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"I couldn't tell."
"Wake up, big mon. Rich guys don't care whether the rest of us believe them or not. That's why they're great liars."
"His daughter saw two kids about to fall into a fish pond. But she was afraid to climb inside a fence and get them," I said.
"Is Father Dolan part of this?"
"He took me out to the Crudup place in St. James Parish."
"This guy is playing you, Dave. He knows you don't like authority or rich people and you're a real sucker for a sob story. How about letting Dolan and the Throw-ups or whatever clean up their own shit?"
"I'm getting played? You just gave a pornographic actor your apartment. The same guy you hit in the head with a coffeepot. You go from one train wreck to the next."
"That's why I never listen to my own advice."
He drank from his bottle of Dixie beer, his green eyes filled with an innocent self-satisfaction, his jaw packed with steak.
The next morning I drove to the house of Josh Comeaux, the clerk who I believed had sold daiquiris to Lori Parks and her friends the afternoon they burned to death. He lived with his mother in a small, weathered frame house not far from the Southern Pacific railway tracks. In the front yard was a post with hooks on it, from which vinyl bags of garbage hung so they would not be torn apart by dogs before the trash pickup.
Josh pushed open the screen door and stepped out on the gallery. He was barefoot and wore recycled jeans without a belt and a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. A heart with a circle of thorns twisted around it was tattooed high up on his right arm. Through the screen I could see a fat woman in a print dress watching a television program.
"You come to arrest me?" he said.
"Not yet. Who bruised up your face?"
He touched the yellow-and-purple discoloration below one eye.
"Dr. Parks did. Last night. After I got off from work."
"Lori's father?" I said.
"Yes, sir. That's why I figured you were here."
"He knocked you around?"
"I went in for gas at the all-night station. He walked me out in the shadows and hit me. He was pretty mad."
"Are you telling me you confessed something to Dr. Parks?"
"Yeah. I mean yes, sir. I told him what I did."
"Before you go any farther, I need to advise you of certain rights you have, the most important of which is your right to have an attorney."
"Who is that?" the fat woman in the chair yelled through the screen.
"Just a guy, Mom," Josh said, and walked out into the yard, out of earshot from his mother. "I told Dr. Parks I sold daiquiris to Lori and her friends. They were there three times that afternoon. It's not the only time I've sold to underage kids, either. Mr. Hebert tells us not to hold up the line 'cause somebody can't find their driver's license. But what he means is on weekend nights don't pass up any business."
"Mr. Hebert is your employer?"
"Yes, sir. At least till this morning. He fired me when I told him I'd served Lori and the other girls."
"Did Lori give you an ID of any kind?"
He shook his head. "When Lori Parks wanted something, you gave it to her. She was the prettiest girl in Loreauville."
"Josh, I'm placing you under arrest. Turn around while I hook you up."
"Am I going to prison?"
