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”Dis anybody. He doesn't mean any disrespect.“
”I know what it means, why you using nigger language to me?“
Clete eased out his breath and lifted his shirt off his collarbone with his thumb. ”I got fried out in my boat today, Johnny,“ he said.
”Sometimes I don't say things very well. I apologize.“
”I accept your invitation to dinner, you talk to me like I'm a goddamn nigger?“
The waiter set down a Scotch and milk in front of Johnny, another pitcher of beer for Clete, an iced tea for me, and a round tray of freshly opened oysters flecked with ice. Johnny reached across the table and popped Clete on top of the hand.
”You deaf and dumb?“ he said.
Clete's green eyes roved around the room, as though he were appraising the fish nets and ship's life preservers hung on the wall. He picked up a oyster, sucked it out of the shell, and winked at Johnny Carp.
”What the fuck's that supposed to mean?“ Johnny said.
”You're a lot of fun, John,“ Clete said.
Johnny took a deep drink out of his Scotch and milk, his eyes like black marbles that had rolled together above the glass. He rubbed a knuckle hard across his mouth, then pursed his lips like a tropical fish staring out of an aquarium. ”I'm asking you in a nice way, you're giving me some kind of queer-bait signals here, you're ridiculing me, you just being a wiseass 'cause we're in public, what?“ he said.
”I'm saying this was a bad idea,“ Clete said. ”Look, I was there.
Patsy Dap violated my friend's person, you know what I'm saying? That's not acceptable anywhere, not with your people, not with ours. He got what he deserved. You don't see it that way, Johnny, it's because you're fifty-two cards short of a deck. And don't ever put your fucking hand on me again.“
Five minutes later, under the porch, we watched Johnny Carp in drive his Lincoln through the light rain toward the parking lot exit. He had rolled down the tinted windows to let in the cool air, and we could see Patsy Dapolito in the passenger seat, his face and shaved head like a bleached-out muskmelon laced with barbed wire.
”Hey, Patsy, it's an improvement. I ain't putting you on,“ Clete yelled.
”You're a terrific intermediary, Clete,“ I said.
”The Giacanos are scum, anyway. Blow it off. Come on, let's go out under the shed and throw a line in. Wow, feel that breeze,“ he said, inhaling deeply, his eyes filling with pleasure at the soft twilit perfection of the day.
Clete was probably the best investigative cop I ever knew, but he treated his relationships with the lowlifes like playful encounters with zoo creatures. As a result, his attitudes about them were often facile.
The Giacanos never did anything unless money and personal gain were involved. The family name had been linked repeatedly to both a presidential a
ssassination and the murder of a famous civil rights leader, and although I believed them capable of committing either one or both of those crimes, I didn't see how the Giacanos could have benefited financially from them and for that reason alone doubted their involvement.
But Johnny didn't do a sit-down with a rural sheriff's detective to prevent a meltdown like Patsy Dapolito from getting off his leash.
Dapolito was morally insane but not stupid. When his kind stopped taking orders and started carrying oujt personal vendettas, they were shredded into fish churn and sprinkled around Barataria Bay.
Johnny Carp'd had another agenda when he came down to Morgan City. I didn't know what it was, but I was sure of one thing-one way or another, Johnny had become a player in Iberia Parish.
Jason Darbonne was known as the best criminal lawyer in Lafayette. He had the hard, grizzled body of a weight lifter and daily handball player, with thick upper arms and tendons like ropes in his shoulders.
But it was his peculiar bald head that you remembered; it had the shape and color of an egg that had been hard-boiled in brown tea, and because he had virtually no neck, the head seemed to perch on his high collar like Humpty-Dumpty's. A cold front had gone through the area early Wednesday morning, and the air was brisk and sunny when I ran into him and Sweet Pea Chaisson on the courthouse steps. ”Hey, Dave,“ Sweet Pea said. ”Wait a minute, I forgot. Is it your first name or your last name I ain't suppose to use?“
”What's your problem this morning?“ I said. ”Don't talk to him,“ Darbonne said to Sweet Pea. ”I didn't even know y'all sliced up my top till I went through the car wash. The whole inside of my car got flooded. Then the female attendant picks up this rubber that floats out from under the seat. I felt like two cents.“
”What's your point?“ I said. ”I forgot to pay my State Farm.
I'm gonna be out four t'ousand dollars. It ain't my way to go around suing people.“ He brushed off Darbonne's hand. ”Just give me the money for the top and we'll forget it.“
”You'll forget it? You're telling me I'm being sued?“ I said. ”Yeah, I want my goddamn money.
The inside of my car's ruined. It's like riding around inside a sponge.“ I started inside the courthouse. ”What's the matter, there's something wrong with the words I use you don't understand?“ he said.
