TWELVE
TWO DAYS LATER I SAT at my desk, sifting through the Gypsy fortune-telling deck called the Tarot. I had bought the deck at a store in Lafayette, but the instruction book that accompanied it dealt more with the meaning of the cards than with the origins of their iconography. Regardless, it would be impossible for anyone educated in a traditional Catholic school not to recognize the historical associations of the imagery in the Hanged Man.
The phone on my desk buzzed.
"Clete Purcel and Megan Flynn just pulled up," the sheriff said.
"Yeah?"
"Get him out of here."
"Skipper—"
He hung up.
A moment later Clete tapped on my glass and opened the door, then paused and looked back down the hall, his face perplexed.
"What happened, the John overflow in the waiting room again?" he said.
"Why's that?"
"A pall is hanging over the place every time I walk in. What do those guys do for kicks, watch snuff films? In fact, I asked the dispatcher that. Definitely no sense of humor."
He sat down and looked around my office, grinned at me for no reason, straightened his back, flexed his arms, bounced his palms up and down on the chair.
"Megan's with you?" I said.
"How'd you know that?"
"Uh, I think the sheriff saw y'all from his window."
"The sheriff? I get it. He told you to roll out the welcome wagon." His eyes roved merrily over my face. "How about we treat you to lunch at Lagniappe Too?"
"I'm buried."
"Megan gave you her drill instructor impersonation the other day?"
"It's very convincing."
He beat out a staccato with his hands on the chair arms.
"Will you stop that and tell me what's on your mind?" I said.
"This cat Billy Holtzner. I've seen him somewhere. Like from Vietnam."
"Holtzner?"
"So we had nasty little marshmallows over there, too. Anyway, I go, 'Were you in the Crotch?' He says, 'The Crotch?' I say, 'Yeah, the Marine Corps. Were you around Da Nang?' What kind of answer do I get? He sucks his teeth and goes back to his clipboard like I'm not there."
He waited for me to speak. When I didn't he said, "What?"
"I hate to see you mixed up with them."
"See you later, Streak."
"I'm coming with you," I said, and stuck the Hanged Man in my shirt pocket.
WE ATE LUNCH AT Lagniappe Too, just down from The Shadows. Megan sat by the window with her hat on. Her hair was curved on her cheeks, and her mouth looked small and red when she took a piece of food off her fork. The light through the window seemed to frame her silhouette against the green wall of bamboo that grew in front of The Shadows. She saw me staring at her.