I walked up to Robin's apartment, but as I approached her door a middle-aged, overweight man in a rain spotted gray business suit with an American-flag pin in his lapel came toward me, squinting at a small piece of damp paper in his hand. I wanted to think he was a bill collector, a social worker, a process server, but his eyes were too furtive, his face too nervous, his need too obvious. He realised that the apartment number he was looking for was the one I was standing in front of. His face went blank, the way a man's does when he suddenly knows that he's made a commitment for which he has no preparation. I didn't want to be unkind to him.
"She's out of the business, partner," I said.
"Sir?"
"Robin's not available anymore."
"I don't know what you're talking about." His face had grown rounder and more frightened.
"That's her apartment number on that piece of paper, isn't it? You're not a regular, so I suspect somebody sent you here. Who was it?"
He started to walk past me. I put my hand gently on his arm.
"I'm not a policeman. I'm not her husband. I'm just a friend. Who was it, partner?" I said.
"A bartender."
"At Smiling Jack's, on Bourbon?"
"Yes, I think that was it."
"Did you give him money?"
"Yes."
"Don't go back there for it. He won't give it back to you, anyway. Do you understand that?"
"Yes."
I took my hand away from his arm, and he walked quickly down the stairs and out into the rain-swept courtyard.
I looked through the screen door into the gloom of Robin's apartment. A toilet flushed in back, and she walked into the living room in a pair of white shorts and a green Tulane T-shirt and saw me framed against the wet light. The index finger of her left hand was wrapped in a splint. She smiled sleepily at me, and I stepped inside. The thick, drowsy odor of marijuana struck at my face. Smoke curled from a roach clip in an ashtray on the coffee table.
"What's happening, Streak?" she said lazily.
"I just ran off a client, I'm afraid."
"What d'you mean?"
"Jerry sent a John over. I told him you were out of the business. Permanently, Robin. We're moving you to Key West, kiddo."
"This is all too weird. Look, Dave, I'm down to seeds and stems, if you know what I mean. I'm going out to buy some beer. Mommy has to get a little mellow before she bounces her stuff for the cantaloupe lovers. You want to come along?"
"No beer, no more hooking, no Smiling Jack's tonight. I've got you a ticket on a nine o'clock flight to Key West."
"Stop talking crazy, will you? What am I going to do in Key West? It's full of faggots."
"You're going to work in a restaurant owned by a friend of mine. It's a nice place, out on the pier at the end of Duval Street. Famous people eat in there. Tennessee Williams used to come there."
"You mean that country singer? Wow, what a gig."
"I'm going to square what those guys did to you and me," I said. "When I do, you won't be able to stay in New Orleans."
"That's what's wrong with your mouth?"
"They told me what they did to your finger. I'm sorry. It's my fault."
"Forget it. It comes with my stage career." She sat down on the stuffed couch and picked up the roach clip, which now held only smoldering ash. She toyed with it, studied it, then dropped it on top of the glass ashtray. "Don't make them come back. The white guy, the one with the cowboy boots, he had some Polaroid pictures. God, I don't want to remember them."
"Do you know who these guys are?"
"No."
"Did you ever see them before?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes." She squeezed one hand around the fingers of the other. "In the pictures, some colored people were tied up in a basement or something. They had blood all over them. Dave, some of them were still alive. I can't forget what their faces looked like."
I sat down beside her and picked up her hands. Her eyes were wet, and I could smell the marijuana on her breath.
"If you catch that plane tonight, you can start a new life. I'll check on you and my friend will help you, and you'll put all this stuff behind you. How much money do you have?"
"A couple of hundred dollars maybe."
"I'll give you two hundred more. That'll get you to your first paycheck. But no snorting, no dropping, no shooting. You understand that?"
"Hey, is this guy out there one of your AA pals? Because I told you I don't dig that scene."
"Who's asking you to?"
"I got enough troubles without getting my head shrunk by a bunch of ex-drunks."
"Make your own choice. It's your life, kiddo."
"Yeah, but you're always up to something on the side. You should have been a priest. You still go to Mass?"
"Sure."
"You remember the time you took me to midnight Mass at St. Louis Cathedral? Then we walked across the square and had beignets at the Café du Monde. You know, I thought maybe you were serious about me that night."
"I have to ask you a couple of questions before I go."
"Sure, why not? Most men are interested in my jugs. You come around like a census taker."
"I'm serious, Robin. Do you remember a guy named Victor Romero?"
"Yeah, I guess so. He used to hang around with Johnny Dartez."
"Where's he from?"
"Here."
"What do you know about him?"
"He's a little dark-skinned guy with black curls hanging off his head, and he wears a French beret like he's an artist or something. Except he's bad news. He sold some tainted skag down on Magazine, and I heard a couple of kids were dead before they got the spike out of their arms."
"Was he muling for Bubba Rocque, too?"
"I don't know. I don't care. I haven't seen the guy in months. Why do you care about those dipshits? I thought you were the family man now. Maybe things aren't too good at home."
"Maybe."
"And you're the guy that's going to clean up mommy's act so she can wipe off tables for the tourists. Wow."
"Here's the airline ticket and the two hundred dollars. My friend's name is written on the envelope. Do whatever you want."
I started to get up, but she pressed her hands down on my arms. Her breasts were large and heavy against her T-shirt, and I knew secretly that I had the same weakness as the men who watched her every night at Smiling Jack's.
"Dave?"
"What?"
"Do you think about me a little bit sometimes?"
"Yes."
"Do you like me?"
"You know I do."
"I mean the way you'd like an ordinary woman, somebody who didn't have a pharmacy floating around in her bloodstream."
"I like you a lot, Robin."
"Stay just a minute, then. I'll take the plane tonight. I promise."
Then she put her arm across my chest, tucked her head under my chin like a small girl, and pressed herself against me. Her short-cropped, dark hair was soft and smelled of shampoo, and I could feel her breasts swell against me as she breathed. Outside it was raining hard on the courtyard. I brushed her cheek with my fingers and held her hand, then a moment later I felt her shudder as though some terrible tension and fear had left her body with sleep. In the silence I looked out at the rain dancing on the iron grillwork.
The neon lights on Bourbon looked like green and purple smoke in the rain. The Negro street dancers, with their heavy metal clip-on taps that clattered like horseshoes on the sidewalk, were not out tonight, and the few tourists were mostly family people who walked close against the buildings, from one souvenir shop to the next, and did not stop at the open doors of the strip joints where spielers in straw boaters and candy-striped vests were having a hard time bringing in the trade.
I stood against a building on the opposite corner from Smiling Jack's and watched Jerry through the door for a half hour. He wore his fedora and an apron over an open-necked sports shirt that was covered with small whiskey bottles. Against the glow of stage lights on the burlesque stage behind him, the angular profile of his face looked as though it were snipped out of tin.