He got into the truck and eased the door shut, restraining his energies so as not to show his anger and sense of defeat.

“Blow it off, Clete. You’ve cut Kovick slack when he deserved a bullet in the mouth,” I said.

“I let him wipe his feet on me.”

“No, you didn’t. Sidney Kovick is a pimp. Anyone who has a conversation with him wants to take a shower afterward.”

But Clete wasn’t buying it. I started up the truck and drove to the end of the block, then turned up the street that led past the alley behind Sidney ’s shop. I glanced down the alley as we passed. Amid the trash cans and the clusters of banana trees between the garages, I could see a floral delivery van parked at the back door of Sidney ’s shop. Sidney ’s wife was helping a Hispanic man load flowers in the side of the van. I stepped on the brake and shoved the transmission into reverse.

“What’s going on?” Clete said.

“The guy in the alley with the Gothic-letter tats. He looks just like Chula Ramos,” I said.

“Who?”

“The MS-13 dude, Natalia Ramos’s brother. He was released from the Iberia stockade by mistake.”

“The brother of the hooker who was shacked up with the priest?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“You really want to mess with this, Dave?”

“Yeah, I do.”

I bounced into the alley and headed toward the van. An elderly woman backed a gas-guzzler out of a garage, wedging her vehicle at an angle between the garage and a cast-iron Dumpster. When I blew my horn at her, she responded by staring at me aghast, then taking off her glasses and wiping them with a Kleenex so she could see me more clearly. I hung my badge out the window and waved for her to pull her car out of the way. She stepped on the accelerator and smashed her taillight into the Dumpster.

I got out of my truck and started walking toward the delivery van. “Hold on there, bubba,” I called, not sure if I was actually looking at Ramos.

The Hispanic man slammed the driver’s door behind him and drove away.

“What’s the trouble, Dave?” Eunice said.

“Who’s your delivery man?”

“It’s Chula something-or-other. Did he do something?”

I heard Clete walk up behind me. “How’d you come to know this guy, Eunice?” I asked.

“ Sidney gave him a job. Chula’s sister used to clean Sidney ’s office in the Quarter.”

“Natalia was Sidney ’s maid?” I said.

“Yes, they’re Central American refugees, I think. Sidney wanted to help them. Why?”

I looked at her face. It was clear of guile or deception. Even though Eunice was a big-boned countrywoman and the butt of jokes among NOPD cops, she seemed possessed of an inner beauty. I tried to keep my eyes and face empty. I did not want Eunice to learn of her husband’s lies from me.

“Do you have an address or phone number for Chula? I think he might have some information that could be helpful to a federal agent I know.”

“I doubt it. Chula comes and goes in his spare time. I think he’s working on a FEMA job and living in a bunkhouse. He’ll bring the van back about eight. You want to come back or leave him a message?”

“No, that’s all right. I’ll catch him another time. In fact, forget I was here, will you?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“It’s nice seeing you again, Eunice.”

“Same here, Dave.” When she smiled, I was convinced, as always, that she had become the most beautiful woman in New Orleans.

I walked back to the truck with Clete. As I started the engine he took off his hat and combed his hair. He slipped his comb in his shirt pocket and put his hat back on. “ Sidney was porking the girl from El Sal?” he said.

“That’s what it sounds like.”

“Why would Eunice want to marry a bucket of shit like that?”

I shrugged and looked at him. I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head. “Pull around in front of the shop,” he said.

“You’re going to bring him down in front of his wife?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just stay in the truck.”

“That’s no good, Clete.”

He opened the passenger door while the truck was moving and got out. He slammed the door and looked back through the window. “You quit judging me, Streak.”

Kovick was still behind the counter when Clete reentered the store. “Hey, Sidney, I got something to tell you,” he said.

“What’s that, Purcel?”

“It’s going to surprise you. But try to live with it and adjust and come out on the sunny side of things. Diggez-vous?”

“No, I don’t diggez-vous. And I’m not really interested, either.”

“I bounced your head off a sidewalk when we were kids. I’m sorry I did that. Just keep Bledsoe away from Dave’s daughter. I got no personal beef with you.”

“That’s the big news flash?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Lock your flopper in a vault while you’re at it.”

Sidney stuck a matchstick in his mouth and rolled it across his teeth, searching for the design in Clete’s words.

When Clete got back in the truck, his expression was serene. He clicked the door shut and smiled at me with his eyes.

“What happened in there?” I said.

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean ‘nothing’?”

“Nothing. That’s the point,” he said. “Come on, let’s motor, big mon.”

Chapter 17

ON MONDAY MORNING I called Betsy Mossbacher at the FBI and told her that Chula Ramos was probably working part-time as a delivery man for Sidney Kovick.

“Delivering what?” she said.

“Maybe just flowers. Look, Clete Purcel and I told Sidney we knew he had been stashing counterfeit in his house. He said something to the effect Clete and I were in over our heads.”

“What does Purcel have to do with this?”

“Not a lot.”

“Some counterfeit money showed up in a Morgan City mailbox. The engraving and paper are impressive. Is this the money we’re talking about?”

“It could be.”

“You tell Purcel to stay out of federal business.”

The purpose of my call was slipping away, and I think that’s the way Betsy wanted it. I didn’t take the bait. “Why would Kovick tell us we’re in over our heads?” I asked.

“I think he’s convinced himself he’s a patriot defending his homeland. Personally I think he’s psychotic. An agent in Mississippi believes Kovick’s goons poured the body of Kovick’s neighbor into the foundation of a casino in Biloxi.”

“You’re losing me, Betsy.”

“The Taliban funds al Qaeda with the sale of heroin. You don’t think they’re capable of other criminal enterprises?”

I still didn’t know what she was talking about and I wasn’t going to guess. “I need a favor from you,” I said. “A guy named Ronald Bledsoe may try to harm my daughter. He claims to be a PI out of Key West, but Tallahassee has almost nothing on him, except the fact he got a license through a bail-bonds office about ten years back. Neither does the NCIC. I’m convinced he’s a dangerous and depraved man, the kind who leaves shit-prints somewhere. But so far I haven’t found them.”

“Have you run him through AFIS?”

“Not yet.”

“Give it a try. In the meantime, I’ll do what I can. What did your daughter do to this guy?”

“Busted his nose and lips and knocked out one of his teeth.”

“He’s pissed over that?”

But jokes about Ronald Bledsoe weren’t funny.

THREE DAYS EARLIER a Guatemalan illegal had been stripping cypress planks off a wall inside the entranceway of a historic New Orleans home. The workman made eight dollars an hour and feared civil authority in this country and his own. But he feared losing his job even more. The contractor who had hired him specialized in the restoration of historical properties. The contractor also made a sizable income by salvaging colonial-era brick, heart-pine floors, brass hinges and door knockers, square-head nails, milk-glass doorknobs, claw-foot bathtubs, iron wall hooks for cook pots, and grapeshot and.58-caliber minié balls embedded in housefronts during the White League takeover of New Orleans in 1874. Every item with possible resale value at a teardown or refurbish job went into a pile.