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We were in the kitchen. It was dark outside. I could see the stars above the park; the trees resembled black cutouts. “Why is your elevator always stuck in the basement, Clete?”
“Answer the question. Are you getting it on?”
“No. Lautrec wanted to do some payback for Axel Devereaux. Or maybe he wanted to get me fired so I’d hook up with him.”
“Pimping?”
“Who knows? Get this. He says Devereaux knew something about Arab money and uranium. He learned about it through the movie people.”
“This is from outer space, Dave.”
“That’s what I told him. He said the Jersey guys might be mixed up in it. Nicky Scarfo’s crowd.”
“Little Nicky is dead,” Clete said.
“I know. So forget it.”
It was quiet in the room. I could hear the tree frogs down on the bayou.
“You kicked Lautrec’s ass pretty bad?” Clete said.
“You could say that.”
“But it wasn’t about the pictures on the Internet, was it?” he said.
“Nope.”
“Bailey Ribbons let you down?”
“I had higher expectations of her.”
“Cut her some slack, for Christ’s sake. How about the women I’ve dated? I’m lucky I haven’t woken up with my throat slit.” He waited for me to reply. “Come in, Earth.”
“She was smoking dope. With sycophants and frauds.”
“That’s not the equivalent of original sin,” he said.
“What say we talk about something else?”
“Helen’s not going to drop the IA referral?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You’re planning to square all this on your own?”
“It had crossed my mind.”
“Can I have one of your diet Docs?”
“Help yourself.”
He went to the icebox and popped a can of Dr Pepper. “Mind if I tag along, do oversight, make sure things stay under control?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Cletus.”
• • •
THERE ARE LESSONS you learn in the military or jail or any other institutional situation where survival is dependent on your ability to think more clearly than your enemies or the people around you. Here are a few admonitions from the bottom of the food chain. They can be interpreted literally or metaphorically, depending on the situation.
