A Morning for Flamingos (Dave Robicheaux 4)

"Put out the smoke, Lionel," he said quietly, His eyes crinkled at the corners. "Go on, put it out. We're in the man's home."

"I don't think it's smart dealing with him. I said it then, I'll say it in front of him," Lionel said. He wet the cigar under the tap and dropped it in a garbage bag.

"The man's money is as good as the next person's," Fontenot said.

"You were a cop," Lionel said to me.

"That's a problem for me. No insult meant."

"You creeped my apartment. That's a problem for me."

"Lionel had a bad experience a few years back," Fontenot said. "His name doesn't make campus bells ring for you?"

"No."

"Second-string quarterback for LSU," Fontenot said. "Until he sold some whites on the half shell to the wrong people. I think if Lionel had been first-string, he wouldn't have had to spend a year in Angola. It's made him distrustful."

"Get off of it, Ray."

"The man needs to understand," Fontenot said. "Look, Mr. Robicheaux, we're short on protocol, but we don't rip each other off. We establish some rules, some trust, then we all make money. Get his bank, Lionel."

Lionel opened a cabinet next to the stove, squatted down, and reached his hand deep inside. I heard the adhesive tape tear loose from the top of the cabinet behind the drawer. He threw the brown envelope, with tape hanging off each end, for me to catch.

"We want you to understand something else, too,"

Fontenot said. "We're not here because of some fifty-thou deal. That's toilet paper in this town. But the gentleman we work for is interested in you. You're a lucky man."

"Tony C. is interested?"

"Who?" He smiled.

"Five keys, ten thou a key, no laxative, no vitamin B twelve," I said.

"Twelve thou, my friend," Fontenot said.

"Bullshit. New Orleans is white with it."

"Ten thou is the discount price. You get that down the line," Fontenot said.

"Then go fuck yourself."

"Who do you think you are, man?" Lionel said.

"The guy whose place you just creeped."

"Let's split," he said.

I looked at Fontenot.

"What I can't seem to convey is that you guys are not the only market around. Ask Cardo who he wants running the action in Southwest Louisiana. Ask him who punched his wife in a bathroom stall in the Castaways in Miami."

"There're some people I wouldn't try to turn dials on, Mr. Robicheaux," Fontenot said.

"You're the one holding up the deal. Give me what I want and we're in business."

"You can come in at eleven thou," he said.

"It's got to be ten."