The peppery, boiling water roiled under a long table, burning the feet of a dredge-boat crew from Texas, and the staccato pop of their curses filled the dance hall. Two of them leapt over a table and grabbed the old dancer who had caused the flood, then sailed him through the air like a paper plane. Paul watched him land facedown in a forest of long-neck bottles. The cook cried out as two men in cowboy hats turned him upside down into the still-smoking can, and then the Tiger Island friends of the old dancer arrived, throwing punches. Etienne the giant pushed open the swinging doors to the dance hall and smiled at a little red-faced Texan pulling off his shoes and hobbling toward him.
“That a new step?” Etienne asked.
The Texan threw down a brogan. “Get the fuck out my way, nutria face.”
Etienne knocked him over with a backhanded swat and stepped on his groin. “Mange la merde et meurs, Texas.”
The band began to play a two-step. Paul remembered Colette and slid along the wall toward the swinging doors. One of the dredge-boat crew ran up to him and swung wildly over Paul’s ducked head. Paul grabbed his shiny shirt and tore it open, pearl buttons spraying into the room. The man glanced down at his chest, and without looking up, he landed a punch in Paul’s belly. In reflex, Paul hit back with an uppercut, splitting the man’s lip. Two fighters fell against Paul, flinging him through the doors and onto the floor of the restaurant, where three Partians had shoved a Rockola jukebox at the Larousse twins, pinning them against the plywood wall.
“Paul,” Victor pleaded. “Kick one of these guys in the nuts.” But he got up and went for Colette instead, who was standing by the door, clutching her handbag, hiding behind Clarisse. He was about to touch her, feeling that if he could, her soft skin would work a charm and transport him out of the fire of the brawl, but as he reached out, a tall deckhand pulled him around by an arm and let him have a fist on the cheek, solid as a brickbat, and he went down hard on his back. He saw a dark pair of cowboy boots leap over him toward the thunder coming from the dance floor, and he lay flat, feeling the bones of his spine burn against the planks. He was smarting and angry. Picking up his head, he saw Colette holding open the front door, gesturing. A beer mug crashed next to his shoulder. Victor called out for his help. Ah, Colette, just a second, he thought.
He jumped up, saw the Larousses turning white behind the jukebox, four beefy men pushing on it like tugboats. The heavy electrical cord had been torn off in the fight, and he picked it up, looping it once around the neck of the biggest Partian, putting a knee in his back and reining him like a stubborn horse. He fell over backward and the Larousse boys wriggled free, the tattooed women on their forearms jiggling alive as they hammered at the other men. Etienne the giant blew through the swinging doors like a cannonball with four men on him, and Paul charged toward Colette, pulling her and Clarisse outside, where they bolted for his truck, jumping in and spinning out of the lot, spraying clamshells over a little man chasing them with an upraised fist. A mile down the levee road, they met three sheriff’s cruisers lolling along through the dust, their flashers off, taking their time.