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"Maybe it's time to get away from your in-laws."
"When you sell to the Giacanos, it's twenty cents on the dollar, Dave. Nobody else is lining up to buy into their business, either."
"Get away from them, Bootsie."
Her eyes glanced into mine. There was a curious bead of light in them.
"I don't understand this," she said.
"What?"
"You're telling me to get away from them. Then I'm hearing this strange story about you."
I looked away from her.
"You hear a lot of bullshit in the streets," I said.
"This is from my in-laws, Dave. They work for Tony Cardo."
I didn't answer and tried to grin good-naturedly. Her eyes peeled the skin off my face.
"They say you're dirty. Don't they have a wonderful vocabulary?" she said.
I pushed at a piece of piecrust on my plate with my fork.
"They say you want to deal," she said.
"You have to make up your own mind about people."
"I know you, Dave Robicheaux. I don't care what you've done in your life, this stuff isn't you."
"Then ignore what they say, Bootsie, and stay out of it."
"I'm worried about you. I work with these people. You can't believe how they think, what they're capable of doing."
"Oh yes I can."
"Then what are you doing?"
"Be my friend on this. Don't mix in it, and don't worry too much about what you hear."
Her face was lighted with the late sun's glow over the garden wall. She raised her chin slightly, the way she always did when she was angry.
"Dave, you left me. Do you think you should be telling me what to do now?"
"I guess not."
"I survive among these animals because I have to. It isn't fun. I'm on my own, and that isn't fun, either. But I handle it."
"I guess you do."
"Why didn't you marry me?" she said. Her eyes were hot and bright.
"You'd have married a drunk. It wouldn't have been a good life, believe me."
"You don't know that. You don't know that at all."
"Yes, I do. I became a full-blown lush. I tried to kill my first wife's lover at a lawn party out by Lake Pontchartrain."
