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“I don’t know if your father is anxious to see me again.”
“Come on, Dave, he operates on about three brain cells, poor old guy. Have a little compassion.”
“That’s the second time this week somebody has said that to me about the wrong person.”
“What?”
“Never mind. I’ll ask Boots and Batist and get back to you. Thanks for the invitation, Lyle.”
I drove home, and Bootsie and I fixed a pitcher of iced tea and poor-boy sandwiches of shrimp and fried oysters and took them out on the redwood picnic table under the mimosa tree.
“You sure you don’t mind going?” I said.
“No. Why should I mind?”
“Their father may be there. He’s terribly disfigured, Boots.”
She smiled. The wind in the mimosa tree made drifting, lacy patterns of shadow on her skin.
“What you mean is, Drew will be there,” she said.
“Well, she will be.”
“I think I can survive the knowledge of your college romances, Dave.” Her brown eyes crinkled at the corners.
I was late getting back to the department. When I walked through my office door the sheriff was sitting in my chair, one of his half-topped boots propped on the corner of my desk. A videotape cassette rested on his belt buckle. He looked at his watch, then his eyes glanced at my damp hair and shirt.
“You look like you just got out of the shower,” he said.
“I did.”
“You go home to take a shower in the middle of the day?”
“I had to change a tire.”
“I’ll be,” he said, clicking his nails on the plastic cassette case.
“What’s up, sheriff?”
“An FBI agent dropped this tape by about an hour ago. It was shot last night in front of a home that’s under surveillance out by Lake Pontchartrain. The home is owned by one of the Giacanos, the head greaseballs in New Orleans.”
“Yeah?”
“They had a big party there last night. The Vitalis crowd from three states was milling around on the lawn, including Joey the Neck and a couple of his whores. Did you know that he makes his whores carry validated health certificates because he’s terrified of catching AIDS from them? That’s what this FBI agent said.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Anyway, this FBI agent knew we had a vested interest in Joey’s career, and that’s why he dropped off this tape.” The sheriff removed his foot from my desk and swiveled the chair around to face me. “So I watched the tape. It’s quite a show. You don’t want to get up and go for popcorn on this one. And while I was watching it, I kept remembering something you said to me the other day.”
He sucked on his bottom lip and stared into my face, his rimless glasses low on his nose.
“Okay, I’ll bite, sheriff. What did I say to you?”
“You mentioned something about letting events unfold. So when I finished watching the tape, I got to thinking. Is Dave omniscient? Does he have insight into the future that none of the rest of us have? Or does he know about things that I don’t?”
“I’m not good at being a straight man, sheriff. You want to cut to it?”
“Let’s take a walk down to my office and stick this in the VCR. These guys do quite a job. It’s even got sound. I sure wish we had their equipment.”
