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"Go ahead."
"No, come down to your buddy's place. I'll buy you a drink."
"What is it you want to tell me?"
"What's the matter, your social calendar all full?"
"No, I just—"
"Then come on over, hotshot."
"I'm not up to nicknames today. My name is Dave. To tell you the truth, Kim, you sound like you got started a little early today."
"Then buy me a cup of coffee. You have that paternal quality. Are you coming or not?"
Ten minutes later I was at Clete's Club. Clete and his black helper were filling the beer coolers, and she was at the far end of the bar. She wore black stockings, a denim skirt, and a sleeveless orange sweater, and she had had her hair cut so that it was short and thick on her pale neck.
"I want to tell you something before you leave," Clete said to me as I passed him.
"What is it?"
"Later, noble mon."
I sat on the stool next to Kim. She had a gin gimlet wrapped in a napkin in front of her.
"You want one?" she asked.
"No, thanks."
"You don't go to a whorehouse to play the jukebox, do you?"
"I joined the Dr Pepper crowd a few years ago."
"Too much. You want to be in the candy business, but you don't touch the juice?"
"How about holding it down?"
"You sure you're not just a big put-on?"
"What do you mean?"
"I think somebody shook up your puzzle box, that's what I mean."
"How about I buy you some gumbo?"
"I think you're weird. Do people in the bayou country grow up weird and thin
k they can make big money in the city dealing with somebody like Ray Fontenot? Are you that dumb?"
"What is it you want to tell me, Kim?"
"I don't know what I want to tell you." She looked away into space. The green and purple neon tubing on the bar mirror glowed on her face. "You don't listen to people. Back there where you come from, don't you have something better going than this stuff in New Orleans? You want to risk it for a score with a bunch of dipshits who wouldn't take a leak on you if you were burning?"
"Why all this concern for me?"
"Because you didn't try to put moves on me. Because there're things about you that are nice. Also, because I think you're a fish."
"I look like a fish?"
