"Sir, this lady is making a request," the bartender said.
He wore a long-sleeved white shirt and a black bow tie, and his hair was blond and oiled.
"Yeah, I heard her, podna. I don't know where else I should go, though."
"Would you tell him to get the fuck out of the bar?" she said.
"Miss, please don't use that language."
"I ordered a drink. I didn't ask to have a dildo sit next to me while I drank it. Tell him to get out."
"Miss, please."
"What does it take to get through to you?" she said.
Other people had stopped eating and drinking and were looking at us.
"Sir, would you mind-," the bartender said.
"No, I don't mind," I said. "Where should I go?"
"Try Bumfuck, Kansas," she said.
"Miss, I'll have to ask you to leave, too."
"Is that right?" she said. "Would you page Mr. Cardo out on the golf course and tell him that? I would appreciate it if you would tell him that."
"You're Mr. Cardo's guest?" the bartender said. His face was bloodless.
"Don't sweat it, partner. We're leaving," I said.
"Is that what we're doing? Is that what you think we're doing? I don't think we're doing that at all," she said, and shattered her highball glass on the liquor bottles behind the bar.
The bar area and dining room were silent. Her gray pillbox hat was askew on top of her forehead, and a lock of her red hair hung down in one eye. The bartender stood on the duckboards and stared wide-eyed at Jess, who had just thrust open the outer glass doors to the bar, the putter still in his hand, his face pushed out of shape like white rubber.
We were driving away from the lakefront, on Orleans Avenue, past City Park. Tony had the window down and was turned in his seat, looking back at me and Kim, and his black and gray hair blew like tiny springs in the wind.
"What were you guys doing?" he said. He tried to hold a grin on his face.
"I was trying to have a drink," Kim said.
"Some fucking way to get the bartender's attention," Jess said.
"I'm sorry about that back there," I said to Tony.
"I can't believe it, eighty-sixed out of my own club," he said. "You know what it took for me to get a membership in that place?"
"You want me to go back and talk with somebody about it later?" Jess said.
"What's the matter with you? It's a country club. You can't come crashing into the bar with a golf club in your hand," Tony said.
"I thought they were in trouble," Jess said.
"So you had to knock a waiter down?"
"I didn't see him. What the fuck, Tony. Why you reaming me? I didn't start that stuff."
"I think you ought to consider who you invite out to lunch," Kim said.
"I think I ought to get a new life. Am I the only person that's sane in this car?" Tony said.
"It's my fault. I'm sorry about it," I said.
"How gallant," Kim said.
"All right, all right. I'll try to square it. It's just a club, anyway, right? Jesus Christ," Tony said, and blew out his breath.
We could see golfers out on the fairways in City Park and children on horseback beyond a grove of oak trees. Jess looked in the rearview mirror and changed lanes. Then he looked in the rearview mirror again, accelerated, and passed two cars. I saw his eyes go back into the mirror.
"We've got some guys behind us," he said.
"What guys?" Tony said.
"Two guys in a Plymouth. Behind the limo."
"Can you make 'em?" Tony said.
"No."
"They look like talent?"
"I don't know. What d'you want to do, Tony?"
"Pull into the park and stop."
"You want to do that?" Jess said, looking sideways at him.
"They'll cut and run. Watch. Come on, the day's starting to improve."
"Bad place if it goes down, Tony. Everybody gets pissed when it goes down in a public place," Jess said.
"Hey, is it our fault? Now, turn in here. Let's have some fun with these guys."
Kim was looking backward out the window. Tony reached over the seat and touched her on the knee, then winked at her and grinned.
"Tony, I don't need this shit," she said.
"Will you guys mellow out? Why is everybody trying to drive me nuts today?" he said. Then he slapped open the glove box and took out a chrome-plated.45 automatic.
The white limo followed us into the park. We drove along the side of a grassy lake and stopped under a spreading oak tree. The dry leaves under it blew in the wind and clicked and tumbled across the grass. Jess reached under the seat and took out a double-barrel.410 shotgun pistol wrapped inside a paper bag. He rolled down his window and held the shotgun pistol below the level of the window jamb.
When the Plymouth turned in after us, Tony put the.45 in his right-hand coat pocket and stepped out on the cement, smiling across the top of the car as though he were welcoming guests.
"What a day," Kim said.
"Hey, give it a break," Jess said, without turning his head.
The Plymouth followed along the grassy lake, passed the limo, and stopped abreast of us. The man in the passenger's seat hung his badge out the window, then stepped out in the sunlight.
Nate Baxter had changed little since I had last seen him. He still wore two-tone shoes and sports clothes, but as his styled blond hair had receded he had grown a narrow line of reddish beard along his jawbones and chin. He had worked for CID in the army, and as an investigator for Internal Affairs in the New Orleans Police Department he had combined a love of military stupidity with a talent for dismembering the wounded and the vulnerable.
Jess looked straight ahead, lowered the shotgun pistol between his legs, and pushed it back under the seat.
"Put your hands on top of the car, Tony," Baxter said.
"You're kidding?" Tony said.
"You see me smiling?" Baxter said.
"I don't think this is cool, Lieutenant," Tony said, his hands now resting casually on the waxed maroon hood of the Lincoln. "We've been out for some golf. We're not looking to complicate anybody's day."
"Go tell that limo full of meatballs to get out of here," Baxter said to his partner, who was now standing behind him. Then he turned back toward Jess and said, "Get out of the car, Ornella."
"Why the roust, Lieutenant?" Tony said.
"Close your mouth, Tony. Did you hear what I said, Ornella?"
Jess got out of the car with his palms turned outward, his brow furrowed above his close-set eyes. He set his hands on the convertible roof.
The white limo made a U-turn behind us and drove slowly out of the park, its black-tinted windows hot with sunlight. Baxter's partner came back and stood next to him. He was a muscular, crew-cut man, with a grained, red complexion, who wore shades and a pale blond mustache. Like Baxter, he carried a revolver under his tweed sports jacket in a clip-on belt holster. But in his face, even with his shades on, I could see a question mark about what Baxter was doing.
"Shake them down," Baxter said.
"Come on, Lieutenant, give it a rest. This is bullshit," Tony said.
"I look like bullshit to you?" Baxter said.
"We don't make trouble for you guys. It's a chickenshit roust. You know it is."
Baxter nodded impatiently to his partner.
"I got a piece in my coat pocket. You want the sonofabitch, take it. What the fuck's with you, Baxter?" Tony said.
"Easy, Tony. We don't have a big problem here," Baxter's partner said, his hands gentle on Tony's back and sides. "No, no, look straight ahead. Come on, man, you're a pro."
Then, like a dentist who had just pulled a tooth, he held up Tony's chrome-plated automatic in the sunlight.
"I got a permit for it," Tony said.
"You want to produce it?" Baxter said.
"It's at home. But I got one. You know I got one."
"Good. Your lawyer can bring it down to your arraignment," Baxter said.
His partner pulled Tony's arms behind him, cuffed his wrists, and sat him down on the curb. Then he ran his hands down Jess's sides, back, stomach, and legs. He rose up and shook his head at Baxter.
"Under the seat," Baxter said.