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"I apologize."
"Don't be a wise-ass, either."
"Boy, you're a pistol."
"How should I take that?"
"I don't know. How about easing up?"
"Don't count on it."
She rested one small hand on top of the other. She had the same solid posture behind her desk that I remembered in the nuns at the elementary school I attended.
"You look tired," she said.
"I have bouts of insomnia."
"You want to talk about what happened out on the bayou?"
"No."
"Do you feel guilty about it?"
"What do you think I feel? I feel angry about it."
"Why?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"Do you feel angry because you couldn't control what happened? Do you think somehow you're to blame for her death?"
"What if I said 'yes to all the above'? What difference would it make? She's dead."
"I think beating up on yourself has about as much merit as masturbation."
"You're a friend, Rosie, but let it go."
I busied myself with my paperwork and did not look back up for almost a minute. When I did, her eyes were still fixed on me.
"I just got some interesting information from the Bureau about Julie Balboni," she said. She waited, then said, "Are you listening?"
"Yes."
"This year N.O.P.D. Vice has closed up a half-dozen of his dirty movie theaters and two of his escort services. His fishing fleet just went into bankruptcy, too." When I didn't respond, she continued. "That's where he laundered a lot of his drug money. He'd declare all kinds of legitimate profits to the IRS that never existed."
"That's how all the wiseguys do it, Rosie. In every city in the United States."
"Except the auditors at the IRS say he just made a big mistake. He came up with millions of dollars for this Civil War movie and he's going to have a hard time explaining where he got it."
"Don't count on it."
"The IRS nails their butts to the wall when nobody else can."
I sharpened a pencil over the wastebasket with my pocket knife.
"I have the feeling I'm boring you," she said.
"No, you're just reviving some of my earlier misgivings."
