"Yes."
"Don't go back there for it. He won't give it back to you, anyway. Do you understand that?"
"Yes."
I took my hand away from his arm, and he walked quickly down the stairs and out into the rain-swept courtyard.
I looked through the screen door into the gloom of Robin's apartment. A toilet flushed in back, and she walked into the living room in a pair of white shorts and a green Tulane T-shirt and saw me framed against the wet light. The index finger of her left hand was wrapped in a splint. She smiled sleepily at me, and I stepped inside. The thick, drowsy odor of marijuana struck at my face. Smoke curled from a roach clip in an ashtray on the coffee table.
"What's happening, Streak?" she said lazily.
"I just ran off a client, I'm afraid."
"What d'you mean?"
"Jerry sent a John over. I told him you were out of the business. Permanently, Robin. We're moving you to Key West, kiddo."
"This is all too weird. Look, Dave, I'm down to seeds and stems, if you know what I mean. I'm going out to buy some beer. Mommy has to get a little mellow before she bounces her stuff for the cantaloupe lovers. You want to come along?"
"No beer, no more hooking, no Smiling Jack's tonight. I've got you a ticket on a nine o'clock flight to Key West."
"Stop talking crazy, will you? What am I going to do in Key West? It's full of faggots."
"You're going to work in a restaurant owned by a friend of mine. It's a nice place, out on the pier at the end of Duval Street. Famous people eat in there. Tennessee Williams used to come there."
"You mean that country singer? Wow, what a gig."
"I'm going to square what those guys did to you and me," I said. "When I do, you won't be able to stay in New Orleans."
"That's what's wrong with your mouth?"
"They told me what they did to your finger. I'm sorry. It's my fault."
"Forget it. It comes with my stage career." She sat down on the stuffed couch and picked up the roach clip, which now held only smoldering ash. She toyed with it, studied it, then dropped it on top of the glass ashtray. "Don't make them come back. The white guy, the one with the cowboy boots, he had some Polaroid pictures. God, I don't want to remember them."
"Do you know who these guys are?"
"No."
"Did you ever see them before?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes." She squeezed one hand around the fingers of the other. "In the pictures, some colored people were tied up in a basement or something. They had blood all over them. Dave, some of them were still alive. I can't forget what their faces looked like."
I sat down beside her and picked up her hands. Her eyes were wet, and I could smell the marijuana on her breath.
"If you catch that plane tonight, you can start a new life. I'll check on you and my friend will help you, and you'll put all this stuff behind you. How much money do you have?"
"A couple of hundred dollars maybe."
"I'll give you two hundred more. That'll get you to your first paycheck. But no snorting, no dropping, no shooting. You understand that?"
"Hey, is this guy out there one of your AA pals? Because I told you I don't dig that scene."
"Who's asking you to?"