straight back on his head, swung the gate closed and walked away as though we were not there.
Clete got out of the truck and walked to the gate.
'Hey, bubba, does it look like we're from Fuller Brush?' he said.
'What?' the man said.
'We're here to see Bobby Earl. Open up.'
'He's got dinner guests. Who are you?'
'Who am I?' Clete said, smiling, pointing at his chest with his thumb. 'Good question, good question. You see this badge? Dave, do you know who we're talking to here?'
He folded his private investigator's badge and replaced it in his coat pocket when the man reached for it.
'I bet you didn't think I recognized you, did you?' Clete said. 'Gomez, right? You were a middleweight. Lefty Felix Gomez. I saw you fight Irish Jerry Wallace over in Gretna. You knocked his mouthpiece into the third row.'
The gateman nodded, his face unimpressed. 'Mr. Earl don't want to be bothered by anybody tonight,' he said.
'That badge you got. Pawnshop windows are full of them.'
'Sharp eye,' Clete said, his mouth still grinning. 'I remember another story about you. You beat up a kid in a filling station. A high school kid. You fractured his skull.'
'I told you what Mr. Earl said. You can come back tomorrow, or you can write him care of the state legislature. That's where he works.'
'Nice tie,' Clete said, reached through the gate, knotted the man's necktie in his fist, and jerked his face tightly against the bars. 'You've got a serious problem, Lefty. You're hard of hearing. Now, you get on that box and tell Mr. Earl that Cletus Purcel and Detective Dave Robicheaux are here to see him. Is my signal getting through to you? Are we big-picture clear on this?'
'Let him go, Clete,' I said.
A tall, good-looking man with angular shoulders in a striped, gray double-breasted suit, his silk shirt unbuttoned on his chest, walked down the drive toward us.
'Sure,' Clete said, and released the gateman, whose face had gone livid with anger except for the two diagonal lines where the flesh had been pressed into the iron bars of the gate.
'What's the trouble, Felix?' the man in the suit said.
'No trouble, Mr. Earl. We want a few minutes of your time. I don't think your man here was passing on the information very well,' Clete said.
'I'm Detective Dave Robicheaux of the Iberia Parish sheriff's office,' I said, and opened my badge in my palm.
'I'm sorry for the late hour, but I'm in town only for today. I'd like to talk with you about Mr. Raintree.'
'Mr. Raintree? Yes. Well, I'm having someone for dinner, but-' His thick brown hair was styled and grew slightly over his collar, giving him a rugged and casual look. His skin was fine-grained, his jaws cleanly shaved, and his smile was easy and good-natured. The only strange characteristic about him was his right eye, whose pupil was larger than the one in his left eye, which gave it a monocular look.
'Well, we can take a minute or two, can't we? Would you like to sit down by the pool? I'm not sure that I can help you, but I'll try.'
'I appreciate your time, sir,' I said, and followed him up the drive.
'Hey, Lefty, I forgot to tell you,' Clete said, winking at the gateman. 'When you were in the ring, I always heard they tried to match you up with cerebral-palsy victims.'
We sat on canvas deck chairs by a swimming pool that was shaped in the form of a cross. The underwater lights were on, and the turquoise surface glistened with a thin sheen of suntan oil. On the flagstone patio a linen- covered table was set with candelabra and service for two. Bobby Earl walked to the side door of his house and spoke to his chauffeur, who had changed into a white butler's jacket.
Then a young blonde woman in a pink bathing suit, terrycloth robe, and high heels came out the door and began arguing with Bobby Earl. His back was to us, but I could see him raise his long, slender hands in a placating gesture.
Then she slammed the screen and went back inside.
'I told you he was a gash hound,' Clete said.
'Clete, will you ease up? I mean it.'
'I'm mellow, I'm extremely serene. Don't sweat it. Hey, I didn't mention something else about the gateman back there. He was a coke mule for Joey Gouza and the Giacano family. It's funny he's out here with the white man's hope.'
'We'll run him later. Now stop shaking the screen on the zoo cage.'
'You've got no sense of humor, Streak. The sonofabitch is scared. Watch the corner of his mouth. Now's the time to squeeze his peaches.'
Bobby Earl came back to the pool, with his butler behind him. The butler set a bowl of popcorn crawfish down on a folding table between me and Clete.
'Would you gentlemen like something from the bar?' he said. His face was flat, with a small nose, close-set eyes, and a chin beard.
'Nothing for me, thanks,' I said.
'How about a double Black Jack, no ice, with a 7 on the side?' Clete said.
'I'll have a vodka collins, Ralph,' Bobby Earl said, sat down across from us, and folded one leg across his knee. I studied his handsome face and tried to relate it to the 1970s newspaper photograph I had seen of him in silken Klan robes when he had been imperial wizard of the Louisiana Grand Knights of the Invisible Empire.
'Does Mr. Raintree work for you?' I asked. I opened a small notebook in my hand and clicked my ballpoint pen with my thumb.
'No.'
'He doesn't work for you?' I said.
'You mean Eddy?'
'Yes, Eddy Raintree.'
'He did at one time. Not now. I don't know where he is now.'
Then I saw what Clete had meant. The skin at the corner of his mouth wrinkled, like fingernail impressions in putty.
'When's the last time you saw him?' I asked.
'It's been a while. I tried to help him a couple of times when he was out of work. Has Eddy done something wrong? I don't understand.'
'I'm investigating the murder of a police officer. I thought Eddy might be able to help us. Do you know if Eddy has ever been up the road?'
'What?'
'Has he ever done time?'
'I don't know.' Then his peculiar, mismatched eyes focused on me thoughtfully, 'Why do you ask me if he's been in prison? As a police officer, wouldn't you know that?'
'I didn't know his first name until you told me,' I said, and smiled at him.
The butler brought the drinks from the poolside bar and served them to Clete and Bobby Earl. Earl took a deep drink from his without his eyes ever leaving my face. When he lowered his glass his mouth looked cold and red, like a girl's.
'When was the last time you talked to him?' I asked.
'It was a while back. I don't remember.'
I nodded and smiled again while I wrote in my notebook.
Clete put a handful of popcorn crawfish in his mouth, drank out of his glass of 7 Up and cracked the ice between his molars.
'This is a great place,' he said. 'You own it?'
'I lease it.'
'I hear you're going to run for the U.S. Senate,' Clete said.
