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"How'dheputitup?"
"He didn't. I did."
"You went a fifty-thou bond?"
"You don't watch the news? I hit the Powerball last week. Three million bucks. I bought him that pink Caddy out front, too."
I looked at him, stupefied. He walked past me and took his little girl by the hand. "Want something to eat? Clete's going to meet us outside in a few minutes," he said.
"Why not?" I replied.
A half hour later the four of us were eating gumbo at a checker-cloth-covered table inside a cafe one block from the courthouse. The pink Cadillac convertible was parked outside, rainwater standing up in beads as big as marbles on the waxed surface.
"I appreciate it, Gunner, but I can't accept it," Clete said.
"The title's already in your name, man," Gunner said.
"We'll have to change that," Clete said.
Gunner looked at a spot on the far wall of the cafe. "There's something I didn't mention. A couple of guys I was inside with needed a place to crash. Remember Flip Raguzi, used to run a chop shop for the Giacanos over in Algiers? He started a grease fire on the stove. It sort of changed the way your kitchen and the ceiling look."
"You let Flip Raguzi stay in my place? This guy has diseases scientists haven't found names for," Clete said.
"What's he talking about, Daddy?" the little girl asked.
Clete shut his eyes, then opened them. "Give me the keys," he said.
One of my favorite lines of all time, one excerpted from a 1940s song understood readily by all those who experienced the human and economic realities of the Depression and war years, goes as follows: "You don't get no bread with one meatball."
"What's funny?" Gunner said.
"Nothing," I said. "Take a walk with me, will you?"
We went outside and stood under a canvas awning, the mist blowing in our faces.
"That's a decent thing you did for Clete, Gunner," I said.
"I don't use that name anymore," he said.
"How about Father Jimmie? You do the right thing by him, too?" I said.
"Matter of fact, I did. But that's my business."
"I respect that, Phil. But I need your help, too. Know a woman named Theo Flannigan?"
"Jumpin' Merchie's old lady? I know who she is, but I don't know her personally."
"Was she writing scripts for Fat Sammy Figorelli?"
He shook his head. "No, but she might as well have. Her books were lying around the set. The director would lift the dialog from the love scenes in her books. So a bunch of degenerates, that includes me, were doing sixty-nines on each other and talking like Shakespeare."
"Why would the director pick her work to steal from?" I asked.
"A guy named Ray was involved. His girlfriend was my co star I never saw him, but I think he was the same guy who'd call me and tell me where to pick up my meth delivery to the projects."
Ray?
Why hadn't I seen it? William Ray Guillot, lately of Franklin, Louisiana, now having his blood drained and replaced with formaldehyde.
