His pants were high-waisted and came up a potbelly to a point just below his chest. A short-barreled.38 was worn in a holster clipped to the side of his right hip.
He said, 'Hey, Pete.'
'Hey, Floyd,' Pete said.
Dooley said, 'That was some mighty fancy shooting you did today.'
Pete Malo smiled, a bland smile that committed him to nothing, neither confirming nor denying, but merely acknowledging that the other had made a remark.
He said, 'Floyd, I'd like you meet an associate of mine, Jack Bauer. Jack, this is Sergeant Floyd Dooley, one of our outstanding peace officers. Not much goes down that he doesn't find out about.'
Jack and Dooley shook hands. Dooley's hand was warm and dry, with a solid grip. Jack said, 'Pleased to meet you.'
'Likewise. You're the one helped Pete clean up on that killer crowd.' It was not a question. Dooley held up a hand, palm out, as if to forestall any denials by the other.
'Now, you don't have to answer or crack to nothing. It's none of my business. But that sure was some fine shooting. And I'm a man who appreciates some professional-type gun work.'
Jack didn't know what to say to that. He smiled with his lips, uncertain, a bit tentative.
Dooley said, 'You're another cloak-and-dagger fellow like Pete, eh?'
Jack glanced at Pete, who nodded yes.
'You could say that,' Jack allowed.
'I could but I won't, at least not in public. I'm a man who knows how to keep a secret. Pete'll tell you about that. Well, now, Jack, I'm just a simple ol' New Orleans lawman, but I purely would appreciate it if you could give me some idea of what this killing and shooting in the streets is all about. 'Long as it ain't no top secret, official, and confidential material.
'Looks like Marty Paz's got hisself into a heap of hot water this time,' he added.
Jack's face showed his surprise. Dooley chuckled. 'Didn't think that an old backcountry cop like me has the lowdown on the Colonel from Caracas, huh? Let me clue you in on something, Jack. Marty Paz is quite well known here on Bourbon Street and in the Quarter, especially among what you might call the sporting crowd. Fancy gals, gamblers, whoremongers, that sort. Oh, he's a great favorite with that sort.
'He plays the babes like nobody's business. A real good-time Charlie, he is, livin' the high life. Playin' the babes, throwing money around hand over fist, living it up. Folks in New Orleans like the good life, and if that includes some female companionship, ain't nobody gonna kick about it. Unless it comes up with a streetful of bodies, like it did here. That we take kind of personal.
'Not that there's any grief about him ventilating Dixie Lee. That piece of trash's long overdue for a spot in the cemetery. It ain't right to speak ill of the dead, they say, so I'll just confine my remarks to saying, Good riddance to bad rubbish.'
Jack, puzzled, said, 'Who's Dixie Lee?'
Pete answered, 'He was the passenger in the truck, the one who iced the bodyguards. I didn't know who he was myself, but Floyd identified him right off.'
'Sure 'nuff,' Dooley said. 'Even with all those slugs in him, all I had to do was take one look at the body to know it was him. Dixie's a bad one; he's been long overdue for a date with the coroner for twenty years now.
'He's a graduate of Angola Prison; what with one thing and another, he's spent more'n half his life behind bars. Mean as a snake. Back shooter, robber, killer for hire. Gunrunner, mostly, but he dabbles in most anything, long as there's a dirty dollar in it. Looks like he run into the wrong gun this time, though.'
Jack said, 'I'm impressed, Sergeant Dooley.'
'Floyd, son. Call me Floyd.'
'Call me Jack, Floyd. Did you recognize any of the others with him?'
Dooley shook his head. 'I took a look at each one, but I didn't know none of them from Adam. Neither did Buck. That's Buck Buttrick, my partner. I can tell you this, though: anybody that was siding with the likes of Dixie Lee needed killing, too.'
He went on, 'Soon as we heard that you wanted to have a talk with the club crowd, ol' Shelb and his people, we got 'em all together where we could keep an eye on 'em. And we didn't let 'em talk about nothing but the weather and such, so they couldn't put their heads together and cook up a story.
'What say we go over and jaw with 'em?'
Jack, Pete, and Dooley crossed to the group at the bar. Jack recognized the fat man as the fellow he'd held a gun on earlier, while searching the upper floor of the building looking for Vikki. Shelburne — Drake Shelburne — the club manager. 'Ol' Shelb,' as Dooley called him.
The women were undoubtedly dancers; they had the look. And the build. One was a redhead, the other, a brunette.
The fourth man must be Buck, Dooley's partner. He was a long, tall string bean of a man with a big sidearm holstered on his hip.
Shelburne sat with his back to the front entrance, leaning forward with his forearms on the bar, resting his weight on them. He now wore a sport shirt, slacks, and sneakers with no socks. He was drinking a cold drink in a clear plastic cup, sucking it up through a straw. Sweat made circles the size of medicine balls under his arms.
The muscular barkeep stood behind the bar, holding a white dishrag that he used every now and then to wipe a section of countertop. The females perked up, looking interested at the sight of the newcomers.
Shelburne glanced over his shoulder at them, uninterested; recognizing Jack, he did a double-take. Some of his drink must have gone down the wrong pipe, because he started choking, coughing, and sputtering. Dooley clapped a hand in the middle of Shelburne's back, between the shoulder blades. Shelburne got control of himself.
Wheezing, with tears running from his eyes, he said, 'Sergeant Floyd, that's the man I was telling you about, the one who pulled a gun on me upstairs earlier this morning!'
'Relax, Shelb, you'll split a gut. And you got a lot of gut to split,' Dooley said. He addressed his partner, the string bean with the big gun. 'Buck, you know Pete here.'
'Sure,' Buttrick said, nodding at Pete Malo. 'Hey, Pete.'
'Hey, Buck.'
Dooley went on, 'This here's Jack. He's associated with Pete. He's okay.'
Buck Buttrick was long-faced, with long, narrow, pale gray eyes; a turnip nose; and basset hound jowls. A farmer's straw hat with the sides pinned to the crown perched on his head. A faded, colorless, short-sleeved shirt hung in folds on his bony frame.
He wore a fancy leather belt with an oversized rodeo-themed plate metal buckle and blue jeans over cowboy boots with pointed toes. Hanging down at his right hip was a chrome-plated.357 magnum revolver in a fancy holster rig. He wore it gunfighter-style, low on his bony hip, so that when his arm was held at his side, his fingertips brushed the gun butt.
Jack and Buttrick shook hands. Buttrick's hand was sharp and bony.
The redhead looked up from her drink and said, 'I thought you was a gentleman, Floyd. Ain't you going to introduce us to your friends?'
'I surely will,' Dooley said.
The redhead's name was Francine and the brunette's was Dorinda. Dooley introduced the newcomers simply as Jack and Pete.
Francine's hair color was fire-engine red, straight out of a bottle. She was over thirty, sharp-eyed, with a button nose; wide, thin-lipped mouth; and a lot of (determined-looking) chin and jaw. She wore a thin, tight sleeveless shift with a thigh-high hem, and a pair of open-toed, high-heeled sandals.
Dorinda was in her early twenties, with a heart-shaped face framed by a mane of curly black hair that spilled over creamy shoulders, reaching down to mid-back. She wore a sleeveless T-shirt with a scooped neck, short- shorts, and flat shoes like ballet slippers. She was no ballerina, not with the abundant endowments given to her by nature and enhanced by cosmetic surgery.
The muscleman behind the bar was named Troy.
Shelburne said sarcastically, 'Now that we've all gotten acquainted, you mind telling me what you want so I
