Dixie City Jam

'And whose Johnson did we just jerk on? It can't hurt to have a talk with Tommy Bobalouba again, can it?'

'I thought he was part of your meal ticket.'

'Not anymore. I don't like the way he acted in front of Martina. You take an Irish street prick out of the Channel, put him in an eight-hundred-thou house by Lake Pontchartrain, and you've got an Irish street prick in an eight-hundred-thou house by Lake Pontchartrain. How about we have a little party?'

'I'm on leave, and I'm out of my jurisdiction.'

'Who cares? If the guy's clean, it's no big deal. If he's not, fuck that procedural stuff. We scramble his eggs.'

The cashier cut his eyes toward us, then turned the floor fan so that our conversation was blown out the open door, away from the other customers.

'Let me call home first,' I said.

'No argument?'

I shrugged my shoulders. He watched my face.

'How much sleep did you get last night?' he asked.

'Enough.'

'You could fool me.'

'You want to go out to Lonighan's or not?'

There was a pause in his eyes, a fine bead of light. He made a round button with his lips and scratched at his cheek with one fingernail.

Lonighan lived a short distance from the yacht club in an imitation Tudor mansion that had been built by a New Orleans beer baron during the 1920s. The grounds were surrounded by a high brick wall, at the front of which was a piked security gate, with heavy clumps of banana trees on each side of it, and a winding driveway that led past a screened-in pool and clay tennis courts that were scattered with leaves. We parked my truck, and Clete pushed the button on the speaker box by the gate.

'Who is it?' a voice said through the box.

'Clete Purcel. Is Tommy home?'

'He's over at his gym. You want to come back later or leave a message?'

'Who are all those people in the pool?'

'Some guests. Just leave a message, Clete. I'll give it to him.'

'When'll he be home?'

'He comes, he goes, what do I know? Just leave a fucking message, will you?'

'Here's the message, Art. I don't like talking to a box.'

'I'm sorry, I'll be down. Hey, Clete, I'm just the hired help, all right?'

A moment later the man named Art walked down the drive with a pair of hedge clippers in his hand. He was bare-chested and sweaty and wore grass-stained white shorts and sandals that flopped on his feet.

'Open up,' Clete said.

'You're putting me in a bad place, man. Why'd you have to get Tommy upset?'

'I didn't do anything to Tommy.'

'Tell that to him. Christ, Clete, you know what kind of guy he is. How you think he feels when a broad tells him off in public?'

'You gonna open up?'

'No.'

'You're starting to piss me off, Art.'

'What can I say? Wait in your truck, I'll send you guys out some drinks and sandwiches. Give me a break, all right?'

He walked back toward the house. The swimmers were leaving the screened-in pool for a shady area in the trees, set with lawn chairs, a drinks table, and a smoking barbecue pit. The skin flexed around the corners of Clete's eyes.

'You still got your binoculars?' he asked.

'In the glove compartment.'

He went to the truck and returned to the gate. He focused my pair of World War II Japanese field glasses through the steel bars and studied the people in the shade.

'Check it out, mon,' he said, handing me the glasses.

One woman lay on a reclining chair with a newspaper over her face. A second, older, heavyset and big- breasted, her skin tanned almost the color of mahogany, stood on the lawn with her feet spread wide, touching each toe with a cross-handed motion, her ash blond hair cascading back and forth across her shoulders. A third woman, with dyed red hair, who could not have been over twenty or twenty-one, was bent forward over a pocket mirror, a short soda straw held to one nostril, the other nostril pinched shut with a forefinger. Seated on each side of her was a thick-bodied, sun-browned, middle-aged man with a neon bikini wrapped wetly around the genitals, the back and chest streaked with wisps of black and gray hair. The face of one man was flecked with fine patterns of scab tissue, as though he had walked through a reddish brown skein of cobweb.

'When did Tommy Blue Eyes hook up with the Caluccis?' Clete said. 'They always hated each other.'

'Business is business.'

'Yeah, but the micks always looked down on the greaseballs. They didn't socialize with them.' He took the glasses out of my hand and looked again through the bars. 'If you think Bobo and Max are geeks, check out the cat flopping steaks on the grill.'

A man who must have been six and one half feet tall had come out of the side entrance to the house with a tray of meat. He had a flat Indian face, a cheerless mouth, and wide-set, muddy eyes that didn't squint or blink in the smoke rising from the pit. His hair was jet black and freshly barbered and looked like a close-cropped wig glued on brownish red stone.

'All the guy needs are electrodes inset in his temples,' Clete said.

'I don't think this is going anywhere,' I said. 'I probably should head back to New Iberia.'

His green eyes roamed over my face. 'You don't think Bootsie can handle it?' he asked.

'How do I know, Clete? He humiliated her, he put his tongue in her mouth, he left bruises on her kidney like he'd taken a pair of pliers to her.'

He nodded and didn't speak for a moment. Then he said, 'That blonde doing the aerobics is Tommy's regular punch when his old lady's out of town. No, she's more than that, he got a real Jones for her. Believe me, Tommy and that clunk of radiator hose he's got for a schlong aren't far away. Dave, look at me. You got my word, I'm going to dig this guy Buchalter out of the woodwork. If you're not around, I'll give you a Polaroid, then you can burn it.'

He continued to stare into my face, then he said, 'You're troubling me, noble mon.'

'What's the problem?'

'You look wired to the eyes, that's the problem.'

'So what?'

'You have a way of throwing major monkey shit through the window fan, that's what.'

'I do?'

'Go down to the corner and call Bootsie. Then we'll give it another hour. If Tommy's not back by then, we'll hang it up.'

We waited in the truck for another hour, but Tommy Lonighan didn't return. The metal of my dashboard burned my hands when I touched it, and the air smelled of salt and dead water beetles in the rain gutters. I started the engine.

'Wait a minute. They're coming out. Let's not waste an opportunity, mon,' Clete said.

The electronic piked gate opened automatically, and the Calucci brothers, in a light blue Cadillac convertible, with the two younger women in the backseat, drove out of the shade into the sunlight. I started-to block their exit with the truck, but it was unnecessary. Max Calucci, the driver, and one of the women in back were arguing furiously. Max stepped hard on the brakes, jolting everyone in the car forward, turned in his leather seat, and began jabbing his finger at the woman. The woman, the one who had been doing lines through a soda straw