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"Yeah. You got connections with Jesse Jackson?"
"Save the hard-guy routine for another day, Jerry. Do you want out of here?"
"What do you think?"
"You robbed the mails, which is a federal offense. They'll file against you eventually, but I know somebody who can probably hurry it up. We'll get you into federal custody, and you can forget this place."
"When?"
"Maybe this week. In the meantime I'll call the FBI in Shreveport and tell them there's a serious civil rights violation going on here. That ought to get you into isolation until you're transferred to federal custody."
"What do you want?"
"Victor Romero."
"I told you everything I know about the guy. You got a fucking obsession, man."
"I need a name, Jerry. Somebody who can turn him."
"I ain't got any. I'm telling you the truth. I got no reason to cover for this cat."
"I believe that. But you're plugged into a lot of people. You're a knowledgeable man. You sell information. If you remember, you sold me and Robin for a hundred dollars."
His eyes looked out the barred window at the shade trees on the lawn. He brushed at the dried blood in his nostril with one knuckle.
"I'm floating round on an ice cube that's melting in a toilet," he said. "What can I tell you? I got nothing to deal with. You wasted your drive up here. Why don't you get those vice cops to help you? They think they know everything."
"They have the same problem I do. A guy with no family and no girlfriend is hard to find."
"Wait a minute. What do you mean no family?"
"That's the information at the First District."
I saw a confident mean light come back into his eyes.
"That's why they don't never catch anybody. He's got a first cousin. I don't know the cat's name, but Romero brought him into the bar six or seven years ago. The guy pulled a scam that everybody in the Quarter was laughing about. Some guys robbed Maison Blanche of about ten thousand dollars in Bottany 500 suits. Of course, there's a big write-up about it in the Picayune. So Romero's cousin gets ahold of a bunch of these Hong Kong specials, you know, these twenty-buck suits that turn into lint and threads the first time you dry-clean them. He stops business guys up and down Canal and says, 'I got a nice suit for you. A hundred bucks. No labels. Know what I mean?' I heard he made two or three grand off these stupid shits. After they found out they got burned, they couldn't do anything about it, either."
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know. I only saw him once or twice. He's the kind of guy that only makes a move once in a while. I think he ran a laundry or something."
"A laundry? Where?"
"In New Orleans."
"Come on, where in New Orleans?"
"I don't know, man. What the fuck I care about a laundry?"
"And you're sure you don't know this guy's name?"
"Hell, no. I told you, it was a long time ago. I been straight with you. You gonna deliver or not?"
"Okay, Jerry. I'll make some phone calls. In the meantime, you try to remember this laundry man's name."
"Yeah, yeah. Y'all always got to go one inch deeper in a guy's hole, don't you?"
I walked to the iron door and rattled it against the jamb for the deputy to let me out.
