“I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s why your BP is about two hundred or so,” I said.
“Can I be honest here?” he said, glancing at Alafair.
“Get the marbles out of your mouth, will you, Clete?” I said.
“It’s what I didn’t do. Wimple was in my cottage last night. He was not only in it last night, he waited for me under the bed all afternoon.”
For some reason Snuggs stopped eating and looked up at him.
“He hooked you up or something?” I said.
“How’d you know?”
“Because it’s the kind of stuff Smiley does. Did you call it in?”
“I let him slide.”
“You’re kidding?”
“I gave him my word.”
“I don’t believe this,” I said.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
“Until you get a shiv between your shoulder blades.”
“Wimple finds people we can’t get close to,” he said. “There’s nothing about the Mob he doesn’t know. He’s like a worm inside a corpse.”
Alafair put down the toast she was eating. “Thanks, Clete.”
“Can I have a cup of coffee?” he said. “I got the shakes. Wimple creeped me out. It’s like talking to a giant slug.”
“You know I have to report this to Helen.”
“Do anything you want. What’s better, getting to the bottom of Lucinda Arceneaux’s death or putting a guy in a cage who’s got a triple-A battery for a brain?”
“Helen might have you picked up, Clete.”
“For what, not getting myself killed? Wimple said there’s Jersey and Russian money going to a movie company hereabouts. He said the money gets laundered in Malta.”
“Malta as in Maltese cross?” I said.
“Yeah, the kind that’s been showing up on dead people.”
“How does a piece of stamped metal or a tattoo on a dead person connect with money laundering?” I asked.
“Let me turn it around on you. If the Maltese cross isn’t a signal about money, then what does it represent? Some guy’s fascination with the prizes in a box of Cracker Jack?”
I picked up Snuggs and cuddled him in my arm. I wiped his feet with a paper towel.
“Did you hear me, Dave?” Clete said.
“Yeah, I did. I’ve got no answers. But if Smiley caps somebody else—maybe Sean McClain—you’ll never forgive yourself.”
He looked like I’d punched him in the stomach.