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He gave me directions to a neighborhood out by Lake Pontchartrain.
"How'd you get this number?" he asked.
"It came from Ray."
"That's strange. Ray usually doesn't give it out."
The receiver was quiet a moment.
"You haven't been bouncing my help around, have you?" he said; then he laughed. "Don't worry about it. Ray needs a little excitement. Cleans the fat out of his veins. You didn't hurt him, though, did you?"
"I didn't do anything to him. I'd like to bring along a friend of mine. He's going into business with me."
"That's fine with me. We'll be expecting you. Say, you know that newsstand a few doors down from you? Pick me up a copy of the Atlantic, will you? My subscription didn't come."
"Sure thing, Mr. Cardo."
"Hey, it's Tony or Tony C. or Tony some-other-things, but nobody calls me Mr. Cardo. Do I sound like a Mr. Cardo to you?"
"I'm looking forward to it. We'll see you in an hour," I said.
I hung up the phone and looked at Clete at the bar.
"The Atlantic?" I said.
"What?"
"This guy's a beaut."
His home was a short distance from the lake. The immense, sloping lawn was shaded by live oaks, and the one-story house was long and white with a wide marble porch, a three-car garage, and a gingerbread gazebo in a side yard that was planted with blooming citrus trees and camellias. The swimming pool had a colonnade built onto one side, like a Roman porch, and behind the pool was a screened-in clay tennis court, and I could see a trim, suntanned man in white shorts and a polo shirt whocking balls back at a machine that fired them automatically over the net.
"The mustaches know how to live, don't they?" Clete said, his tie askew, one arm back on the seat, flipping ashes out the window of the truck.
"Play it cool on the remarks."
"Ease up. There're only two rules when you deal with these guys: Don't mess with their broads and don't steal from them. These guys just aren't that complicated. What would a guy like Tony Cardo do if he couldn't deal dope? He'd probably be running a fruit stand. You think a greaseball like that could honestly earn a joint like this?"
"I'll do most of the talking today, all right, Clete?"
"You've got a lot of anxiety over nothing, mon. But it's your gig. What do I know?" He flipped his cigarette in an arc into a flower bed.
A Negro man in a white jacket and black pants walked out the side door of the house and stood on the edge of the drive while we got out of the truck.
"Mr. Cardo want y'all come out by the pool," he said. "He be with y'all in a minute." He couldn't keep his eyes from glancing sideways at the truck.
"You like it? Dave might part with it for the right price," Clete said.
"Mr. Cardo ax you gentlemens if you want a drink," the Negro said.
"Give me a double Black Jack on ice," Clete said. "What do you want, Dave?"
"Nothing."
"You got a bathroom?" Clete said to the Negro.
"Yes suh, follow me inside."
I sat in a beach chair under the colonnade by the side of the pool. The bottom of the pool was inset with a mosaic mermaid that glittered with chips of light. The suntanned man on the court was hitting the ball with his back to me, but I felt that he was aware I was watching him through the myrtle trees that grew along the screens. He stayed on the balls of his feet, the muscles in his brown calves and thighs taut and glazed with perspiration, his forehand shot a white blur across the net.
