The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke Page B

him now, why was his head always full of broken glass? Why wasn’t anything easy?
    “All right,” he said, drawing a quiet breath.
    “That’s better,” Eddy said. “You’re always grieving, man, firing yourself up over things you cain’t change. We ain’t made the world. Time to enjoy life, not worry so much all the time.”
    Both of them went downstairs, the flashlight’s beam bouncing in front of them. Then Bertrand clicked off the light and the two of them climbed into the boat with Andre and his nephew. The sky was orange from a fire on the next block and inside the smoke and mist and humidity the air smelled like garbage burning on a cold day at the City dump.
    Bertrand looked back over his shoulder at the house. For some reason that he couldn’t understand, he felt his entry into this deserted, antebellum structure had just changed his life in a fashion that was irreversible. But for good or bad? Why were knives always whirling inside him?
    Suddenly, like a camera shutter opening in his mind, he saw a young girl fighting against the polyethylene rope that bound her arms and ankles, thrashing her feet against the floor of a panel truck, her stuffed bear lying beside her. He shook the image out of his head and pointed his face into the wind as their aluminum boat sped down the flooded alleyway, trash cans bobbing in the engine’s wake, helicopters flying overhead to airlift the most desperate of the desperate from the hospital in which Bertrand Melancon had been born.
    It was close to midnight before Otis dressed for bed. He removed the cartridge from the chamber of the Springfield, pressed it back down in the magazine, and locked down the bolt. He propped the rifle by a dormer window that gave an encompassing view of the front yard, checked all the doors again, and kissed Thelma good night. Then he made an old-fashioned for both himself and Melanie and took them up to the bedroom on a silver tray with three pieces of chocolate on it.
    “What’s all this for?” she asked.
    “We owe ourselves a treat. Tomorrow will be a fine day. I genuinely believe it will.”
    She wore a pink nightgown and had been reading on top of the sheets. The gasoline-powered generators could not adequately support the air-conditioning system, but the attic fan was on and her bare shoulders looked cool and lovely in the breeze through the window. She placed her book on the floor and bit into a square of French chocolate, pushing little pieces of it back into her mouth with her fingertips. She smiled at him. “Turn out the light,” she said.
    Later, when Otis fell asleep, his thoughts were peaceful, his body drained of all the rage and turmoil that had beset his life since his daughter was attacked. His home had survived Katrina. His wife was his wife again. And he had gone after his daughter’s attackers with both firmness of purpose and a measure of mercy. More important, he had made his house a safe harbor in a time of societal collapse, the front yard and driveway pooled with an apron of light that held back the darkness and the men who prowled it. A man could have done worse.
     
    INSIDE THE BACK of the looted Rite Aid drugstore, Bertrand Melancon felt like fire ants were eating the lining of his stomach. Andre and his nephew still didn’t know about the bundled cash in the laundry bag, but it was only a matter of time before they either saw it or figured out why Eddy was acting hinky. Maybe it was better to split the loot fair and square and be done with it, he thought. The Rite Aid had been ripped apart and was in complete darkness, but it was a good place to cool out, do a few lines of the high-grade flake from the house full of flowers, and work things out. Yeah, that was it. Don’t stiff nobody and you don’t got to be watching your back all the time. But dividing up cold cash that he found, that he ripped out of the wall, wasn’t going to be easy. On several levels, personal and otherwise.
    “Look, me and Eddy got