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"You still don't get it. Look, it's almost biblical. Eventually somebody eats your lunch, and it always comes from a place you didn't expect it. Maybe a redneck cop puts a thumbbuster forty-five behind your ear and lets off a hollow-point that unfastens your whole face. Or maybe they strap you down in the Red Hat House at Angola and turn your brains into fried grits."
"You ought to get a job writing comic books," he said.
"Then maybe you're sitting by your pool, secure, with your prostitutes and these trained monkeys around you, and something happens out of sequence," I said, and picked up his tropical drink full of ice and fruit and poured it into his lap.
He roared back from the table, raking ice off his cream-colored slacks, his face full of outrage and disbelief. The squat, dark man seated across from him started from his chair. Clete slammed him back down.
"Start it and we finish it, Paco," he said.
The dark man remained seated and gripped the wrought-iron arms of his chair, staring at Clete with a face that was as flat and latently brutal as a frying pan.
"There, that's a good fellow," Clete said.
"You get out of here!" Segura said.
"This is just for openers. The homicide people are a creative bunch," I said.
"You're spit on the sidewalk," he said.
"We've got a whole grab bag of door prizes for you, Julio. But in the end I'm going to send you back to the tomato patch," I said.
"I got guys that can cut a piece out of you every day of your life," Segura said.
"That sounds like a threat against a police officer," Clete said.
"I don't play your game, maricón," Segura said. "You're amateurs, losers. Look behind you. You want to shove people around now?"
Two men had parked their canary-yellow Continental at the end of the drive and were walking across the grass toward us. Both of them looked like upgraded bail bondsmen.
"Whiplash Wineburger, up from the depths," Clete said.
"I thought he'd been disbarred for fixing a juror," I said.
"That was his brother. Whiplash is too slick for that," Clete said. "His specialty is insurance fraud and ripping off his own clients."
"Who's the oilcan with him?"
"Some dago legislator that's been peddling his ass around here for years."
"I heard you were wired into some heavy connections. These guys need lead in their shoes on a windy day," I said to Segura.
"Me cago en la puta de tu madre, " he replied.
"You hotdogs got two minutes to get out of here," the lawyer said. He was lean and tan, like an aging professional tennis player, and he wore a beige sports jacket, a yellow open-necked shirt, and brown-tinted glasses.
"We were just on our way. It looks like the neighborhood is going to hell in a hurry," Clete said.
"By the way, Wineburger," I said, "bone up on your tax law. I hear the IRS is about to toss Segura's tax records."
"Yeah? You got a line to the White House?" he said.
"It's all over the Federal Building. You haven't been doing your homework," I said.
We walked back to our car and left Segura and his lawyer staring at each other.
We headed back down the lake road toward the Pontchartrain Expressway. The palm trees were beating along the shore, and small waves were whitecapping out on the lake. Several sailboats were tacking hard in the wind.
"You think we stuck a couple of thumbtacks in his head?" Cletus asked. He drove without looking at me.
