The telephone woke me at four a.m. I answered it in the kitchen and closed the door to the hall so as not to wake the rest of the house. The moon was still up, and a soft ivory light fell on the mimosa tree and redwood picnic table in the backyard.
"I found a bar with an honest-to-God zydeco band," Minos said. "You remember Clifton Chenier? These guys play just like Clifton Chenier used to."
I could hear a jukebox, then the record stopped and I could hear bottles clinking.
"Where are you?"
"I told you. In a bar in Opelousas."
"It's pretty late for zydeco, Minos."
"I've got a story for you. Hell, I've got a bunch of them. Did you know I was in army intelligence in Vietnam?"
"No."
"Well, it's no big deal. But sometimes we had problems that fell outside the rulebook. There was this French civilian who gave us a lot of trouble."
"Do you have your car?"
"Sure."
"Leave it in the parking lot. Take a cab to a motel. Don't drive back to Lafayette. You understand?"
"Listen, this French civilian was hooked in with the VC in Saigon. He had whores and some people on our bases reporting to him, and maybe he helped torture one of our agents to death. But we couldn't prove it, and because he had a frog passport, he was a touchy item to deal with."
"I'm not interested in talking with you about Vietnam."
"In the meantime the major is looking like a dumb shit that can't handle the action. So we call in a sergeant who did little jobs for us from time to time, like crawl into a ville at night and slit somebody's throat from ear to ear with a barber's razor. He was going to get the frog with a night scope, nail him from fifty yards out and be back at the NCO club for beers before they could blot the guy's brains off the wallpaper. But guess what? He got the wrong fucking house. A Dutch businessman was eating snails with his chopsticks, and our good sergeant blew his face all over his wife's blouse."
"I've got some advice for you, Minos. Fuck Vietnam. Get it the hell out of your life."
"I'm not talking about Vietnam. I'm talking about you and me, podna. It's like something F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote. We serve a vast, vulgar, meretricious enterprise."
"Look, get something to eat and I'll come up there."
"There's some government people who want to cut a deal with Romero."
"What?"
"He's got a lot of shit on a lot of people. He's valuable to us. Or at least to somebody."
I felt my hand clench on the telephone receiver. The wooden chair I sat on felt hard against my bare thighs and back.
"Is this straight?" I said. "Your people are talking with Romero? They know where he is?"
"Don't say 'my people.' He got word to some other federal agents in New Orleans. They don't know where he is, but he says he'll come in for the right deal. You know what I told them?"
I could hear my breath against the holes in the telephone.
"I told them, 'Cut all the fucking deals you want. Robicheaux ain't going to play,'" he said. "I have to say that made me feel kind of good."
"Which bar are you in?"
"Forget about me. I was right, though, wasn't I? You're not going to bargain?"
"I want to talk with you tomorrow."
"Hell, no. What you hear now is all you get. Now I want you to tell me something fair and square. You don't have to admit anything. Just tell me I'm wrong. You found the Toyota, you rounded up Keats, you took him out to the levee and put that .45 of yours between his ribs and blew his lungs out his mouth, Right?"