“You went through NCIC?” he said.
“Everywhere. The FBI, the state police, the state attorney’s office in Florida, John Walsh.”
“Why him?”
“He finds people nobody else can.”
I could see Clete’s frustration. I was giving him information that was not information while calling to mind one of the worst experiences of his life.
His gaze wandered around the room. There were antlers and deer heads and a marlin mounted on the walls. Then he looked out the window at a black Mercury with tinted windows that had just parked under a live oak. The waiter put our food on the table. Clete went to the window and came back. “If that guy comes in here, I’m calling the health department.”
“What guy?”
“Bobby Earl.”
“Clete, if you get us kicked out of here—”
“Don’t start,” he replied, popping open a napkin on his lap.
“I mean it.”
“The passenger window is down,” he said. “The Balangie girl is in the front seat. They don’t have the decency to bring her inside.”
Bobby Earl and Mark Shondell came through the front door and got in the service line. All faces in the restaurant turned toward them. But in one second, with no change of expression, the same people looked quickly at their food or at their hands or at the deer heads and the marlin on the wall. Mark Shondell looked across the room at us and smiled, but I didn’t acknowledge him. He left the line and came to our table. His tan was darker than the last time I had seen him, his expensive clothes immaculate, not one hair out of place on his head. The jeweled rings on his fingers glinted under the ceiling lights. “It’s nice to see you, Dave,” he said, ignoring Clete.
I didn’t answer.
“Sir, did you hear me?” he said.
“Yeah, I did,” I replied, looking through the window at the Mercury.
“Then what seems to be your problem?”
“Your treatment of Isolde Balangie,” I said.
He looked over his shoulder, then back at me. “Her stomach is upset. She didn’t want to come inside.”
“You’re molesting her, you son of a bitch.”
The waiter and waitress and patrons became motionless, as though they were painted on the air. You could not hear a fork or spoon scrape against a plate or saucer.
“How dare you,” he said.
“Get away from our table,” I said.
I doubted that Mark Shondell had ever been called to task in public. A single blue vein was throbbing in his left temple. “You will not speak to me like this.”
“Don’t embarrass yourself any worse than you have,” I said.
“Walk outside with me,” he said.
“No, we’ll end this right here,” I said. I stood up, and with my open hand, I slapped him across the face as hard as I could, so hard his chin hit his shoulder.
“Oh, shit, Dave,” I heard Clete whisper.
I cannot tell you with exactitude what happened next. I felt as though I were standing in the middle of a dream from which I couldn’t wake. The other patrons were staring at their uneaten food. Bobby Earl slipped his arm inside Shondell’s. “Let’s go, Mark,” he said. “It’s all right. He’ll never be your equal.”
He led Shondell outside in the silence.