Swan Peak (Dave Robicheaux 17)

e up with,” Harold replied.

He poured coffee into a tall glass from a carafe on the back bar, then added a brimming shot of Jack Daniel’s and covered the top with whipped cream he sprayed from a can. He inserted a spoon in the glass and wrapped the glass with a napkin and set it on the bar. Then he placed another napkin and a sugar cube beside the glass.

“How much is that, Harold?”

“It’s on me. It’s not very professionally done.”

“That’s very kind. I don’t want you to get in trouble with your employer, though.” She took a ten-dollar bill from her purse and placed it on the bar.

He gathered up the bill in his palm. “Mr. Wellstone with you today?” he asked.

“No, he’s not,” she replied.

He brushed at his nose with the back of his wrist and looked out at the lake. “I wonder if I can ask you a favor.”

“What is it?”

“Just say no and I’ll understand.”

She felt her impatience growing, as though an annoying person were pulling on her sweater to get her attention. She let her eyes go flat and drank from her glass without speaking.

“I got a camera here. If I ask Betty in there to take our picture, would you mind?” he said.

“No, of course I wouldn’t mind. You asked about Leslie. Did you want to talk to him about something?”

“No, not really. He seems like a nice gentleman, is all I was saying. I bet he was a brave soldier.”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“Ma’am?”

She felt the mixture of caffeine and bourbon and gin take hold in her nervous system, and not in a good way. Her stomach was sour, and pinpoints of moisture broke on her temples. The bartender called the waitress, then posed stiffly by Jamie Sue’s side, not touching her, while the waitress took their picture. “Thank you, Ms. Wellstone,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” she said, sitting back down. “Take this away, will you, and give me another gimlet, one as cold as those others were.”

“If that’s what you want.”

Of course that’s what I want, you idiot, or I wouldn’t have ordered it, she caught herself thinking.

“Sorry?” he said.

“You seem like a man of the world. Would you ever indicate to a woman she was your hired slut?”

The bartender’s mouth opened.

“The question isn’t meant to startle or to offend. Would you say something like that to a woman, any woman? Do you know any man who would?”

“No, Ms. Wellstone, I wouldn’t do that. I don’t associate with men who talk like that, either.”

“I didn’t think so. That’s why I asked. The gangster in the photograph with his girlfriend? Why would they come to Swan Lake? Didn’t they live in Beverly Hills? Why would anyone come here in the winter and build a snowman on the edge of a frozen lake? Didn’t she commit suicide? Didn’t she take an overdose of sleeping pills in Austria and lie down in a snowbank and go to sleep and wake up dead?”

“Ms. Wellstone, you’re really worrying me,” the bartender said.

“There’s nothing wrong with me, Harold. I wish you would not indicate there is. I wish that lake was full of gin. It looks like gin when the sun goes behind the mountains and the light fades, doesn’t it?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Would you like to call up my husband and talk with him? Were you in a war, Harold? My father was. A Japanese soldier stuck a bayonet in his chest and destroyed his lung. My father pulled out the bayonet and killed the Japanese soldier with it. My husband wasn’t interested in the story.”