was fifteen years old. Anyt’ing you can do to me has already been done, magnified by ten.”
    Then Herman Stanga, his wrists still uncuffed, turned and spat full in Clete’s face.
    Later, Clete would not be exactly sure what he did next. He would remember a string of spittle clinging to his face and hair. He would remember Herman Stanga’s fingers reaching for his eyes; he would remember the sour surge of whiskey and beer into his mouth and nose. He would remember grabbing Stanga from the back, lifting him high in the air, and smashing him into the tree trunk. He knew he fitted his hand around the back of Stanga’s neck and he knew he drove Stanga’s face into the bark of the tree. Those things were predictable and not unseemly or uncalled for.