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"He wouldn't sign the complaint. A sheriff's detective took it to the hospital on a clipboard."
"But he identified me?"
"He didn't have to. One of his hookers got your license number. Eddie Keats doesn't like courtrooms. But don't mess with the Lafayette cops anymore. They get provoked when somebody comes into their parish and thinks he can start strumming heads with a pool cue."
"Too bad. They should have rousted him when I got my face kicked in."
"I'm worried about you. You don't hear well."
"I haven't been sleeping a lot lately. Save it for another time, all right?"
"I'm perplexed, too. I know you've been into some heavy-metal shit before, but I didn't figure you for a cowboy. You know, you could have put out that guy's light."
Two fishermen came in and bought a carton of worms and a dozen bottles of beer for their ice chest. I rang up their money on my old brass cash register and watched them walk out into the bright sunlight.
"Let's take a ride," I said.
I left Batist in charge of the shop, and Minos and I rode down the dirt lane in my pickup. The sunlight seemed to click through the thick green leaves overhead.
"I called you up for a specific reason this morning," I said. "If you don't like the way I do things, I'm sorry. You're not in the hotbox, partner. I didn't invite any of this bullshit into my life, but I got it just the same. So I don't think it's too cool when you start making your observations in the middle of my shop, in front of my help and my customers."
"Okay. You've got your point."
"I never busted up a guy like that before. I don't feel good about it."
"It's always dumb to play on the wiseguys' terms. But if you needed to scramble somebody's eggs, Keats was a fine selection. But believe it or not, we have a couple of things in his file that are even worse. The kid of a federal witness disappeared a year ago. We found him in a—"
"Then why don't you put the fucker away?"
He didn't answer. He turned the wind vane in his face and looked out at the Negro families fishing in the shade of the cypress trees.
"Is he feeding you guys?" I said.
"We don't use hit men as informants."
"Don't jerk me around, Minos. You use whatever works."
"Not hit men. Never. Not in my office." He turned and looked me directly in the face. There was color in his cheeks.
"Then give him a priority and weld the door shut on him."
"You think you're twisting in the wind while we play pocket pool. But maybe we're doing things you don't know about. Look, we never go for just one guy. You know that. We throw a net over a whole bunch of these shitheads at once. That's the only way we get them to testify against each other. Try learning some patience."
"You want Bubba Rocque. You've got a file on everybody around him. In the meantime his clowns are running loose with baseball bats."
"I think you're unteachable. Why did you call me up, anyway?"
"About Immigration."
"I didn't eat breakfast this morning. Stop up here somewhere."
"You know this guy Monroe that was sniffing around New Iberia?"
"Yeah, I know him. Are you worried about the little girl you have in your house?"
I looked at him.
"You have a way of constantly earning our attention," he said. "Stop there. I'm really hungry. You can pay for it, too. I left my wallet on the dresser this morning."
