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“The little guy with the brass knuckles is probably Fluck, right?”
“Maybe. But a nylon stocking makes everybody look like Cream of Wheat. All I can tell you is I think he wanted to take my eyes out. . . . Why are you looking like that?”
“I got you into this, Clete.”
“No, you didn’t. It was my idea to go out to Bobby Earl’s and pull on his tallywhacker. But I was right about the connection between Earl and Gouza, wasn’t I? I told you that flunky at the gate used to be a mule for Gouza. I think we’ve got the ultimate daisy chain of Louisiana buttwipes here—Klansmen, Nazis, and wiseguys.”
“You took the beating for me.”
“Bullshit.”
“You haven’t heard it all. I received a bribe attempt earlier today. A couple of grand in my mailbox, a letter suggesting I spend a lot of time around New Iberia.”
“Ah,” he said. The streetcar rattled down the tracks on St. Charles. “The carrot and the stick.”
“I think so.”
“And I got the stick.”
“They don’t like to beat up cops.”
“They did something else too, Dave, maybe a signal for you about their future potential. After they laid me out, they sprinkled a bagful of rainbows and black beauties all over the room to make it look like a drug deal gone sour. I cleaned them up before I called the First District. . . . Dave, I don’t like what I’m seeing on your face.”
“What’s that?”
“Like you got a piece of barbed wire behind your eyes. You get those thoughts out of your head.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“Like hell I am. Ole Streak turns on the Mixmaster and almost drives himself crazy with his own thoughts, then goes out and strikes a match to their balls. You wait till I’m out of here and we’ll ’front these guys together. Are we straight on that, podjo?”
I looked at the square of sunlight on his sheets. The palm trees outside the window lifted and straightened in the breeze.
“I’m not supposed to be a player?” he said.
“You want me to bring you anything?”
“Don’t go up against Gouza on your own. An Iberia sheriff’s badge is puppy shit to these guys.”
“What do you want me to bring you?”
“My piece. It’s in a little sock drawer under my bed.” He took his keys off the nightstand and dropped them in my palm. “There’s also a fifth of vodka and a carton of cigarettes on the kitchen counter.”
“I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Dave?”
“Yes.”
“Gouza’s a weird combo. He’s got an ice cube in the center of his head when it comes to business, but he’s also a sadistic paranoid. A lot of the greaseballs in this town are scared shitl
ess of him.”
I DROVE TO Clete’s apartment on Dumaine in the Quarter, put his .38 revolver and shoulder holster, his vodka and cigarettes in a paper bag and was walking back down the balcony when I saw the apartment manager sweeping dust out his doorway through the railing into the courtyard below. He was a dark-skinned, black-haired man with bad teeth and turquoise eyes. I opened my badge and asked him if he had seen the men who had beaten Clete.
“Yeah, sho’ I seen them. I seen them run down the stairs,” he said. He had a heavy Cajun accent.
I asked him what they looked like.
