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"It's good to see you, Streak," he said.
"You too, Lou. How's everything at home?"
"My wife finally took off with her beautician. A woman, I'm talking about. I guess I finally figured out why she seemed a little remote in the sack. What are we doing tonight?"
"I'll go inside and look around. I'd like you to be out here to cover my back. It's not a big deal."
He looked at the clapboard back of the bar, at the broken windows and the overflow of the garbage cans, and hooked his thumb in his belt.
"When'd you start needing backup for bullshit like this?"
"Maybe I'm getting over the hill for it."
"Be serious, my friend."
"You know about Kelly Drummond being killed?"
"That actress? Yeah, sure."
"I think maybe the shooter was after me. I don't want to walk into a setup."
"This is a weird fucking place for a setup, Dave. Why would a guy want to bring a cop to a public place in Lafayette for a whack?"
"Why do these guys do anything?"
"You have any idea who the shooter might be?"
"Maybe a guy who was in on a lynching thirty-five years ago."
He nodded and his eyes became veiled.
"That doesn't sound plausible to you?" I asked.
"What's plausible? I try to get off the booze and my liver swells up like a football, my wife turns out to be a dyke, and for kicks I'm standing by a bunch of bushes that stink like somebody with a kidney disease pissed on them."
I pulled my tropical shirt out of my khakis, stuck my .45 inside the back of my belt, and walked through the rear entrance of the building.
The inside smelled like refrigerated bathroom disinfectant and tobacco smoke. The wood floors were warped and covered with cigarette burns that looked like black insects. Some college boys were playing the jukebox and drinking pitcher beer at the bar, and two or three couples were dancing in the adjacent room. A lone biker, with a lion's mane of blond hair and arms wrapped with jailhouse art, hit the cue ball so hard on the pool table that it caromed off the side of the jukebox. But it was a dead night at Red's, and the only female at the bar was an elderly woman who was telling a long tale of grief and discontent to a yawning bartender.
"What'll you have?" he said to me.
"Has Amber been in?"
He shook his head to indicate either that she had not or he had no idea whom I was talking about.
"She hasn't been here?"
"What do you want to drink?"
"A 7 Up."
He opened it and poured it into a glass full of ice. But he didn't serve it to me. He walked to the rear of the long bar, which was empty, set it down, and waited for me. When he leaned on the bar, the biceps of his brown arms ridged with muscles like rocks. I walked down the length of the bar and sat on the stool in front of him.
"Which Amber you looking for?" he asked.
"I only know one."
"She don't come in here reg'lar. But I could call somebody who probably knows where she's at. I mean if we're talking about the same broad."
