A Morning for Flamingos by James Lee Burke

they start talking about Vietnam and Cherry Alley in Tokyo. This is in front of his broad, can you dig it? All the time I’m washing glasses about two feet away, so Cardo stops talking and says to me, ‘You got a question about something?’
    “‘What?’ I say.
    “‘You look like you’re getting an earful. You got a question?’ he says.
    “‘You’re only in the crotch once,’ I say.
    “‘You cracking wise or something?’ he says.
    “‘I’m not doing anything. It’s a Marine Corps expression. I was in the corps myself,’ I say.
    “He starts grinning and points both fingers to his chest and says, ‘You think you got to tell me what it means?’ and his broad starts making these clicking, no-no sounds with her mouth. ‘Come on, you explaining to me what the fuck that means?’ he says. ‘Somebody appointed you to explain these things to other people?’
    “So I said, ‘No, I’m just telling you to enjoy your drink,’ and I walked back to my office. It was about that time I started thinking about changing my line of work.”
    “Have you heard of a guy named Jimmie Lee Boggs?”
    “A contract man, out of Florida?”
    “That’s the one.”
    “What about him?”
    “He’s the guy who put a hole in me. Somebody told me he might be back in New Orleans.”
    Clete smiled.
    “That’s the bait they used to get you into the sting, huh?” he said. “They saw you coming, Streak. That guy’s long gone now.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Get me in on it, mon.”
    “I don’t call the shots on this one, Cletus. Here’s my telephone number and address. But don’t give them to anyone, okay? Just keep any messages I get and I’ll check back with you.”
    “You need somebody to watch your back. Don’t trust the feds to do it. You heard it first from ole Clete.”
    “I don’t know if any of this is going anywhere, anyway,” I said. “A few more days of this and I might be back in New Iberia.”
    He put a matchstick in his mouth. His hands were big and square and callused around the edges, the nails chewed back to the quick.
    “Don’t underestimate their potential,” he said. “Most of them wouldn’t make good bars of soap. But turn your back on them and they’ll take your eyes out.”
     
    That afternoon I talked to another of Minos’s contacts, a Negro bartender on Magazine. His head was bald and waxed, and he wore gray muttonchop sideburns that looked as though they were artificially affixed to his face. He was as passive, docile, and uncurious about me as if I had been selling burial insurance. His eyelids were leaded, and his head kept nodding up and down while I talked. He told me: “See, I ain’t in the bidness no more myself. I had a bunch of trouble ‘cause of it, had to go out of town for a little while, know what I mean? But somebody come in want the action, I’ll tell them you in town. You want another 7-Up?”
    “No, this is fine.”
    “How about some hard-boiled eggs?”
    “No, I’m fine.”
    “I got to go in the kitchen and start my stove now.”
    “Thanks for your time. You were up at Angola?”
    “Where’s that at?” he said. His eyes looked speculatively out into space.
    The next morning I walked over to the Café du Monde again and had coffee at one of the outside tables. Across the street the spires of the cathedral looked brilliant in the sunlight, and the wind off the river ruffled the banana trees and palm fronds along the black iron piked fence that bordered the park inside Jackson Square. I finished reading the paper, then walked back to the apartment and called Clete’s bar for messages. There were none. I called Minos’s office in Lafayette.
    “Don’t be discouraged,” he said.
    “I think maybe I’m not cut out for this.”
    “Why?”
    “I was a Homicide cop. I never worked Vice or Narcotics.”
    “It’s a different kind of gig, isn’t it?”
    “Look, busting them is one thing. Pretending to be like them is another.”
    “Have a few laughs with