In the Electric Mist

[first Lines]

Dave Robicheaux:
My name's Dave Robicheaux. I'm an alcoholic. Sometimes I'm tempted to have a drink. But I never do.

Dave Robicheaux:
You don't want to go back out there. In fact, you don't want to go anywhere near this bus station again. From now on, you better treat this place like it is downtown Baghdad, because I will blow your god damned head off if you don't find a god damned line of honest god damned work.

Sam 'Hogman' Patin:
A Blue Jay don't sit on a Mocking Bird's nest. The Mocking Bird will whoop the Blue Jay's ass every time.

Elrod Sykes:
Ya ever see the lights in the cypress trees at night?

Dave Robicheaux:
That's swamp gas. It'll ignite and all that across the water. It's like ball lightning.

Elrod Sykes:
No sir, that's not what it is. It's these guys that are wounded by the lake. They have lanterns coming from some of the ambulances. A lot of the soldiers had maggots on their wounds. It's the only reason they lived. It's 'cause the maggots ate out the infection.

Dave Robicheaux:
You been drunk a long time, Elrod. Pretty soon all the trees and alligators will be talking to you.

Elrod Sykes:
Yeah... I wasn't drunk. This guy... a General... was standing on a crutch right by the water when he said to me, 'You and your friend, the Law Man, must repel them'.

Dave Robicheaux:
I think you're delusional. You might wanna think about goin' to uh A-A meeting with me one time.

Elrod Sykes:
Maybe I was a little drunk.

Dave Robicheaux:
In the ancient world, people placed heavy stones on the graves of the dead so their souls would not wander and inflict the living. I always thought this was simply the practice of superstitious and primitive people. But I was about to learn that the dead can hover on the edge of our vision with the density and luminosity of mist, and their claim on the earth can be as legitimate and tenacious as our own.

Dave Robicheaux:
Did you know Cherry LeBlanc, a little white girl about nineteen years old?

Old Woman:
She work here, ain't she?

Dave Robicheaux:
You know if she had a boyfriend Tawn?

Old Woman:
If that's what you wanna call it. She in the business.

Dave Robicheaux:
Mr. Prejean involved?

Old Woman:
Ask him.

Dave Robicheaux:
I don't think he was. Otherwise he wouldn't be tellin' me all these things.

Old Woman:
She a sad girl. I told her, 'A pretty white girl like you could have anything you want'. When that girl dress up, she look just like a movie star.

Dave Robicheaux:
Who was her pimp?

Old Woman:
I don't know nothin' else, me. She wasn't about to give the name of some rich white man to a old black woman.

Dave Robicheaux:
What rich white man?

Old Woman:
Some rich white man, maybe, get her out the business of sellin' jellyroll. She said that just before somebody done them awful things to that girl.

Dave Robicheaux:
Lou Girard always called at night. I have picked him out of the gutters from New Orleans to Lake Charles, held him when he had the shakes, and driven him to A-A meetings more times than I can remember. And he had done the same for me.

Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni:
What's goin' on Dave?

Dave Robicheaux:
I'm investigatin' a murder Julie.

Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni:
No kiddin'. Still worried about me Dave?

Dave Robicheaux:
Hell yeah. How many guys would burn down their own father's nightclub with their own father still in it?

Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni:
You gotta forgive me if I get a little upset by these kinds of attitudes Dave. I come home to this sh*t hole. I'm a prominent man in the entertainment business. I talk on the phone, everyday to people in California you read about in Entertainment Weekly. They oughta have 'Welcome Back Balboni' Day. Instead, I get treated like sewer gas by you. You understand what I'm sayin' Dave. It hurts me. Sit down while I take a whiz. Cholo. Where's your hospitality? Get the man a soft drink.

Dave Robicheaux:
Your meter's runnin' Julie. I wanna talk about that murdered girl we found south of town.

Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni:
Which girl is that?

Dave Robicheaux:
Cherry LeBlanc.

Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni:
I guess I ain't heard about it.

Dave Robicheaux:
You don't read the newspapers.

Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni:
I been busy.

Dave Robicheaux:
Uhm hm. I can see that.

Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni:
We used to be friends Dave. I even maybe did you a favor once. I'm gonna line it out for you and for any locals that wanna get the wax out their ears. Louisiana is flat ass broke. New Orleans is a mortuary. The bottom of a toilet's got more appeal than this sh*t hole on the bayou. So they better wake up to the fact that we're droppin' close to 40 million dollars in Iberia Parish. They don't like the name 'Balboni' around here? We'll move the whole f***in' movie over to Mississippi. See how that floats with all those coonass jack-offs in the Chamber of Commerce.

Dave Robicheaux:
You in the movie business now.

Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni:
Yeah. I'm producin' 'White Doves' with Michael Goldman. Whatcha think about that?

Dave Robicheaux:
I'm sure everybody wishes you success, Julie.

Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni:
I'm a do a baseball movie next. You wanna part in it?

Dave Robicheaux:
Mr. Sykes. You've been drivin' drunk and you come to a cop's house to buy more booze. Why don't you hand those keys to Miss Drummond before you hit the road.

Elrod Sykes:
Hehe hehe. Where's that beer at?

Kelly Drummond:
You're a good man.

Dave Robicheaux:
Yaw'll need to be real careful.

Kelly Drummond:
Elrod's a shitbird, but I love him.

Dave Robicheaux:
The worst thing a cop can do to himself is eat his own gun. Lou Girard always called at night. Tonight, someone else had to make the call for him.

Dave Robicheaux:
How would you define the idea of understanding?

Bootsie Robicheaux:
Well it's knowing something, and knowing what it means.

Dave Robicheaux:
I think there's two ways of looking at the idea of understanding. One is if you don't look you never will see. And the other is, if you look a little less you'll understand a hell of a lot more.

Bootsie Robicheaux:
You might not be over those drugs they put in your drink.

Alafair Robicheaux:
[last lines - pausing on Civil War photograph] Dave?

General John Bell Hood:
Venal and evil men are destroying the world you were born in. It's us against them my good friend. Don't compromise your principles or abandon your cause.

Twinky LeMoyne:
Mr. Robicheaux, I cannot express to you how offensive you are.

A desire to live doesn’t mean you lack humanity.

DAVID ROBICHEAUX:
"This jackass is objectifying you Mr. Sykes because he's had very little exposure to the outside world. Don't let it bother you."