'She gave us the first solid lead on Harpo Scruggs. She had an autistic son named Nick,' I said.
'That's the one.'
'We put her on the train to Houston. She was getting out of the life.'
'Her career change must have been short-lived. She was selling out of her pants again Saturday night. We think she tricked the shooter in the Ricky Scar gig. Unlucky girl.'
'What happened?'
'Her pimp is a peckerwood named Beeler Grissum. Know him?'
'Yeah, he's a Murphy artist who works the Quarter and Airline Highway.'
'He worked the wrong dude this time. He and Ruby Gravano tried to set up the outraged-boyfriend skit. The john broke Grissum's neck with a karate kick. Ruby told NOPD she'd seen the John a week or so ago with a dwarf. So they thought maybe he was the shooter on the Scarlotti hit and they called us.'
'Who's the john?'
'All she could say was he has a Canadian passport, blond or gold hair, and a green-and-red scorpion tattooed on his left shoulder. We'll send the composite through, but it looks generic-egg-shaped head, elongated eyes, sideburns, fedora with a feather in it. I'm starting to think all these guys had the same mother.'
'Where's Ruby now?'
'At Charity.'
'What'd he do to her?'
'You don't want to know.'
A FEW MINUTES LATER the composite came through the fax machine and I took it out to Cisco Flynn's place on the Loreauville road. When no one answered the door, I walked around the side of the house toward the patio in back. I could hear the voices of both Cisco and Billy Holtzner, arguing furiously.
'You got a taste, then you put your whole face in the trough. Now you swim for the shore with the rats,' Holtzner said.
'You ripped them off, Billy. I'm not taking the fall,' Cisco said.
'This fine house, this fantasy you got about being a southern gentleman, where you think it all comes from? You made your money off of me.'
'So I'm supposed to give it back because you burned the wrong guys? That's the way they do business in the garment district?'
Then I heard their feet shuffling, a piece of iron furniture scrape on brick, a slap, like a hand hitting a body, and Cisco's voice saying, 'Don't embarrass yourself on top of it, Billy.'
A moment later Holtzner came around the back corner of the house, walking fast, his face heated, his stare twisted with his own thoughts. I held up the composite drawing in front of him.
'You know this guy?' I asked.
'No.'
'The FBI thinks he's a contract assassin.'
Holtzner's eyes were dilated, red along the rims, his skin filmed with an iridescent shine, a faint body odor emanating from his clothes, like a man who feels he's about to slide down a razor blade.
'So you bring it out to Cisco Flynn's house? Who you think is the target for these assholes?' he said.
'I see. You are.'
'You got me made for a coward. It doesn't bother me. I don't care what happens to me anymore. But my daughter never harmed anybody except herself. All pinhead back there has to do is mortgage his house and we can make a down payment on our debt. I'm talking about my daughter's life here. Am I getting through to you?'
'You have a very unpleasant way of talking to people, Mr. Holtzner,' I said.
'Go fuck yourself,' he said, and walked across the lawn to his automobile, which he had parked under a shade tree.
I followed him and propped both my hands on the edge of his open window just as he turned the ignition.
He looked up abruptly into my face. His leaded eyelids made me think of a frog's.
'Your daughter's been threatened? Explicitly?' I said.
'
I went back up on the gallery and knocked again. But Megan came to the door instead of Cisco. She stepped outside without inviting me in, a brown paper bag in her hand.
'I'm returning your pistol,' she said.
'I think you should hang on to it for a while.'
'Why'd you show Cisco those photos of my father?'
'He came to my office. He asked to see them.'
'Take the gun. It's unloaded,' she said. She pushed the bag into my hands.
'You're worried he might go after Archer Terrebonne?'
'You shouldn't have shown him those photos. Sometimes you're unaware of the influence you have over others, Dave.'
'I tell you what. I'm going to get all the distance I can between me and you and Cisco. How's that?'
She stepped closer to me, her face tilted up into mine. I could feel her breath on my skin. For a moment I thought she was being flirtatious, deliberately confrontational. Then I saw the moisture in her eyes.
'You've never read the weather right with me. Not on anything. It's not Cisco who might do something to Archer Terrebonne,' she said. She continued to stare into my face. There were broken veins in the whites of her eyes, like pieces of red thread.
THAT EVENING I SAW Clete's chartreuse convertible coming down the dirt road toward the dock, with Geraldine Holtzner behind the wheel, almost unrecognizable in a scarf and dark glasses, and Clete padding along behind the car, in scarlet trunks, rotted T-shirt, and tennis shoes that looked like pancakes on his feet.
Geraldine Holtzner braked to a stop by the boat ramp and Clete opened the passenger door and took a bottle of diet Pepsi out of the cooler and wiped the ice off with his palm. He breathed through his mouth, sweat streaming out of his hair and down his chest.
'You trying to have a heart attack?' I said.
'I haven't had a drink or a cigarette in two days. I feel great. You want some fried chicken?' he said.
'They pulled your license altogether?' I said.
'Big time,' he said.
'Clete-' I said.
'So beautiful women drive me around now. Right, Geri?'
She didn't respond. Instead, she stared at me from behind her dark glasses, her mouth pursed into a button. 'Why are you so hard on my father?' she said.
I looked at Clete, then down the road, in the shadows, where a man in a ribbed undershirt was taking a fishing rod and tackle box out of his car trunk.
'I'd better get back to work,' I said.
'I'll take a shower in the back of the bait shop and we'll go to a movie or something. How about it, Geri?' Clete said.
'Why not?' she said.
'I'd better pass,' I said.
'I've got a case of 12-Step PMS today, you know, piss, moan, and snivel. Don't be a sorehead,' Geraldine said.
'Come back later. We'll take a boat ride,' I said.
'I can't figure what Megan sees in you,' Geraldine said.
I went back down the dock to the bait shop, then turned and watched Clete padding along behind the convertible, like a trained bear, the dust puffing around his dirty tennis shoes.
