might as well have been three thousand. Somewhere between the two places, First World seemed to slip into Third.
They were on Lizardi, in the Lower Ninth. Marie Laveau’s turf. Luther’s place was a shotgun house well past its best, if indeed it had ever had one. The old Chevy on bricks in the front yard seemed to have fused itself with the undergrowth.
Patrese and Selma got out of the car. ‘No point locking the doors,’ Patrese said. ‘If someone wants to break in, they’ll break in. Locking the doors is only going to piss them off.’
‘You being serious?’
‘Sort of.’
Patrese rang the bell. A shuffling from inside, and Luther appeared at the door. He was wearing a purple-and-yellow Louisiana State singlet and khaki shorts which looked as they could do with a more frequent washing machine interface than was currently the case.
‘I thought y’all would come back,’ he said, looking neither particularly surprised nor particularly pleased to see them again. ‘What y’all want?’
‘We want to talk to you.’
‘Then talk.’
Three young men were sitting on the bonnet of an orange Camaro a couple of doors down, watching them. That Patrese and Selma were law enforcement was obvious even to a moron.
‘Y’all in trouble again, Luther?’ shouted one of the youths.
‘Either that, or I just won a free cruise,’ Luther shouted back.
The young men laughed. Luther turned back to Selma and Patrese. ‘Maybe you better come inside.’
They followed him in, Luther checking himself in the mirror as he walked past. Patrese didn’t know why Luther bothered; he wasn’t exactly giving Denzel Washington a run for his money right now.
The place stank of beer, pizza, sweat and feet, in no particular order. All the girls who’d ever complained about Patrese’s bachelor habits, he should have brought them here. Luther made Patrese look practically Swiss.
Selma wrinkled her nose. ‘Luther, what the heck happened to you?’
‘We ain’t married no more. So don’t you start naggin’ me, you hear? Ask me what you wanna ask me, then leave me the hell alone.’
‘You ever know a guy called Rooster?’ Patrese asked.
‘Never heard of him.’
‘You didn’t even think about it.’
‘You know someone, or you don’t. I don’t need to think about it.’
‘He was killed last night, maybe early hours of this morning. Killed the same way as Cindy Rojciewicz.’
‘What you want me to say? I didn’t kill Cindy. I didn’t even know she was dead, else I wouldn’t have been enough of a dumbass to come over when you texted me. Now this Rooster guy’s dead too. I didn’t kill him either. We got pretty much the highest murder rate in the nation, or ain’t you noticed?’
‘He wasn’t killed here. He was killed in Natchez.’
The tiniest, briefest alarm behind Luther’s eyes as he shrugged again. ‘What the hell’s this gotta do with me?’
‘Rooster was in Natchez because he was looking for Toomey Tegge.’
No more shrugging. No more nonchalance.
‘I ain’t seen Toomey for a long while,’ Luther said eventually.
‘Not since Abu Ghraib?’
‘Not since Abu Ghraib.’
‘What did he do there?’
‘He got hung out to dry, same as I did.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘He did his best.’
‘He ever abuse anyone?’
‘Shit no, man. He tried to help. That guy Faraj, the one I… you know … he got gangrene from his wounds. Toomey saved his life.’
‘How did he do that?’
‘Took his leg off.’
Patrese and Selma looked at each other. Patrese looked back at Luther.
‘As in, amputation?’
‘That’s right. Saved his life.’
‘Luther, we really need to talk to Toomey Tegge.’
‘Like I said, I ain’t seen him since Abu Ghraib.’
‘You’re certain of this?’
‘Shit, man. We don’t have reunions every fuckin’ summer. It wasn’t high school. It’s not some place we’re real fond of, you know?’
‘And you didn’t go to Natchez last night?’
‘No, man. I came back here. The fuck would I be doing in Natchez?’
‘Anyone able to confirm you were here?’
‘I was alone. If I knew I’d need an alibi, I’d have found one.’
No way to prove it either way right now, Patrese thought. See what Forensics came up with. Move on.
‘Do you know Marie Laveau?’
‘Sort of question is that?’
‘Pretty simple one. You know her? Yes or no?’
Luther gestured toward the window. ‘It’s the Lower Ninth. Everyone knows her.’
‘You run drugs for her?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘What do you mean, you’ve no idea?’
‘You think someone like Marie hands the stash out herself, like she’s paying wages on a Friday? Get real. She lives in her big old house on the waterfront, she has control of hundreds of people. She don’t get her own hands dirty.’
‘You ever meet her?’
He shrugged. ‘Coupla times.’
‘But you don’t know her well?’
‘No.’
‘What do people think of her round here?’
‘Honestly?’
‘Honestly.’
‘They love her. Fuckin’ love her, man.’
‘How? Do they know what she does?’
‘Yes they do, and let me tell you something: the Lower Ninth don’t have much, but what it does have is down to her. Schools, day-care centers, libraries, street parties; you name it, it’s her that funds it.’
‘Sure. From drug money.’
‘You think folks round here care ’bout that? Shit, they’d take money from bin Laden if it went to good use. Where else the money gonna come from? City Hall? Uh-uh. Not round here. No big shots come here to see how public funds being spent, so no public funds get spent here. Voodoo economics, 101. Marie Laveau puts her hand in her pocket and her money where her mouth is. There was a mayor of the Lower Ninth, she’d win by a damn street.’
‘Voodoo.’
‘What?’
‘You said “voodoo”. Economics. You ever been to Marie’s voodoo ceremonies?’
Luther snorted. ‘Please. I don’t have no truck with all that mumbo jumbo.’
‘You come across any voodoo stuff at all?’
‘Tourist shops in the Quarter.’
‘Apart from that?’