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WHEN CLETE SAW the smoke, he went straight to the restroom and watched the men flowing out the door. A young man in a security guard uniform, carrying a fire extinguisher, almost knocked him down.
“Sorry, sir,” the guard said.
“You see a short guy with skin like an albino?” Clete said.
“No,” the security guard said. “He have something to do with the fire?”
Clete looked through the doorway. Three wastebaskets packed with wet paper towels were burning. “His name is Smiley. He kills people.”
“Sir, is that a weapon under your coat?”
“I’m a PI. I have a license to carry.”
“Not in the casino, sir. Not under Louisiana law. That’s a fact, sir.”
“Take it easy,” Clete said. “We’re on the same side.”
The security guard began spraying the fire with the extinguisher, glancing at Clete. “I got my
hands full. You’re not supposed to have a firearm in here, sir. I’ll have to take it from you.”
How do you fault a brave kid for doing his job? “Listen, there’s a guy running loose in here who probably killed Jimmy Nightingale’s sister. Don’t give me a hard time. You diggez-vous, noble mon?”
“I don’t speak French, sir.”
“Look, you’re stand-up and trying to do your job. But don’t let your job get ahead of your brain.”
The smoke had gathered on the ceiling, and eye-watering amounts of it were still rising from the cans.
“I have to ask for your gun, sir,” the security guard said. He was not armed. He put his two-way to his ear.
“I’m sorry to do this,” Clete said. He tore the radio from the security guard’s hand; he wanted to smash it or throw it into the commode. He looked at the humiliation in the security guard’s face. “What’s your name?”
“Jody Weinberger.”
“My name is Clete Purcel. You got moxie, Jody.” Clete tossed him the two-way. “How about you forget my piece and cover my back? Do me a solid, kid. You won’t regret it.”
“I could do that.”
“The bad guy I told you about is the real deal. His name is Smiley.”
“What do we do when we find him?”
“We take him down,” Clete said. But his words tasted bitter and insincere before they left his mouth.
* * *
CLETE PUSHED HIS way through the crowd. Once again he had thoughts of a kind he’d never had, a sense of foreboding that normally only deranged or messianic people were haunted by, as though only they saw the dark portent of the events taking place around them. In Clete’s mind, Jimmy Nightingale had become the hooded figure that lives in our sleep, a memory passed on from the caves of ancient Albion and the pantheons of Philistines, the embodiment of guile and deception, a serpent cracking through its shell in a garden between the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Then Clete saw him, surrounded by his acolytes, Bobby Earl by his side. The band was playing “Under the Double Eagle.” Amid the meretricious decor of the casino, Nightingale’s face was suffused with the soft buttery glow of a gold coin. Bobby Earl’s hand rested on his shoulder. Clete had never hated a man as much as Nightingale. He longed for the excuse to free his snub-nose from its holster and, in a blaze of bullets, free the world forever of the creature he was sure the Bible warned us about.
He looked over his shoulder. Jody Weinberger was right behind him, his youthful, trusting face expectant, his eyes fixed on Clete’s.
“Shouldn’t we warn Mr. Nightingale?” Jody said.
On the far side of a craps table, Clete saw a man in a panama hat and a loud shirt, his arms like rolls of sourdough, his head tilted down, his expression concealed.
“Can you answer me, Mr. Purcel?” the security guard said. “Maybe we should call it in. Sir, we’ve got to do something. Or I’ve got to call for help.”
