"These are people who for one reason or another would like me to disappear. So they put on this gris-gris show. But whoever did this has probably spent some time in a southern prison. A frog with a nail through it means a guy had better jump or he's going to have a bad fate."
I saw her face becoming more and more clouded.
"Bootsie, these guys are dimwits. They're always looking for something new or clever to dress up their act. When they do some bullshit like this, it's because they're running scared."
"I've heard that name Boggs," she said. "I get the feeling he's taken very seriously."
"All right, he's got the contract on Tony C. He's also the guy who shot me last summer. But I think Jimmie Lee's scared. It's turned around on him."
"Dave, what in God's name are you doing? Why did you bring me here this morning?"
"I'm not sure, Boots."
"God, you're incredible."
"Maybe I don't think I'm doing right by you."
This time her eyes saw meaning in my face.
"I hurt you real bad a long time ago. I don't want to do it again," I said.
Her eyes kept looking up at me. I pulled up a chair and sat across from her.
"Maybe you have some regrets?" she said softly.
"I didn't say that."
"You love the past, Dave. You love Louisiana the way it used to be. It's changed. Forever. We are, too. Maybe you're discovering that." She smiled.
"I don't know. I don't learn anything very easily."
Her eyes went down in her lap, and she brushed her fingers over the fine hair on the back of her wrist.
"Dave, did you do something that bothers you?" she said.
"No."
"Are we talking about another woman?"
"I'm mixed up with a bunch of people I can't think straight about right now."
She was quiet for a moment; then she said, "Who is she?"
"I haven't been untrue to you." The words sounded hollow, marital, the banal end of something.
"Is she one of Tony's crowd?"
"I'm in a situation where I'm going to have to hurt some people. I don't feel good about it. I got mixed up in it because I was shot by Jimmie Lee Boggs. Now I'm at a place where I don't understand my own feelings."
"You're an undercover cop, aren't you?"
"I've gotten involved with people whom cops sometimes call lowlifes or geeks or greaseballs. Except I don't feel that way about all of them now, and I should. That's what it amounts to, Bootsie."
"Do you want it over between us?"
"I don't think it can ever be over between us."
"You shouldn't count on that," she said, and I felt my heart drop.