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"Why am I late to work this morning?" I sat down at the table with him.
"One of those shells you picked up had a beautiful thumbprint on it. Guess who New Orleans P.D. matched it with?"
"You tell me, Minos."
"Victor Romero is shooting at you, podna. I'm surprised he didn't get you, too. He was a sniper in Vietnam. I hear you shot the shit out of his car."
"How do you know New Orleans matched his print? I haven't even heard that."
"We had a claim on him a long time before you did. The city coordinates with us anytime his name pops up."
"I want you to tell me something, with no bullshit. Do you think the government can be involved in this?"
"Be serious."
"You want me to say it again?"
"You're a good cop. Don't fall for those conspiracy fantasies. They're out of style," he said.
"I went down to Immigration in New Orleans. That fellow Monroe is having some problems with personal guilt."
"What did he tell you?" His eyes were looking at me with new interest.
"He's one of those guys who wants to feel better. I didn't let him."
"You mean you actually think somebody in the government, the INS, wants you hit?"
"I don't know. But no matter how you cut it, right now they've got shit on their noses."
"Look, the government doesn't knock off its own citizens. You're sidetracking into a lot of claptrap that's not going to lead you anywhere."
"Yeah? Try this. What kind of Americans do you think the government uses down in Central America? Boy Scouts? Guys like yourself?"
"That's not here."
"Victor Romero sure is."
He let out his breath.
"All right, maybe we can stick it to them," he said.
"When's the last time you heard of the feds dropping the dime on each other? You're a laugh a minute, Minos. Finish your cereal."
"Always the PR man," he said.
That afternoon the street was filled with hot sunshine when Cecil Aguillard and I parked our car in front of the poolroom on Main in New Iberia. Some college boys from Lafayette had pried the rubber machine off the wall of the men's room and had taken it out the back door.
"They ain't got rubbers in Lafayette? Why they got to steal mine?" said Tee Neg, the owner. He stood behind the bar, pointing his hand with the three missing fingers at me. The wood-bladed fans turned overhead, and I could smell bo
udin and gumbo in the kitchen. Several elderly men were drinking draft beer and playing bourée at the felt tables in back. "They teach them that in col'ech? What I'm gonna do a man come in here for his rubber?"
"Tell them to take up celibacy," I said.
Tee Neg's mouth was round with surprise and insult.
"Mais I don't talk that, me. What's the matter you say something like that to Tee Neg? I think you gone crazy, Dave."
I walked out of the coolness of the poolroom into the hot sunlight to find Cecil, who had gone next door to get a description of the college boys' car. Just then a cream-colored Oldsmobile with tinted windows pulled out of the traffic. The driver didn't try to park; he simply stopped the car at an angle to the curb, dropped the transmission into neutral, flung open the door, and stepped onto the street with the engine still running. His hair was brushed with butch wax, his skin tanned as dark as a quadroon's. He wore expensive gray slacks, loafers with tassels, a pink polo shirt; but his narrow hips, wide shoulders, and boilerplate stomach made his clothes look like an unnecessary accident on his body. The wide-set, gray-blue eyes were round and staring and showed no expression, but the skin of his face was stretched so tight there were nests of fine white lines below his temples.
