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“A cop who had a whole family capped? Not a chance. I can’t believe I was a meter maid here,” Helen said.
31
The next morning I called Clete’s motel but no one answered. I tried again later and a woman picked up the phone.
“Passion?” I said.
“What you want?”
“Where’s Clete?”
“Asleep. Leave him alone.”
“How about a little show of manners?” I said.
“I’ll tell him you called. Right now he needs his rest,” she said, and hung up.
That evening I drove to the motel. It had been hot all day, and the sky was purple and red in the west and it had just started to rain. When Clete opened the door his clothes looked like they had been slept in and I could smell alcohol deep down in his lungs.
“What’s up, Streak?” he said.
“Did Passion tell you I called?”
“She must have forgot.”
He closed the door behind me. The room was dark and in disarray. A red bandanna, like the one I had seen Passion wear around her neck, was on the nightstand. He took an open can of beer out of the icebox and drank the can empty and dropped it in a trash basket.
“Jim Gable’s chauffeur tried to hit Remeta. Remeta put one in him and then set his own apartment on fire,” I said. I looked at the side of his face, his gaze that was focused on nothing. “Clete?”
“Remeta wanted everybody to think the chauffeur was him?”
“Or to buy time till he could find Gable and cook his hash.”
“Gable set up the hit, huh?”
“That’s my guess.”
He turned on the tap in the sink and washed his face with his hands. “I’m out of hooch. I’ve got to get a drink,” he said.
“I thought you were breaking it off with Passion.”
“She’s all alone. Her sister’s going to be executed. She’s got an incurable disease. What am I supposed to say? You were a good punch but hit the road?”
Then he started opening and closing cabinets, rooting in his suitcase, reopening the icebox, even though he already knew there was no more booze in the cottage.
“Passion wants me to go with her to Letty’s execution. She got Letty to put my name on the list,” he said. “You ever see the Stake in Saigon? I’m not up to this bullshit.”
He waved one meaty hand in the air, as though warning away an imaginary adversary. I sat down on the side of his bed and waited for his anger to pass. Then my gaze alighted on one of the pillows by the headboard.
“Who was bleeding?” I asked.
“Go home, Dave. Let me alone for a while. I’ll be all right. I promise,” he said, and leaned heavily on the sink, his back swelling with breath like a beached whale’s.
• • •
The next day I got another call from Connie Deshotel.
“I wasn’t able to make any headway with Belmont,” she said.
