"There's no innocent bystanders. His wife, his kid, anybody around him, they're all targets if necessary. Dave, if Boggs was in New Iberia, do you think it has something to do with you?"
"Why?"
"Who has more reason to want you off the board? It's turned around on him. I bet he gets up thinking about you in the morning."
"Maybe."
"Look, I want to push this stuff to a head. Can you get a wire into Cardo's house?"
"I think so."
"Either you can or you can't, Dave."
"I can try, Minos."
"Once again I'm getting a strong impression here of a lack of enthusiasm."
"What do you expect? I'm a hired Judas goat. You want me to tell you I like it?"
He paused a moment; then he said in an even voice, "We hear a big load of coke is going to hit town in three or four days. A lot of it is going to end up as crack in the welfare projects."
I looked out the window into the courtyard, where my neighbor was trying to leash his dog in the flower bed.
"Are you there?"
"Yeah," I said.
"You know the scene. A human life isn't worth a stick of chewing gum in those places. All thanks to Tony C. and his friends."
"How do you want to work it?"
"Find out his connection with the shipment. Then we'll wire you. All we need is a statement that he's in on the buy or the distribution."
"All right."
"You sound like you've got something else on your mind."
"It's Kim Dollinger. I think somebody's got her out there twisting in the wind."
"Why?"
"She was terrified when we got busted yesterday."
"Who's she afraid of?"
"Tony, Nate Baxter, you guys. How should I know?"
"It's not us. You want us to pick her up?"
"She's a hard-nosed girl. She won't cooperate. Baxter let her walk. Why would he let her walk when he rousted the rest of us? It was a good opportunity to squeeze her."
"From what I hear about this guy, he's about as complicated as an empty closet. Save yourself a lot of grief and don't make a mystery out of morons."
"If I only had that clarity of line, Minos."
"Work on it. It'll come with time."
After I hung up, I shaved, showered, and changed into a pair of clean gray slacks, a maroon shirt, combed my hair in the mirror, put a touch of Vaseline on the hard knot of stitches in my lip and head, and buffed my loafers.