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“The locals will nail him sooner or later.”
“Do you really believe that?”
He scratched at his cheek with three fingers. The jukebox was playing a country song, but it wasn’t Hank or Lefty; it came from a new era in Nashville, one that Clete didn’t understand. “The locals are like cops anywhere. They give it their best shot. The bad guys go down, but usually because they do something really stupid.”
“My father was a policeman in New Orleans.”
“Yeah, I knew him. He was a good guy.”
He saw the recognition in her eyes. “You researched my background.”
“Like I said, it’s what I do.” He had put on a summer suit and a blue dress shirt and his Panama hat and had shined his loafers before meeting the woman. Now he felt foolish and old and duplicitous. “I blew my career in law enforcement with booze and weed and pills and the wrong kind of women. I had a daughter out of wedlock, too. She grew up without a dad, and some bad guys did a lot of hurtful things to her. That’s why I admire somebody like you who’d adopt a kid from the rez. This is great country around here, but the Indians get a bad shake.”
“How well did you know him?”
“Your old man? I’d see him at roll call. That was when Dave and I walked a beat on Canal and in the Quarter, in the old days when cops signaled each other by hitting their baton
s on the pavement. We’d bounce the stick on the curb, and you could hear it a block away.” He knew she wasn’t listening and that he was making a fool out of himself.
“My father was such a good person that he took care of everybody except his family,” she said.
“Beg your pardon?”
“He wasn’t happy unless he was wearing sackcloth and ashes for other people’s sins. He named me for Saint Felicity.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“She was the slave of a Roman aristocrat named Perpetua. Perpetua kept a record of the events leading up to her and Felicity’s deaths in the arena. It’s the only account that we have by a victim of the persecutions.”
“I don’t know much about that stuff. From what I remember, your dad was pretty religious.”
“If that’s what you call it.” She pushed back his sleeve from his watch and glanced at the time. “I wonder if each one of us is allotted a certain number of days. We’re here, then we’re not. We look back and wonder what we’ve done with our lives and think about all the opportunities we let slip by. Do you ever feel like you lived your life for somebody else?”
“I was always getting in trouble. I didn’t have time to think about things like that. I’m not too profound a guy.”
“I think you’re a much more complex man than you pretend.” She rubbed her finger on the dial of his watch.
He could feel the heat in the back of his neck, a tingling sensation in his palms. He poured the remainder of his whiskey into his beer and drank it. It slid down inside him like an old friend, lighting the corners of his mind, stilling his heart, allowing him to smile as though he were not beset with a problem of conscience that, in the morning, could fasten him wrist and ankle on a medieval rack.
“I just barely made a plane to El Sal before I went down on a murder beef,” he said. “My liver probably looks like a block of Swiss cheese with a skin disease. Dave is the only cop from the old days who’ll hang out with me. I’m not being humble. I worked for the Mob in Vegas and Reno. I’ve done stuff I wouldn’t tell a corpse.”
“If you’re thinking about my marital status, my husband is the most corrupt, selfish man I’ve ever known.”
“Maybe he had a good teacher.” He saw the look on her face. “I’m talking about his father, Mr. Younger. He doesn’t just vote against politicians he disagrees with, he smears their names.”
“Caspian couldn’t carry his father’s briefcase.”
“Why’d you marry him?”
“I was the little match girl looking through the window. I took the easy way.”
Her fingers rested on the bar, inches from his hand. Her nails were tiny and clipped, the bones in her wrist as delicate as a kitten’s. Whenever she lifted her eyes to his, her mouth became like a compressed flower, the black mole at the corner a reminder of how perfect her complexion was. Her blouse hung loosely from her shoulders, and he could see the sunlight from the door reflecting on the tops of her breasts. He wanted to reach out and touch the mole.
“I’m alone, Mr. Purcel,” she said. “My daughter is dead. My husband is a satyr. Think ill of me if you wish. I don’t apologize for what I am.”
“I don’t think you ought to apologize to anybody. I think you’re a nice lady. Maybe you don’t like New Orleans, but you don’t know how beautiful your accent is. It’s like a song.”
“I haven’t eaten supper yet. That’s why I didn’t want to drink a lot,” she said. “Have you eaten, Mr. Purcel?”
