“Save the rhetoric for Dick Tracy. You got your piece?”
“What do you think?”
“The locals are no help on this one, Streak. You want to give me two minutes or not?” He walked toward the rear of the restaurant. I waited a moment, placed my sunglasses on top of the bar to indicate to anyone watching that I would be back, then followed him. He bolted the rest room door behind us, hung his coat from the stall door, and peeled off his shirt. His skin looked like alabaster, hard and red along the bones. A blue Madonna image, with orange needles of light emanating from it, was tattooed high up on his right shoulder. “You looking at my tattoo?” he said, and grinned.
“Not really.”
“Oh, these scars?” I shrugged. “A couple of ex-Somoza technicians invited me to a sensitivity session,” he said. The scars were purple and as thick as soda straws, crisscrossed on his rib cage and chest. He worked a taped black notebook loose from the small of his back. It popped free with a sucking sound. He held it in his hand, with the tape hanging from the cover, like an excised tumor.
“Keep this for me.”
“Keep it yourself,” I said.
“A lady's holding a Xerox copy for me. You like poetry, confessional literature, all that kind of jazz. Nothing happens to me, drop it in the mail.”
“What are you doing, Sonny?”
“The world's a small place today. People watch CNN in grass huts. A guy might as well play it out where the food is right.”
“You're an intelligent man. You don't h
ave to be a punching bag for the Giacanos.”
“Check the year on the calendar when you get home. The spaghetti heads were starting to crash and burn back in the seventies.”
“Is your address inside?”
“Sure. You gonna read it?”
“Probably not. But I'll hold it for you a week.”
“No curiosity?” he said, pulling his shirt back on. His mouth was red, like a woman's, against his pale skin, and his eyes bright green when he smiled.
“Nope.”
“You should,” he said. He slipped on his coat. “You know what a barracoon is, or was?”
“A place where slaves were kept.”
“Jean Lafitte had one right outside New Iberia. Near Spanish Lake. I bet you didn't know that.” He stuck me in the stomach with his finger.
“I'm glad I found that out.”
“I'm going out through the kitchen. The guys out front won't bother you.”
“I think your frame of reference is screwed up, Sonny. You don't give a pass to a police officer.”
“Those guys out there ask questions in four languages, Dave. The one with the fire hydrant neck, he used to do chores in the basement for Idi Amin. He'd really like to have a chat with me.”
“Why?”
“I capped his brother. Enjoy the spring evening, Streak. It's great to be home.”
He unlocked the door and disappeared through the back of the restaurant.
As I walked back to the bar, I saw both the hatted man and his short companion staring through the front glass. Their eyes reminded me of buckshot.
Fuck it, I thought, and headed for the door. But a crowd of Japanese tourists had just entered the restaurant, and by the time I got past them the sidewalk was empty except for an elderly black man selling cut flowers out of a cart.