DR09 - Cadillac Jukebox by James Lee Burke Page A

with leather sling and
cloth bandoliers, propped in the wire like a monument to his own denouement.
          Even in my sleep I
knew the dream was not about Vietnam.
     
     
    T he next day I called Angola and talked to an assistant warden.
Aaron Crown was in an isolation unit, under twenty-three-hour lockdown. He had
just been arraigned on two counts of murder.
          "You're talking
about first-degree murder? The man was attacked," I said.
          "Stuffing
somebody upside down in a barrel full of oil and clamping down the top isn't
exactly the system's idea of self-defense," he replied.
          I called Buford
LaRose's campaign office in New Iberia and was told he was giving a speech to a
convention of land developers in Baton Rouge at noon.
          I took the four-lane
into Lafayette, then caught I-10 across the Atchafalaya swamp. The cypress and
willows were thick and pale green on each side of the elevated highway, the
bays wrinkled with wind in the sunlight. Then the highway crossed through
meadowland and woods full of palmettos, and up ahead I saw the Mississippi
bridge and the outline of the capitol building and the adjacent hotel where
Buford was speaking.
          He knew his audience.
He was genteel and erudite, but he was clearly one of them, respectful of the
meretricious enterprises they served and the illusions that brought them
together. They shook his hand after his speech and touched him warmly on the
shoulders, as if they drew power from his legendary football career, the
radiant health and good looks that seemed to define his future.
          At the head table,
behind a crystal bowl filled with floating camellias, I saw Karyn LaRose
watching me.
          The dining room was
almost empty when Buford chose to recognize me.
          "Am I under
arrest?"
          "Just one
question: Why did Crown leave his rifle behind?"
          "A half dozen
reasons."
           "I've been through your book with a
garden rake. You never deal with it."
          "Try he panicked
and ran."
          "It was the
middle of the night. No one else was around."
          "People tend to
do irrational things when they're killing other people."
           The waiters were clearing the tables and the
last emissary from the world of Walmart had said his farewell and gone out the
door.
          "Take a ride up
to Angola with me and confront Crown," I said.
          He surprised me. I
saw him actually think about it. Then the moment went out of his eyes. Karyn
got up from her chair and came around the table. She wore a pink suit with a
corsage pinned above the breast.
          "Crown might get
a death sentence for killing those two inmates," I said, looking back at
Buford.
          "Anything's
possible," he replied.
          "That's it? A
guy you helped put in prison, maybe unjustly, ends up injected, that's just the
breaks?"
          "Maybe he's a
violent, hateful man who's getting just what he deserves."
          I started to walk
away. Then I turned.
          "I'm going to
scramble your eggs," I said.
          I was so angry I
walked the wrong way in the corridor and went outside into the wrong parking
lot. When I realized my mistake I went back through the corridor toward the
lobby. I passed the dining room, then a short hallway that led back to a
service elevator. Buford was leaning against the wall by the elevator door, his
face ashen, his wife supporting him by one arm.
          "What
happened?" I said.
          The elevator door
opened.
          "Help me get him
up to our room," Karyn said.
          "I think he
needs an ambulance."
          "No! We have our
own physician here. Dave, help me, please. I can't hold him up."
          I took his other arm
and we entered the elevator. Buford propped the heel of his hand against the
support rail on the back wall, pulled his collar loose with his fingers, and
took a deep breath.
          "I did