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"I wouldn't have it any other way, good sir." He took off his sunglasses and smiled. His eyes were flat and dead and looked as if they belonged in another face.
I used the telephone in Fontenot's office. I could hear him blowing into his trombone.
"Hey, good morning. How you doing today?" Tony Cardo said.
"I'm fine."
"Sure?"
"I'm just fine, Tony."
"You don't have a hard-on about last night?"
"You've got your own point of view about things. I don't want to intrude upon it."
"I got strong emotions. About family stuff. I get a little weird sometimes. You got to bear with me."
"I respect your feelings, Tony."
"You don't rattle, do you?"
"Morning and night, podna. I've got a problem here. Ray doesn't want my friend along on the tarpon trip."
"That's too bad."
"I think my friend should be able to go."
"I can't interfere, Dave. It's Ray's call."
"He's got his nose bent out of joint over a personal affront. It's not the way a pro does things."
"Indulge the man."
"He's a fat shit, Tony."
"Hey, catch a big fish for me. And I want you out to dinner this weekend. Bring your buddy, too. I like him."
He hung up the phone. Ray Fontenot stood in the doorway to the courtyard, his eyes filled with merriment, his tongue thick and pink on his teeth.
At noon I went to Clete's to pick him up for lunch. We drove in his car to a Fat Albert's off St. Charles and ordered paper plates of red beans and dirty rice with lengths of sausage. It was warm enough to eat outside, and we sat at a green-painted picnic table under a live oak whose roots had lifted up the slabs of sidewalk and cracked the edge of the parking lot. Out on St. Charles I saw the old iron streetcar rattle past the palm trees on the esplanade.
I told Clete about my conversation that morning with Fontenot. He chewed quietly without speaking, his green eyes thoughtful. I waited for him to say something. He didn't.
"Anyway, he says you're out, and Cardo backed him up."
He wiped the juice from his sausage off his mouth with a paper napkin, then sucked on the corner of his lip.
"I'd be careful," he said.
"What are you thinking?"
"He's up to something."
"I think he just doesn't like you. What did you do to him to get Cardo's phone number?"
"Nothing."
"Clete?"
