Black Cherry Blues (Dave Robicheaux 3)

“I want to know what’s going on,” he said.

“You got me, Sal. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You and Dodds cut some kind of deal.”

“I think maybe you’ve burned out some cells in your brain.”

“Listen, you stop trying to fuck with my head. You and him got something going. You paid him or something, you turned him around. I don’t know what kind of deal you’re working, but believe me, man, it ain’t worth it.”

“This is why you wanted to meet? Big waste of time.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“I mean it, you quit jerking me around. We’re talking business. We straighten all this out right now. We don’t, my old man will. You understand that? You and Charlie Dodds aren’t going to fuck up millions of dollars in deals people got around here.”

“You’re hitting on the wrong guy, Sal.”

The waiter brought in a Manhattan and a green bottle of wine in a silver ice bucket. He uncorked the wine and started to pour it into a glass for me to taste.

“Get out of here,” Sal said.

After the waiter was gone, Sal lit a fresh cigarette and drew the smoke deep into his lungs.

“Listen,” he said, “there’s nothing between us.”

“Then you shouldn’t send bad guys around my house.”

“It was a personal beef. It’s over. Nobody got hurt. It ends now. There’s a lot of money going to be made here. You can have in on it.”

I looked at my watch.

“I have to be somewhere else,” I said.

“What the fuck is with you? I’m talking a score you couldn’t dream about. I’m talking three, four large a week. Broads, a condo in Tahoe, any fucking thing you want. You going to turn that down because you got a personal beef to square?”

“I’ll see you, Sal. Don’t send anybody else around my house. It won’t help your troubles with Charlie Dodds.”

I started to get up. He put his hand on my forearm.

“I know something you want, you need, man. And I’m the cat can give it to you,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“That guy Mapes. Dixie said he can send you up the road. How’d you like it Mapes wasn’t around to worry you anymore?” He took a drink from his Manhattan. His eyes were level and intent over the glass.

“I don’t even know where he is,” I said.

“You say the word, you end this bullshit between you and me, you deliver up that cocksucker Charlie Dodds, Mapes is dead meat. You’ll get Polaroids, then you burn them. You don’t have any connection with it. Nobody’ll ever see the guy again. It’ll be like he never existed.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You’ll think about it?”

“That’s what I said, Sal. Call me tomorrow afternoon.”

I walked out of the restaurant into the coolness of the night. The streets were full of college kids, and I could smell pine woodsmoke from people’s chimneys and the heavy, cold smell of the river in the air.