Fat Tuesday(82)

"Angel taught me, all right, Mr. Basile. By age six I could shoplift cigarettes for her without getting caught. By the time I was eight, I had worked my way up to stealing food so I would have some supper But stealing cans and boxes got cumbersome, so Angel had one of her clients coach me on how to pick pockets. He said I had a natural talent for it. My fingers got limber. I practiced until I was better than my coach. Which was good, because when Flarra came along, the money I made picking pockets came in handy to buy her milk and other necessities."

She paused to wipe a tear off her cheek."Except there never seemed to be enough money for everything, and sometimes Angel took it from me to buy drugs before I could spend it on the baby. So I had to get bolder, steal more often.

"One day, outside Antoine's, I picked the wrong pocket. Pinkie Duvall chased me all the way home, ready to have me arrested. But then he saw how we lived and changed his mind."

"He made Angel an offer. He'd forget the theft in exchange for you."

"In exchange for both Flarra and me. Mother agreed to make him our guardian."

"I bet she did. She saw where Duvall was coming from. She watched his lights go on when he looked at her ripe, young daughter."

"That's not the way it was," she insisted with a hard shake of her head.

"Pinkie Duvall became your guardian out of the goodness of his heart, out of Christian charity?" Burke laughed."Even you don't believe that.

What makes you think I would?"

"He didn't have to assume responsibility for Flarra, too."

"He did if he wanted to make it all nice and legal. A judge might not swallow his wanting to become the guardian of a nubile girl, but two abused and impoverished sisters went down much smoother."

Maybe it was the reminder of Kev's family who had rejected his friendship, or maybe it was because he felt a tinge of pity for little Remy and baby sister Flarra, or perhaps it was his own guilty conscience fueling his anger and urging him on. He felt a dark meanness rising within himself. He wanted to bludgeon Remy Duvall with cruel insults, so that somebody else on the planet would know what real heartache felt like. It was like having barbed wire wound around your heart. He thought it was time that someone else experience what he'd been living with since the night he killed his own man.

He moved several steps closer, until she was backed up as far as she could go and he could see himself reflected in the obsidian mirrors of her pupils.

"You've whitewashed it in your mind, but you knew then and you know now what Duvall wanted. He wanted a young whore who had learned from an old pro."

"Why do you hate me?"

"I bet your virginity was guaranteed, wasn't it? Duvall could return you if you weren't as pure as Angel claimed."

"I won't let you talk to me this way."

"Did he wait a day or two, or did he try you on for size that very first night?"

She flung the wire spatula at him and bolted.

Hot grease splashed in his eye. Holding a hand to it, he staggered across the room and through the door. The instant he cleared the opening, something hard landed against the back of his head and knocked him to his knees. Then again, his head was struck from behind.

By the time he collapsed face first onto the pier, he was unconscious.

"Nancy?"

Nancy Stuart was shooing her rambunctious sons into the backseat of her car. When she heard her name, she came around and exclaimed in surprise, "Doug! What on earth are you doing here?" Pat said, "I got here in time to see some of the practice.

You're raising two major leaguers there."

"Personally I think it's too cold for baseball, but the coaches like to get a running start on the season."

"Got a minute?"

"Well," she hedged, "we're on our way to a team pizza party."

"Hmm." He looked around and then down, and shifted around some gravel with the toe of his shoe."I apologize for ambushing you like this, but I need your input on something that shouldn't be discussed over the telephone."

Worry settled on her pretty features."What's going on?"

"It's about Basile. He's flown the coop. I need to find him."

The boys began complaining about the delay. Nancy opened the car door and motioned them out."Go ride with the Haileys. Tell Mrs. Hailey that I'm coming along right behind you. And settle down! " Disregarding that last instruction, they ran pell-mell across the parking lot toward a van being loaded with rowdy little boys. The,_> other mom ushered the Stuarts aboard, then waved at Nancy to acknowledge receipt of her message.

Turning back to Pat, Nancy said, "The boys miss Burke. They ask about him constantly. I didn't want them to overhear this conversation."

"They miss him?" he asked, confused."I thought he was a regular fixture at your house."

"He was, until I asked him not to come anymore."

Pat listened as she explained her reasons for asking Basile to stop visiting."I know I hurt him, Doug, but seeing him so frequently was hurting me. Each visit was a painful reminder of Kev and how he died.

I was trying to make it part of my past. Burke was keeping it in the present." Pat asked when that last visit had taken place, and when she told him, he frowned."That's about the time he resigned."