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Clete took a long sip from his Coke, his eyes veiled. What was she after? Now she was talking about oil companies, their mistreatment of Jimmy, the unfair role they’d placed him in in South America, the stupidity of the media, the hypocrisy of Levon, the vile nature of his wife.
“How’s Broussard a hypocrite?” Clete asked. “He did a lot of good down in Latin America, didn’t he? With Amnesty International and that kind of stuff.”
“He can’t write or talk enough about his glorious ancestors, who happened to be slave owners; then he bleeds all over the television screen about the suffering people in Guatemala. In the meantime, his Aborigine wife tells everybody who’ll listen that Jimmy raped her.”
“She’s an Aborigine?” Clete said.
“She looks like one.”
“You’re not going to go jogging with her?” he said.
“Did I misjudge you?”
“Do you mean am I dumb instead of smart? Yeah, probably.”
“That’s not clever, Mr. Purcel. You have a good reputation as a private investigator. But I don’t think you understand how vicious Jimmy’s enemies are. You also don’t know how good a man he is.”
Right, Clete thought. He took another sip from his Coke. How far should he take it?
“Swede mentioned a retainer of two grand a month,” he said. “That’s a lot of money for what sounds like doing nothing.”
“There would be a few duties,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Security, maybe.”
He picked up a biscuit and dipped it in the gravy and put it into his mouth, his cheek pouching. His eyes remained empty, as though he were detached from the conversation. “Has Dave Robicheaux got anything to do with this?”
“No. Why would he be involved in anything regarding Jimmy? Actually, I don’t care for Mr. Robicheaux.”
“Don’t take this personal, Ms. Nightingale. When a guy like Tony the Squid can’t get a cop on a pad, he goes to a friend of the cop. Maybe he wines and dines the cop, then lends him money. The issue is information. Any place there’s vice, extortion, blackmail, union corruption, insider trading, jury-rigging, highway contracting, the issue is always information. The rest of it doesn’t mean diddly-squat on a rock. Outside of the scut work I do for bail bondsmen, I make my living off information. I’m not proud of it.”
“Your perception is correct,” she said.
“About what?”
“I want to retain you to keep me informed about people who want to hurt my brother,” she said. “Got it?”
“I don’t do wiretaps, I don’t do videos through windows, and I don’t deliberately mess people up, not even the lowlifes.”
“I don’t expect you to,” she said.
“Let me think on it.”
“You’ve taken up this much of my time, and you’ll think on it?”
Clete looked at the glare of the sun on the water. It resembled a yellow flame, dancing under the chop from a passing boat. “I’ve got a big enemy. My own head. So I got to think through things before I make choices. Then I usually make the wrong choice anyway. Then I got to think my way back through it a second time, and it’s not only a drag, I get a bad headache.”
She gazed into space as though she had been listening to someone speaking Sanskrit.
“Hello?” he said.
“Yes?”
“Could I have a couple of these crawfish for the road?” he asked.
“I can’t believe I’ve had this conversation,” she said.
