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CHAPTER 4
IT was raining hard and the traffic was heavy in New Orleans when I parked off St. Charles and ran for the colonnade in front of the Pearl. The window was steamed from the warmth inside, but I could see Clete Purcel at the counter, a basket of breadsticks and a whiskey glass and a schooner of beer in front of him, reading the front page of the Times-Picayune.
"Hey, big mon," he said, folding his paper, grinning broadly when I came through the door. His face was round and Irish, scarred across the nose and through one eyebrow. His seersucker suit and blue porkpie hat looked absurd on his massive body. Under his coat I could see his nylon shoulder holster and blue-black .38 revolver. "Mitch, give Dave a dozen," he said to the waiter behind the counter, then turned back to me. "Hang on a second." He knocked back the whiskey glass and chased it with beer, blew out his breath, and widened his eyes. He took off his hat and mopped his forehead on his coat sleeve.
"You must have had a rocky morning," I said.
"I helped repossess a car because the guy didn't pay the vig on his bond. His wife went nuts, said he wouldn't be able to get to work, his kids were crying in the front yard. It really gives you a
sense of purpose. Tonight I got to pick up a skip in the Iberville Project. I've got another one hiding out in the Desire. You want to hear some more?"
The waiter set a round, metal tray of raw oysters in front of me. The shells were cold and slick with ice. I squeezed a lemon on each oyster and dotted it with Tabasco. Outside, the green-painted iron streetcar clanged on its tracks around the corner of Canal and headed up the avenue toward Lee Circle.
"Anyway, run all this Mingo Bloomberg stuff by me again," Clete
said.
I told him the story from the beginning. At least most of it.
"What stake would Bloomberg have in a guy like Aaron Crown?" I said.
He scratched his cheek with four fingers. "I don't get it, either. Mingo's a made-guy. He's been mobbed-up since he went in the reformatory. The greaseballs don't have an interest in pecker-woods, and they think the blacks are cannibals. I don't know,
Streak."
"What's your take on the murdered scriptwriter?"
"Maybe wrong place, wrong time."
"Why'd the shooter let the girl slide?" I said.
"Maybe he didn't want to snuff a sister."
"C
ome on, Clete."
"He knew she couldn't turn tricks in the Quarter without permission of the Giacano family. Which means she producing a weekly minimum for guys you don't mess with."
"Which means the guy's a pro," I said.
He raised his eyebrows and lit a cigarette. "That might be, noble mon, but it all sounds like a pile of shit you don't need," he said. When I didn't answer, he said, "So why are you putting your hand
in it?"
"I don't like being the subject of Mingo Bloomberg's conversation."
His green eyes wandered over my face.
"Buford LaRose made you mad by offering you a job?" he asked.
"I didn't say that."
"I get the feeling there's something you're not telling me. What was that about his wife?" His eyes continued to search my face, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Will you stop that?"
"I'm getting strange signals here, big mon. Are we talking about memories of past boom-boom?"
