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“Why don’t you tell me, Dave? Is that Joey Gouza or not?”
“It’s Joey Gouza.”
“So arrest him.”
“Somebody else is taking care of that. Did the city cops show you mug shots last night?”
“No.”
“Then how did you know it was Gouza?”
“He was at a party Weldon gave in New Orleans.”
“When I mentioned his name once before, you seemed a little vague about it, Drew.”
“That’s the man who smoked a cigarette while his two pieces of shit tried to crucify me.”
I picked up the photographs and put a rubber band around them. The grass outside the window was bright green, and the sunlight looked hot on the trees, which were still wet from last night’s rain.
“Why do you think they did it?” I asked.
“Gouza said, ‘Tell your brother to pay his debts.’?”
“What’s his voice sound like? Does he have an accent?”
“Why are you asking me things like this?”
“A prosecutor is going to ask you, his defense attorney is. Why do you object to me asking you?”
“He has an accent like any other New Orleans lowlife.”
“I see. That’d make sense, wouldn’t it?”
“No, what you’re really asking is something else. There’s something wrong with his voice. He sounds like he has a strep throat. No, it’s worse than that. He sounds like his vocal cords were burnt with acid.”
“Here are some other mug shots, Drew. See if any of these guys look like the two men who hurt you.”
She went through them one at a time, looking carefully at each one. Among the six mug shots were the faces of Jewel Fluck, Eddy Raintree, and Jack Gates. She shook her head.
“I’ve never seen any of these men,” she said. She touched the tops of my fingers as I gathered up the photographs from the sheet. “What happened to your thumb?”
“A man bit it the other night.”
“Maybe it’s catching.”
“He used to be a bodyguard for Bobby Earl.”
“What did you do with him, put him in the dog pound?”
“No, I didn’t get the chance, Drew. I had him cuffe
d by a railroad track when a guy named Jewel Fluck blew most of his face off with a shotgun. His name was Eddy Raintree. He was one of the guys I just showed you. Would you describe the two men who hurt you?”
“Do you know what victim rape is?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m a little bit used up right now. You said something before about me being a soldier. I’m not. I’m still shaking inside. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop. If you want to take me over the hurdles, you can. But I think you’re acting like a shit.”
