"A long day." I sat next to him and rubbed my face. My skin felt
cold, dead to the touch.
"I thought I saw Boots go out the lobby."
"You did."
"What's going on?"
"Don't worry about it. What'd you find out about this guy Mookie?"
His eyes seemed to go inside mine, then he tipped back the shot and drank from the bottle of Corona.
"The black broad, Brandy Grissum, came into Nig's office hysterical today. Dig this, she used the two yards you gave her to score a shitload of rock and get wiped out. So while she was on the nod at her mother's house in St. John the Baptist, our man Mookie tools on up for some more R&R. Guess what? Mookie decided he wasn't interested in a stoned-out twenty-buck street whore. So he sodomized her little sister."
He put a Lucky Strike in his mouth and fiddled with his Zippo, as though he were trying to remove an image from his mind, then dropped the Zippo on the bar without lighting the cigarette.
"His last name is Zerrang," he said. "He used to be a leg breaker for a couple of shylocks on the Mississippi coast, then he made the big score as a hit man for the greaseballs in Miami. He must be pretty slick, though. I had a friend at NOPD punch on the computer. He's never been down."
"Who's he working for now?"
"Brandy doesn't know. This time I think she's telling the truth . . . You don't look good, Streak. What's troubling you, mon?"
I told him. We were the only people at the bar now. Clete listened, his face empty of expression. He rubbed his thumb against his cheekbone, and I could see white lines inside the crow's feet at the corner of his eye.
He made a coughing sound in his throat.
"That's quite a story," he said.
I picked up one of the salted limes from his saucer, then set it down again.
"Bootsie walked in on it?" he asked.
"When Karyn was dressing."
"How did the LaRose broad get in?"
"She got a pass key from the maid."
"Dave, you were throwing her out. Bootsie doesn't know that?"
"I didn't have a chance to tell her. I'll call her when she's back home."
"Man." He breathed through his nose, his lips crimped together.
"You told Karyn LaRose to peddle her bread somewhere else, though?"
"Something like that." A scrolled green and red Dixie beer sign was lit over the row of whiskey bottles behind the bar. I felt tired all over and my palms were stiff and dry when I closed and opened them.
"You didn't do anything wrong. You just got to make Boots see that. Right? This isn't a big deal," he said. He watched me rub the salt in the saucer with the tip of my finger. "Let's find a late-night joint and get a steak."
"I'm going to take a shower and go to bed," I said.
"I'm going up with you."
"The hell you are."
"I know you, Streak. You're going to get inside your own head and build a case against yourself. The slop chute is closing. For you it's closed permanently. You got that, big mon?"