"What's going on, Clete?" I said.
Clete stepped out into the hall and waited for me. I closed the door behind me.
"Short Boy Jerry gave me two hundred bucks to deliver the freight. Don't let Mingo take you over the hurdles. Jerry Joe and NOPD both go
t their foot on his chain," he said.
I opened the door and went back in.
"How you feel, Mingo?" I said.
"My car was boosted. I didn't drown a black girl. So I feel okay."
"You a stand-up guy?" I said.
"What's that mean?"
"Jerry Ace is giving us an anchovy so we don't come back for the main meal. You comfortable with that, Mingo? You like being an hors d'oeuvre?" I said.
"What I don't like is being in New Orleans with a target painted on my back. I'm talking about the cops in the First District who maybe stomped a guy's hair all over the cement . . . I got to use the John. Purcel wouldn't stop the car."
He looked out the glass partition, then saw the face looking back at him.
"Hey, keep her away from me," he said.
"You don't like Detective Soileau?" I said.
"She's a muff-diver. I told her over the phone, she ought to get herself a rubber schlong so she can whip it around and spray trees or whatever she wants till she gets it out of her system."
Helen was coming through the door now. I put my hand on her shoulder and walked her back into the corridor.
"Jerry Joe Plumb made him surrender," I said.
"Why?" she said, her eyes still fastened on Mingo.
"He's tied up somehow with Buford LaRose and doesn't want us in his face. Mingo says he's getting out on his own recognizance. I think he's going to head for our witnesses."
"Like hell he is. Has he been Mirandized?"
"Not yet."
She opened the door so abruptly the glass rattled in the frame.
A half hour later she called me from the jail.
"Guess what? Shithead attacked me. I'll have the paperwork ready for the court in the morning," she said.
"Where is he?"
"Iberia General. He fell down a stairs. He also needed twelve stitches where I hit him with a baton. Forget recognizance, baby cakes. He's going to be with us awhile."
"Helen?"
"The paperwork is going to look fine. I went to Catholic school. I have beautiful penmanship."
Clete and I ate lunch at an outdoor barbecue stand run by a black man in a grove of oak trees. The plank table felt cool in the shade, and you could smell the wet odor of green cordwood stacked under a tarp next to the stand.
"Because I was up early anyway, I happened to turn on the TV and catch 'Breakfast Edition,' you know, the local morning show in New Orleans," he said. His eyes stayed on my face. "What the hell you doing, Streak?"