The shift in her tone caught him off guard. He lifted his eyes into hers. They were as bright and green as emerald
s. “I’m a private investigator in the employ of several insurance carriers.”
“Which carriers?”
“Confidentiality precludes my giving out their names.”
“I see. Do you know what obstruction of justice is?”
“I do.”
“You’ve factored yourself into a homicide investigation, Mr. Bledsoe. I’m talking about the shooting of two black men in front of Otis Baylor’s house in New Orleans.”
“Those men of color were looters. They stole from homes insured by my employers.”
“Otis Baylor is going to help you recover stolen property?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You know Sidney Kovick?”
“I know his name. Everyone in New Orleans does.”
“Do you work for him?”
“No, I’m a bond agent and an insurance investigator, not unlike Mr. Purcel, Mr. Robicheaux’s friend. Can you tell me why Mr. Purcel is not in custody, considering the amount of injury he did to Bobby Mack Rydel?”
“Our focus is on you, Mr. Bledsoe.”
“Do you have any more napkins? These are messy.”
“Is that what your mother told you? Don’t have messy hands?”
“What was that?” he said.
Helen leaned down and propped her fists on the table, only inches away from him. A tube of muscle stood out in the back of each upper arm. Her hair hung on her cheeks. Her physical presence was palpable, her scent like a mixture of flowers and male body heat. Bledsoe’s nostrils whitened around the edges. He shifted in his chair and placed his hands in front of him. His fingers were long and pale, as though they had been in water a long time.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Helen said.
He looked straight ahead and seemed to gather his body inside his clothes. “You don’t have the legal right to touch my person.”
“If I touched your person, Mr. Bledsoe, I would scrub my skin with peroxide and a wire brush. Is it true you get off scaring the hell out of working girls?”
He glanced up at the camera on the wall, clearly wondering if indeed it was turned off and if that was good or bad for him. “Does it seem logical that a man who hires prostitutes would want to scare off prostitutes?” he said.
“Yeah, if everything about him creeps them out,” Helen said.
For the first time I saw a darkness sweep across his face. Helen leaned closer to him, her hip brushing again him, her face intersecting his line of vision. “What did your mother do to you when you were a kid?”
“She didn’t do anything.”
“When you wet the bed, did she make you sleep in your own stink? Did she wash out your mouth with soap when you sassed her? Did she tell you your underwear was inside out and that skid marks were on it, that you made her ashamed you were her son, that you disgusted her?”
He started to get up from the chair.
“Sit down. I’m not through talking to you,” she said. “She did things to you in the dark, didn’t she? Your father wasn’t around and so you were the dildo. Did she ever hold your penis in her hand and then punish you for it later?”
The temperature in the room had grown warmer and I felt myself clearing my throat.