"He's lying in the shade, taking a nap," the bodyguard replied.
"Tell him this ain't Wino Row, go take his naps somewhere else," Ricky said.
The bodyguard walked across the road, into the trees, and spoke to the man on the ground. The man sat up and yawned, looked in Ricky's direction while the bodyguard talked, then started his truck and drove away.
"Who was he?" Ricky asked the bodyguard.
"A guy sells sno'balls."
"Who was he?"
"He didn't give me his fucking name, Ricky. You want I should go after him?"
"Forget it. We're out of drinks here. Get the waiter back."
An hour later Ricky's eyes were red with alcohol, his skin glazed with sweat from riding his horse hard in the sun. An ancient green milk truck, with magnetized letters on the side, drove down the two-lane road through the park, exited on the boulevard, then made a second pass through the park and stopped in the trees by the duck pond.
Benny Grogan, the other bodyguard, got up from Ricky's table. He wore a straw hat with a multicolored band on his platinum hair.
"Where you going?" Ricky said.
"To check the guy out."
"He's a knife grinder. I seen that truck all over the neighborhood," Ricky said.
"I thought you didn't want nobody hanging around, Ricky," Benny said.
"He's a midget. How's he reach the pedals? Bring the car around. Angela, you up for a shower?" Ricky said.
The milk truck was parked deep in the shade of the live oaks. The rear doors opened, flapping back on their hinges, and revealed a prone man in a yellow T-shirt and dark blue jeans. His long body was stretched out behind a sandbag, the sling of the scoped rifle twisted around his left forearm, the right side of his face notched into the rifle's stock.
When he squeezed off, the rifle recoiled hard against his shoulder and a flash leaped off the muzzle, like an electrical short, but there was no report.
The bullet tore through the center of Ricky's throat. A purple stream of burgundy flowed from both corners of his mouth, then he began to make coughing sounds, like a man who can neither swallow nor expel a chicken bone, while blood spigoted from his wound and spiderwebbed his chest and white polo pants. His eyes stared impotently into his new girlfriend's face. She pushed herself away from the table, her hands held out in front of her, her knees close together, like someone who did not want to be splashed by a passing car.
The shooter slammed the back doors of the milk truck and the driver drove the truck through the trees and over the curb onto the boulevard. Benny Grogan ran down the street after it, his .38 held in the air, automobiles veering to each side of him, their horns blaring.
IT WAS MONDAY WHEN Adrien Glazier gave me all the details of Scarlotti's death over the phone.
"NOPD found the truck out by Lake Pontchartrain. It was clean," she said.
"You got anything on the shooter?"
"Nothing. It looks like we've lost our biggest potential witness against the boys from Hong Kong," she said.
"I'm afraid people in New Orleans won't mourn that fact," I said.
"You can't tell. Greaseball wakes are quite an event. Anyway, we'll be there."
"Tell the band to play 'My Funny Valentine,'" I said.
* * *
TWENTY-NINE
THAT EVENING I DROVE DOWN to Clete's cottage outside Jeanerette. He was washing his car in the side yard, rubbing a soapy sponge over the hood.
"I think I'm going to get it restored, drive it around like a classic instead of a jun