“You shot a kid.”
“I made a Christian out of a nigger.”
“You went to work for Tony Squid,” Clete said.
“Who?” Wooster said.
“Is Nightingale here or not?” Clete said.
“It’s none of your goddamn business,” Wooster said.
Clete blew air out of one nostril and looked sideways. “How y’all think this is going to play out?”
“With you hauling your ass out of here,” Wooster said.
Clete opened and closed his hands at his sides. They felt stiff and thick, the veins in his forearms cording. “You guys deal the play.”
Then Jimm
y Nightingale came around the side of the house in tennis clothes, a racquet over his shoulder, his skin shiny, not a strand of his bronze-colored hair out of place. “Hey, slow down out there.”
“We’ve got it under control, Mr. Nightingale,” Wooster said.
“Clete’s my friend. What are you doing out here, big fellow?”
“Long time no see. Not since I ran into you and Bobby Earl at the casino.”
“How could I forget? You took a drain in poor Bobby’s car.”
“I called you a cunt, and you had me taken out in handcuffs.”
“We all have our off nights,” Nightingale said.
“You’ve got quite a place here.”
“Why don’t you join us out back for a drink?”
Clete wondered how the buried images of the Indians dying in the explosions of the satchel charges did not crack through the perfection of Nightingale’s perfect egg-shaped face, and leave it like pieces of porcelain at his feet.
“Somebody tried to blow up my shit,” Clete said.
“I didn’t know about that.”
“If he’d pulled it off, he would have killed a young boy I take care of. That’s a big problem for me.”
“Let me know if I can help. A little influence never hurts.”
“The authorities usually see me as the problem. They’re often right. See, I’m going to square this on my own.”
“Give ’em heck,” Nightingale said.
“I love that kind of language. ‘Give ’em heck.’ ‘You betcha.’ It’s folksy.”
“Let me take him out of here, Mr. Nightingale,” Wooster said.
“I want to be your friend, Clete,” Nightingale said.
“You know that old expression ‘I don’t have an enemy in the world’? As long as I’m alive, you’ll always have one.”