A Morning for Flamingos (Dave Robicheaux 4)

"What is it?"

"We checked her out. Her last name's Dollinger. She's an assistant manager at one of Cardo's clubs on the Airline Highway. She hit town about six months ago. She tells people she worked at a lounge in North Houston, some dump on Jensen Drive. We made a couple of calls. They never heard of her."

"She said something. About everything down here smelling like mold and leaking sewage. I don't think she's from Houston."

"Those kinds of broads make up their own dossiers. I've got something else on my mind that's giving me the start of a migraine, Dave."

I waited for him to go on.

"Bootsie Giacano," he said.

"I had a feeling you'd say that. Do you have a tail on me?"

"It wouldn't be a bad idea, but we don't."

"A tap on her phone?"

"What do you think? She was married to Ralph Giacano. Her business partners are mainline greaseballs."

"She can't get out from under them."

"Always the humanist. Look, Dave, what you do with your private life is your business. But if you compromise the operation, it's ours." He sat on the wood chair and threw the towel back onto the bathroom floor. "Look, I'm your friend. I got you into this stuff. You think I want to see you hurt?"

"I won't get hurt because of her."

"You don't know that. Are you sleeping with her?"

"I'm going to be on my way now."

"She'll know you're running a sting. She tips the greaseballs, it doesn't matter how, in some innocent way, we're going to pull you out of Lake Pontchartrain."

"It's not going to happen."

His eyes were level, unblinking, and they stared straight into mine.

"It did two years ago," he said. "To a local narc N.O.P.D. got inside. They threw his body off the causeway. A .22 magnum through the mouth, one under the chin, one through the temple. They didn't weight him down, either. They wanted to send a floating telegram."

"You can get the five hundred thou?"

"Yep."

"I'm going to try to set up a meet with Cardo. I'll call you."

"Let some time go by, Dave. Let them feel more confident about you."

"You said it yourself, these guys love money. How do they put it, 'Money talks and bullshit walks'? I'm going to play out the hand. If they buy it, fine. If not, I'm going back home."

He pulled on his ear and made a snuffing sound in his nose.

"What I'm saying is we don't know everything we'd like to about Cardo. He messes around in politics, sends money to right-wing crazies, stuff like that. He was shooting off his mouth around town about bringing Oliver North to New Orleans. He thinks he's a big intellectual because he's got a degree from a junior college in Miami."

"So?"

"So he's hard to read. We know there're some guys in Miami and Chicago who think maybe he shouldn't be running things here, that maybe he's crazy or he keeps his brains in that schlong he's so proud of. Figure it out, Dave. What kind of guy would keep Jimmie Lee Boggs around?"

"You're worrying too much, Minos."

"Because I've been doing this stuff a long time. I told you it was a simple sting. That's what it should be. But you don't hear me when I say things to you, and I'm bothered by that."