“Something I should know about here?” he asked.
“Nothing I can think of,” I replied.
A few moments later I watched in the mirror as the bartender set the pitcher in the midst of Lefty Raguza’s group. I saw Raguza glance in my direction, then tell the bartender to take the pitcher away. Clete was still not out of the restroom. But showtime was showtime, I told myself. I picked up my club soda and walked past the pool table until I was standing behind Raguza’s chair.
“You don’t like draft beer?” I said.
The tin-shaded light over the pool table threw my shadow across Raguza’s hands and wrists. He waited a long time before he spoke. “This is a private party here,” he said.
“Does this lady know your history, Lefty?” I said.
“You need to beat feet, Jack. This is not your jurisdiction.” His hands were folded, his thumbs motionless. He didn’t turn his head when he spoke.
I scraped a chair up behind him and sat down, so that I was looking over his shoulder, like a kibitzer at a card game. I stared into the face of the woman next to him. She tried to smile, then her eyes broke and her face went flat.
“Lefty ever tell you about his psychiatric problems?” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“He likes to beat up women with his fists. It happens so fast they rarely know what hit them.”
“I’m not sure what we’re talking about,” she said. She lowered her eyes and placed one hand on the tabletop. Then she took it away and placed it in her lap.
“A prison psychiatrist once described Lefty as an anal-retentive. That means he was strapped on the training pot for long periods of time. I suspect his Jockey underwear is loaded with skid marks.” I laughed and clapped Raguza hard on the back, snorting when I inhaled. “How about it, Lefty? You ever download into your Fruit of the Looms?”
I could see the back of his neck darken, like a shadow creeping from his collar to his boxed hairline. “Lefty has a problem with animals, too,” I said to the woman. “If you ask him why he’s cruel to a gentle and defenseless creature, he’ll probably tell you about all the hard breaks he had when he was a kid. The truth is Lefty hurts pets and innocent people because he’s a gutless punk and never could cut it on his own, either as a child or an adult. Lefty was probably a good bar of soap in prison, but don’t let him ever tell you he was stand-up or a solid con. He had sissy status even before he got to Raiford and was probably giving head in the bridal suite his first day down. Right, Lefty?”
I let out a wheezing laugh and slapped him hard between the shoulder blades again. The muscles in his back were corded as tight as cable. The woman started to get up from her chair.
“Sit down,” Lefty said. “This guy’s a drunk. He got run out of Miami, he got run out of New Orleans. He makes a lot of noise, then he goes away.”
“Wish I could do that, Lefty, I mean just kind of disappear. But you poisoned ole Tripod. It takes a special sort of guy to do something like that.”
Even from the side I could see his face scrunch. “I did what?” he said.
“That’s the name of my daughter’s pet raccoon. He almost died because you mixed roach paste with sardines and put them in his pet bowl.” I looked across the table. “What would you do if you were in my place, Ernesto?”
Ernesto’s eyes were small and brown, deep-set, nonexpressive. His hair was tied in a matador’s twist on the nape of his neck. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled in a self-deprecating fashion.
“How about you?” I said to the man whose blue eyes didn’t match his face.
He glanced from side to side, as though the answer to my question lay in some other part of the bar. His plaits looked like centipedes on his scalp. He wore a purple silk shirt and a crucifix and a P-38 G.I. can opener on a chain around his neck. “I don’t got nothing to do wit’ dis, mon,” he said.
“Glad to hear that, because Lefty here has been a bad boy. I wonder if Whitey knows that Lefty has been causing a lot of trouble over in Iberia Parish, like pouring acid all over Clete Purcel’s car. I thought you were a pro, Lefty, but the more I see your handiwork, the more I get the impression you’re just a little jailhouse bitch who can’t get it up unless he’s whacking on a helpless female. Is that because you’re short?”
I saw the thumb on his left hand twitch slightly.
“Th
ose elevator soles on your stomps aren’t strong indicators of self-confidence,” I said. I patted him softly in the middle of the back and felt his skin constrict from the blow that didn’t come.
“You’re wrapped too tight,” I said. “Relax, I’m not going to hurt you. You’re probably one of those guys who—” I started laughing again, my words breaking apart. “Seriously, you’re one of those guys who has a legitimate beef with the universe. It’s not easy being a little guy or the product of a busted rubber.” I hit him again, and laughed harder, coughing on the back of my wrist, my eyes watering. “Did your mother ever pick you up by inserting Q-tips in your ears? That’s a sure sign there are problems in the family.”
His neck was blood-dark, the skin around his mouth drawn down like a shark’s. His hands were set squarely on the tabletop. He coughed deep in his throat and spoke in a clotted whisper, his eyes fastened on the opposite wall.
“You got to speak up, Lefty,” I said.
“I did thirty-seven days in isolation, in the dark, a cup of water and one slice of white bread a day. I can take the worst you got and spit it in your face.”