“I went there once. But I don’t work there. I work for Mr. Purcel. You know Clete Purcel?”
“I haven’t had the pleasure. Your name is Horowitz?”
“That’s right. Do you know Tee Jolie Melton?”
“You lied to my answering service, and now you want to sit down at my table and question me about whom I do or do not know?”
“You mind if I order? I haven’t eaten yet.”
“This is a put-on, isn’t it?”
“You wish.”
“The name is Horowitz, emphasis on the first syllable?”
“Any way you want to say it.”
He set down his fork and removed a granule of crushed ice from the corner of his mouth. He studied her face, his eyes vaguely amused. The two men with him were smiling. One man wore his hair combed straight back, the sideburns buzzed off. There was a thick bump in the top of his nose; his eyes were wide-set and not in line with each other and gave the impression that he saw everything and nothing. The other man was fleshy, too big for his clothes, his neck chafing against a starched collar, his coat flecked with dandruff. He had a small, cruel mouth and wore a big ring on his right hand, inset with a sharp-edged emblem rather than a stone.
“How can I help you, Ms. Horowitz?” Dupree said.
“Here’s the gen on your wife’s situation,” Gretchen said. “She—”
“The what?” Dupree said.
“The gen. That means the ‘background,’ the ‘information.’ Here’s the gen on your wife. She’s sending us signals that she’s trying to screw you on your divorce settlement. So out of nowhere, she comes up with a photo that shows you with Tee Jolie Melton. That’s the singer you told Dave Robicheaux you didn’t know. But your wife has evidence proving that you’re a liar. Except I don’t believe Varina Leboeuf is trying to screw you. I think she and you are working in concert in order to rat-fuck Mr. Purcel.”
“I see,” Dupree said, snapping his fingers for the waiter.
“You gonna have me eighty-sixed?”
“Oh, no, no. Andre, bring me some more hot water. Ms. Horowitz, all my dealings with my wife are through a lawyer. The other thing she and I work on together is staying out of each other’s way. That’s about all I can tell you, so let’s call this business quits.”
The fleshy man whose collar was biting into his neck said something to his friend. The friend’s hair was greased and as shiny as wire against his scalp. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” Gretchen said.
“It was nothing,” the fleshy man said.
“Something about lipstick?” she said.
The fleshy man shook his head, grinning broadly at his friend. The waiter arrived with a stainless steel teapot, a damp cloth wrapped around the handle; he set it in front of Pierre Dupree and went away.
“I wear lipstick when I work,” Gretchen said. “I wear shades sometimes, too. Sometimes a scarf. Know why that is?”
“No,” the man with the greased hair said. “Clue us in on that.”
“It depersonalizes. Certain things shouldn’t be personal. That’s the way I look at it. What was that about a pig?”
“Don’t know what you mean,” the fleshy man said.
“You said something about lipstick on a pig. That’s what I look like, a pig wearing lipstick?”
“Who would think that?” the fleshy man said.
Gretchen pulled off her shades and set them on the tablecloth, then untied her scarf and shook out her hair. “Now you can get a better idea of what I look like,” she said. “Except now it’s gotten kind of personal. I hate it when that happens.”
Dupree rolled his eyes like a man reaching the limits of his patience. He pulled his napkin from the top of his shirt and dropped it on the table. “Ms. Horowitz,” he said, the Z sound hissing off his teeth, “we have to say good-bye to you now. Say ‘ta-ta’ to everyone and squeeze your way through the dining room and out the door. I’ll ask the waiter to help if you need assistance.”
Another thought besides his own cleverness was obviously on Pierre Dupree’s mind. He suppressed an obvious laugh by coughing on his hand. “I’m going to take a guess. Miami, right? Family originally from Coney Island? How do y’all say it, ‘Me-ami’?”