"Oh, nothing, really. Clete's having some money problems. He gets a little strung out sometimes. I guess I'd better go see him. Would it bother you if I came in late?"
"No, here's the house key. Just tell the guys at the gate you'll be back late so they won't think it's somebody else, you know what I mean?"
"I'll be quiet coming in."
"Sure, don't worry about it. Somebody's squeezing your friend?"
"A little problem with the vigorish."
"Tell him to come see me about it. Maybe I can work it out."
"That's good of you, Tony."
It took me a half hour to drive to the bar on Decatur. Clete was waiting for me under the colonnade. It had started to mist, and he wore a brown raincoat over his sports jacket. I pulled to the curb, and he jumped in the truck. He read me the address in Metairie off a folded piece of paper, and I headed out of the Quarter toward Interstate 10.
"Who beat her up?" I said.
"She wouldn't say."
"Why didn't she want Tony to know about it?"
"I didn't ask her. Dave, are you making it with her?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"I told you no."
"You didn't have just one flop in the hay with her?"
"You heard what I said, Clete."
"Yeah, well, usually broads like that get remodeled after they let the wrong guy in the bread box. She called for you, not Cardo. What should I conclude on that, Streak? Or am I just full of shit?"
"I didn't talk to her. I don't know what happened. And you're pissing me off."
We were silent in the cab of the truck. It started to rain harder, and I turned on the windshield wipers.
"I'm just trying to help, believe it or not," he said.
"I know that, Clete."
"I'm backing your play, and I don't care if I get paid for it or not."
"What do you mean?" I looked over at him. Rainy patterns of light ran down his face.
"I didn't get any bucks from the DEA this week. I called Dautrieve, and he said I was terminated."
"Are you kidding?"
"Wait a minute, don't get heated up. He said some other guys made the decision. He didn't have any control over it."
"He should have told me."
"Maybe he didn't have a chance to. Fuck it. Look, there's our exit up there. Welcome to Metairie, the only town in the United States to elect a Ku Klux Klansman and American Nazi as its state representative. What a depressing shithole. This place makes you think maybe the white race ought to be picking the cotton."
"I've got to have a talk with Minos."
"Talk all you want to. When you deal with the feds, you're dealing with people whose thought patterns are printed on computer chips. Besides, they all smell like mouthwash. Did you ever trust a guy who smells like mouthwash?"
She opened the apartment door on the night chain. She had on a short-sleeved terry cloth robe. Her right eye was a purple knot, and there was still a crust of dried blood in one nostril. She slipped the chain loose and opened the door wide. Her arms were streaked with yellow and purple bruises, the kind that a man's clenched hand leaves. I could smell the Mentholatum that she had smeared on her skin. She closed the door and locked it again as soon as we were inside.
"I thought maybe you wouldn't come," she said.
"Why?" I said.
"I don't know, it was just what I thought." She talked carefully, as though the inside of her mouth were hurt. "There's some beer and pop in the refrigerator if you want some."
"Who did it, Kim?" I said.
"Jimmie Lee Boggs."
"When?"
"This morning. Just after I got up. I opened the door to get the newspaper and he hit me in the face and knocked me back inside the room. I never had anybody hit me like that. I didn't believe anyone could hit that hard."
I could hear the humiliation in her voice, see the shame in her face. I had seen the same look of debasement in victims of violence many times, and it was almost impossible to convince them that they were not deserving of their fate. I could feel Clete's awkwardness next to me.
"I think I'll take that beer," he said, walking to the refrigerator. "Then I'll just step out here on the balcony and have a cigarette."
He slid open the glass doors that gave onto a small balcony with a barbecue grill on it, then closed them behind him and looked out over a lighted, weed-filled lake that was dented with rain.
She sat on the couch with her hands in her lap and her head bowed.
"Why didn't you think I'd come?" I asked again.
"Because you know I'm a snitch."
"What else?"
Her eyes were averted. She looked small sitting on the couch. I sat down next to her. She turned her face up, then looked away again.
"What else, Kim?"
"Because you know I betrayed you. I told Lieutenant Baxter about the buy down at Cocodrie. That's why Jimmie Lee Boggs came after me. He said he figured it was either you or me who dropped the dime on him. He beat me all over the apartment. Then he twisted a towel in my mouth and filled up the sink and held my head under the water until I almost passed out. He kept saying, 'Gargle time, beautiful. Rinse out your mouth, now. Think about the canary I'm gonna stuff in it.' He would have killed me if the landlady hadn't started banging on the door for the rent."
She glanced sideways at my face.
"Why were you snitching for Nate Baxter?"
"My brother's a groom at the Fairgrounds. Lieutenant Baxter has him in jail for possession. He says he can upgrade the charge to conspiracy to distribute, and Albert-that's my brother-will get fifteen years in Angola."
"Baxter put you inside Tony's crowd?"
"I already had the job at the club. All I had to do was become available."
"Available?" I said.
"I said to Baxter, 'What do you mean, exactly?' He says, 'You've got a piece of equipment that'll get you anything you want.' He looks across his desk, then he goes. "That's big-picture clear, isn't it? Talk it over with your brother. Let me know what you decide. It doesn't matter to me, hon, one way or another.'"
"You should have reported him, Kim."
"Great. I work in a skin joint run by the Mafia, my brother's a druggie in custody, and I'm going to report a Vice lieutenant? Look, it doesn't matter what he said. I did what he wanted. I told him everything Tony was doing, I told him about you, I'm to blame for what happened down at Cocodrie."
"You tried to warn me. Give yourself a little credit."
"Are you going to tell Tony?"
"No. But as of tonight you're out of the life, Kim. You don't go back to that job, or back to your apartment, or out to Tony's. I also advise you to stay away from Nate Baxter. He's a liar and a coward and a bully. Also, he doesn't have the power to upgrade your brother's charges. That comes out of the prosecutor's office. Believe me, your brother will be better off taking his own chances."
She took a Kleenex out of her robe and touched one nostril with it. Her face had no makeup on it, and it looked shiny and white where it wasn't bruised.
"I don't know what to do," she said. "I only have a little money. I have to have a job."
"Somebody's going to take care of you. I guarantee it."
She put the Kleenex away and played with her fingernails.
"I have to ask you something," she said.
"Yes?"
"It's not a very appropriate question, I guess, but there's no chance, is there? Not now."
"Of what?" I said, although I already knew the answer.
"What I mean is, it's like when people do something to one another, or maybe to themselves, something shameful, it kills what might have been between them, doesn't it?"
"I don't know, Kim."
"Yes, you do. It's why my brother Albert is the way he is. Years ago he had a wife and a little girl. Then one night he got drunk at a party and slept with another woman. So he had all this Catholic guilt about what he'd done, and rather than blow it off, he got his wife drunk and talked her into getting into the sack with another guy. All he got out of it was the knowledge that he couldn't love himself anymore, and so he doesn't think anybody else can, either."