DR08 - Burning Angel by James Lee Burke Page B

photographs don't change anything.”
    “You recognize the other woman?”
    “No.”
    “She used to be a chicken for Sweet Pea Chaisson. I tried to help her get out of the life. Except we went a little bit beyond that.”
    “Who cares?”
    “I've got to turn this stuff in, Dave.”
    “The hell you do.”
    She was silent, waiting. “Do you have to prove you're an honest person?” I said. “And by doing so, cooperate with evil people in injuring yourself. That's not integrity, Helen, it's pride.” She returned the photo to the envelope, then studied the backs of her hands. Her fingers were thick and ring less square on the ends. “The only guy who comes to mind is that paramilitary fuck, what's his name, Tommy Carrol,” she said. “Maybe,” I said. But I was already remembering Sonny Boy's warning. “But why would he put this note on the envelope?” She turned it over so I could read the line someone had written with a felt pen- Keep your mind on parking tickets, Mujfy. “Why the look?”
    “Sonny Marsallus. He told me not to send anything on this guy Emile Pogue through the federal computer. All those informational requests had your name on them, Helen.” She nodded, then I saw her face cloud with an expression that I had seen too often, on too many people, over the years. Suddenly they realize they have been arbitrarily selected as the victim of an individual or a group about whom they have no knowledge and against whom they've committed no personal offense. It's a solitary moment, and it's never a good one. I worked the envelope out from under her hands. “We could do all kinds of doo-dah with these photos, and in all probability none of it would lead anywhere,” I said. I slipped the photos facedown out of the envelope and walked with them into the kitchen. “So I'm making use of a Clete Purcel procedure here, which is, when the rules start working for the lowlifes, get a new set of rules.” I took a lucifer match from a box on the windowsill above the sink, scratched it on the striker, and held the flame to the corner of the photographs. The fire rippled and curled across the paper like water; I separated each sheet from the others to let the air and heat gather on the underside, the images, whatever they were, shrinking and disappearing into blackened cones while dirty strings of smoke drifted out the screen. Then I turned on the faucet and washed the ashes down the drain, wiped the sink clean with a paper towel and dropped it in the trash.
    “You want to have some early lunch, then go to the office?” I said.
    “Give me a minute to change.” Then she said, “Thanks for what you did.”
    “forget it.”
    “I'll say this only once,” she said. “Men are kind to women for one of two reasons. Either they want inside the squeeze box or they have-genuine balls and don't have to prove anything. When I said thank you, I meant it.”
    There are compliments you don't forget.
    Before I drove away I put the stiffened body of one of the dead coons in a vinyl garbage sack and placed it in the bed of my truck.
    The investigation had gone nowhere since the night of Delia Landry's murder. I had made a mistake and listened to Sonny Boy's deprecation of the mob and his involvement with them. Sweet Pea Chaisson's name had surfaced again, and Sweet Pea didn't change toilet paper rolls without first seeking permission of the Giacano family. If the spaghetti heads had started to crash and burn back in the seventies, it was a secret to everyone except Sonny.
    The heir to the old fat boy, Didoni Giacano, also known as Didi Gee, whose logo had been the bloodstained baseball bat that rode in the backseat of his Caddy convertible when he was a loan collector and who sometimes held down the hand of an adversary in an aquarium filled with piranhas, was his nephew, a businessman first, a gangster second, but with a bizarre talent for clicking psychotic episodes on and off at will-John Polycarp Giacano, also known as