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He hit at a fly with his hand, then looked at me again and nodded.
'I'll be back in a minute,' I said.
I walked back to the jailer's office. The jailer, a crew-cut man with scrolled green tattoos and black hair on his arms, sat behind his desk, reading a hunting magazine.
By his elbow, a cigar burned in an ashtray inset in a lacquered armadillo shell.
'He's agreed to leave with me,' I said. 'How about a towel and a bar of soap and some other clothes?'
'He hosed down when he come in.' He looked back at his magazine, then rattled the pages. 'All right. We want everybody tidy when they leave. Hey, Clois! The Mexican's going out! Walk him down to the shower!' He looked back down at his magazine.
'What about the clothes?'
'Will you mail them back?'
'You got it.'
'Clois! Find something for him to wear that don't go with tampons!' He smiled at me.
It was cool and raining harder now as we drove toward New Orleans on old Highway 90. Manuel sat hunched forward, his arm hooked outside the passenger's door, his jailhouse denim shirt wet all the way to the shoulder. We crossed a bridge over a bayou, and the wind swirled the rain inside the cab.
'How about rolling up the window?' I said.
'Don't want smell bad in truck,' he said.
'You're fine. There's no problem there. Roll up the window please.'
He cranked the glass shut and stared through the front window at the trees that sped by us on the road's edge and the approaching gray silhouette of the Huey Long Bridge.
'Do you do some work for the Calucci brothers, Manuel?' I said.
'Trabajo por Tommy.'
'Yeah, I know you work for Tommy. But why do Max and Bobo want to get you out of jail, partner?'
His jug head remained motionless, but I saw his eyes flick sideways at me.
'Max and Bobo don't help people unless they get something out of it,' I said.
He picked up the paper sack that held his soiled clothes and clutched it in his lap.
'Where you from, Manuel?'
His face was dour with fatigue and caution.
'I'm not trying to trap you,' I said. 'But you're living with bad people. I think you need help with some other problems, too. Those boys who took you out in the marsh are sadists. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?'
But if he did, he gave no indication.
I shifted the truck into second and began the ascent onto the massive steel bridge that spanned the Mississippi. Down below, the water's surface was dimpled with thousands of rain rings, and the willow and gum trees on the bank were deep green and flattening in the wind off the gulf.
'Look, Manuel, Tommy Lonighan's got some serious stuff on his conscience. I think it's got to do with dope dealers and the vigilante killings in the projects. Am I wrong?'
Manuel's hands closed on the sack in his lap as though he were squeezing the breath out of a live animal.
'You want to tell me about it?' I said.
'¿Quién es usted?'
