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"I always heard he was a prick," Cardo said.
"Well, some people had that opinion, too," Clete said.
"You're not drinking anything, Dave?"
"No thanks. Can we talk some business, Tony?"
"Put on some swimsuits. Let's take a dip," he said.
"It's a little cool, isn't it?" I said.
"I keep the water at eighty-two degrees. You'll love it. There're some suits over there in the cottage," he insisted.
He went into his own house to change, and Clete and I walked across the lawn to a small white stucco cottage that was surrounded with palm and banana trees.
"He's one slick motherfucker. You won't get a wire into this place, partner," Clete said.
Inside the cottage we found a cardboard box full of men's and women's bathing suits on top of the bar. Clete started rooting through them and found only one pair that wasn't too small for him, an enormous pair of red boxer trunks with a white elastic band.
"I bet these belong to that blimp who runs the T-shirt shop," he said. He looked at my face. "It's not funny, Dave. These guys pass around VD like a family heirloom." He went into the bedroom, found a safety pin in a drawer, and began undressing by the bar.
"He really put you under the microscope," I said.
"They're all the same, mon. They love to peel back your skin."
"What do you think all that Marine Corps stuff is about?"
"Who cares? Figuring out the greaseballs is like putting your hand in an unflushed toilet."
I laid my clothes across the back of a couch and slipped on a pair of trunks. Clete poured a glass of Jack Daniel's at the bar and looked at my chest.
"That's where Boggs popped you, huh?" he said. "Does it give you much trouble?"
"I'm still weak on the left side. Sometimes it throbs a little in the morning."
"What else?"
"What do you mean 'what else'?"
"Don't try to put on your old partner. You remember when that kid planted a couple of .22 rounds in me? I had the nightly sweats for a long time, mon."
"It comes and goes."
"Like hell it does." Then he took a drink and smiled at me. His face looked as big and hard-ribbed as a grinning pumpkin under his porkpie hat. "But don't worry. Before this is over, we're going to cook Jimmie Lee Boggs's hash, I mean sling some serious shit on the walls. You wait and see, ole Streak."
He winked at me and walked duck-footed to the door, with his drink in his hand, his red trunks askew on his hips, lighting a cigarette.
"You think he's got any broads around?" he said.
I took the copy of the Atlantic out of my coat pocket and followed him to the pool.
Tony Cardo hit the water in a long, flat dive and swam with deep strokes to the diving board, blowing water out his nose, then made an underwater turn and pushed off the tiled side and swam into the shallow end. He raked the water out of his eyes and curly hair and spit into the trough that surrounded the pool.
"That's a nasty scar on your chest, Dave," he said.
"A nasty guy put it there."
"Yeah, I heard about that."
