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His eyes lit on mine. “Get him out of here.”
“That’s a done deal,” I said.
I watched him and the deputy walk away. I had known his kind all my life—mean to the bone, a walking penis, angry from the day he came out of the womb. He’d get even down the track, perhaps with a stun gun or a baton or a sap, on the body of an unsuspecting victim who would have no idea why he was being abused, and the rest of us would pay the tab, as always.
When I turned around, the waitress was gone.
“You were shacked up last night?” I said.
“Are you kidding?” Clete said. “My stomach was a septic tank.”
“What’s the story on the woman?”
“I don’t know. I got to check her out. You see the way she walks? Cute ta-tas, narrow waist, big smooth rump.” He pulled on himself under the blanket. “My plunger just woke up.”
“Stop that.”
“Everything is copacetic. Hold all my calls. I’ll be right back.” He walked through the fire trucks and ambulances and squad cars and emergency personnel and spectators to the motel entrance and went inside, his blanket flapping at his heels, like a misplaced prophet who had stumbled into the twenty-first century. But that was Clete Purcel.
Ten minutes later he was back, his hair wet-combed, his loafers buffed, his tie on, and his suit coat buttoned.
“I’ve got my flasher on my pickup,” I said. “Stay on my bumper.”
“I’ve got to talk with the lady first. What was her name? Flo?”
“It’s time to go, Clete.”
“When a woman wants you to know something, she lets you see her thoughts. You didn’t know that?”
“You see her thoughts?”
“Come with me. I’ll tell her you’re on the square.”
What was the best way to have a conversation with Clete Purcel? You said nothing, and you didn’t try to understand what he said. You grabbed a noun and a verb here and there and went with it.
I followed him inside. Flo was behind the counter. No one else was within earshot.
“What’d you want to tell us, Miss Flo?” Clete said.
She looked in my direction.
“Dave is my podjo from NOPD, back when we were the Bobbsey Twins from Homicide,” Clete said.
“There was a little guy in here,” she said. “He had a red mouth, like he was wearing lipstick. He was bleeding under his jacket. Talked with a lisp.”
“He give you a name?” Clete said.
“No. He asked for a fried pie and a scoop of ice cream to go. Know anybody like that?”
I placed my business card on the counter. “Call me if you see him again, Miss Flo.”
She pushed the card back at me. “Nope.”
“Nope, what?” I said.
“I don’t borrow trouble,” she replied.
“Perfectly understandable,” Clete said. He took a ballpoint from his pocket and began clicking it. “You dig movies? I live for movies. I love people who love movies.” He pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser and slid it and the pen toward her. She wrote a number on it. He stuck the napkin in his pocket. “Why didn’t you dime the guy?”
