"How much?"

"Two hundred a week."

"That's an insult."

"Too bad."

"Listen, Minos, let's stop messing around. You give the guy five hundred a week, treat him with some respect, or I'm going to walk out of this."

"I'll talk to somebody about it later."

"No, make the call now."

I saw him take a breath, his fingers tap on his thigh.

"All right, you've got my word," he said.

"He was a good cop till he had marital trouble and got on the sauce. He'll do fine. You'll see."

"I hope so. Because if he doesn't, somebody's going to feed your butt through the paper shredder an inch at a time."

"You really know how to say it, Minos."

He picked up a towel from the bathroom floor and started buffing one of his loafers on top of a wood chair.

"Where'd this broad, Kim, the one at the score, tell you she was from?"

"She didn't."

"Hmmm."

"What is it?"

"We checked her out. Her last name's Dollinger. She's an assistant manager at one of Cardo's clubs on the Airline Highway. She hit town about six months ago. She tells people she worked at a lounge in North Houston, some dump on Jensen Drive. We made a couple of calls. They never heard of her."

"She said something. About everything down here smelling like mold and leaking sewage. I don't think she's from Houston."

"Those kinds of broads make up their own dossiers. I've got something else on my mind that's giving me the start of a migraine, Dave."

I waited for him to go on.

"Bootsie Giacano," he said.

"I had a feeling you'd say that. Do you have a tail on me?"

"It wouldn't be a bad idea, but we don't."

"A tap on her phone?"

"What do you think? She was married to Ralph Giacano. Her business partners are mainline greaseballs."

"She can't get out from under them."

"Always the humanist. Look, Dave, what you do with your private life is your business. But if you compromise the operation, it's ours." He sat on the wood chair and threw the towel back onto the bathroom floor. "Look, I'm your friend. I got you into this stuff. You think I want to see you hurt?"

"I won't get hurt because of her."

"You don't know that. Are you sleeping with her?"

"I'm going to be on my way now."

"She'll know you're running a sting. She tips the greaseballs, it doesn't matter how, in some innocent way, we're going to pull you out of Lake Pontchartrain."

"It's not going to happen."

His eyes were level, unblinking, and they stared straight into mine.

"It did two years ago," he said. "To a local narc N.O.P.D. got inside. They threw his body off the causeway. A.22 magnum through the mouth, one under the chin, one through the temple. They didn't weight him down, either. They wanted to send a floating telegram."

"You can get the five hundred thou?"

"Yep."

"I'm going to try to set up a meet with Cardo. I'll call you."

"Let some time go by, Dave. Let them feel more confident about you."

"You said it yourself, these guys love money. How do they put it, 'Money talks and bullshit walks'? I'm going to play out the hand. If they buy it, fine. If not, I'm going back home."

He pulled on his ear and made a snuffing sound in his nose.

"What I'm saying is we don't know everything we'd like to about Cardo. He messes around in politics, sends money to right-wing crazies, stuff like that. He was shooting off his mouth around town about bringing Oliver North to New Orleans. He thinks he's a big intellectual because he's got a degree from a junior college in Miami."

"So?"

"So he's hard to read. We know there're some guys in Miami and Chicago who think maybe he shouldn't be running things here, that maybe he's crazy or he keeps his brains in that schlong he's so proud of. Figure it out, Dave. What kind of guy would keep Jimmie Lee Boggs around?"

"You're worrying too much, Minos."

"Because I've been doing this stuff a long time. I told you it was a simple sting. That's what it should be. But you don't hear me when I say things to you, and I'm bothered by that."

I left by the back entrance and walked down the alley to the side street where my truck was parked. I could hear the streetcar clattering down the tracks on St. Charles. The sky was a hard blue, the noon sun bright overhead, and gray squirrels raced each other around the trunks of the oak trees on the street. Now all I had to do was find a way inside the insular and peculiar world of Anthony Cardo.

"You just fucking do it, mon," Clete said that same day as we ate lunch at the bar in the Golden Star on Decatur. "The guy lives in a house, right, not the Vatican. We're talking about a bucket of shit, mon, not the pope. You don't get a number and wait when you deal with a bucket of shit, do you?"

He took an enormous bite of his oyster loaf sandwich. His face was ruddy and cheerful, his crushed porkpie hat down low over his eyes, his sports coat as tight as a sausage skin on his broad back. His cigarette burned in an ashtray, and by his elbow was a Bloody Mary with a celery stalk in it.

"Call up the cocksucker and tell him we're coming out," he said.

"It's not that easy, Cletus."

"I don't see the problem." His cheek was as big as a baseball with unchewed food. We were alone at the bar. The walls were covered with the framed and autographed photos of movie stars.

"He has an unlisted number. Minos gave it to me, but I don't have a way to explain to Cardo how I got it. I asked Fontenot for it, and he wouldn't give it to me. He said he had to clear it with Cardo first."

"Fontenot's the tub, the one with the T-shirt shop on Bourbon?"

"That's the man."

"He wants to control access to the piggy bank, huh?"

"Something like that."

"Stay here."

"Where are you going?"

"Remain cool and copacetic, my mellow man. I'll be back before you finish your gumbo."

"Wait a minute, Clete."

But he was out the door. Fifteen minutes later he was back, his green eyes smiling under the short brim of his hat. He dropped a slip of paper with Cardo's phone number on it next to my plate.

"What did you do to him?" I asked.

"Hey, come on, Fontenot's a reasonable guy. I just explained that you and I are in partnership now. He liked the idea. That's right, I ain't putting you on."

"Clete, if we get into Cardo's, you've got to take your transmission out of overdrive."

"Trust me, mon." The fingers of his big hands were spread out like banana peels on top of the bar. He grinned at me, squinted his eyes, and clicked his teeth together. "You're looking at a model of restraint. I worked Vice, remember. I know these fuckers. They'll love having me on board."

It was easier than I thought. I called Cardo's house, a maid answered, then Cardo was on the line. He was polite, even expansive. The accent was typical New Orleans Italian, which sounded like both Flatbush and the Irish Channel.

"I've heard a lot about you," he said. "I've been looking forward to meeting you. You play tennis?"

"I'm afraid not."

"You like to watch tennis?"

"Sure."

"Where are you now?"

"At the Golden Star, across from the French Market."

"Can you come out in an hour? We'll have some drinks, I'll hit the ball a little bit, we'll talk."

"Sure. I'd like that. Can you give me your address?"

He gave me directions to a neighborhood out by Lake Pontchartrain.

"How'd you get this number?" he asked.

"It came from Ray."

"That's strange. Ray usually doesn't give it out."

The receiver was quiet a moment.

"You haven't been bouncing my help around, have you?" he said; then he laughed. "Don't worry about it. Ray needs a little excitement. Cleans the fat out of his veins. You didn't hurt him, though, did you?"