James Burke - A Morning for Flamingos

"I've got to have a talk with Minos."

"Talk all you want to. When you deal with the feds, you're dealing with people whose thought patterns are printed on computer chips. Besides, they all smell like mouthwash. Did you ever trust a guy who smells like mouthwash?"

She opened the apartment door on the night chain. She had on a short-sleeved terry cloth robe. Her right eye was a purple knot, and there was still a crust of dried blood in one nostril. She slipped the chain loose and opened the door wide. Her arms were streaked with yellow and purple bruises, the kind that a man's clenched hand leaves. I could smell the Mentholatum that she had smeared on her skin. She closed the door and locked it again as soon as we were inside.

"I thought maybe you wouldn't come," she said.

"Why?" I said.

"I don't know, it was just what I thought." She talked carefully, as though the inside of her mouth were hurt. "There's some beer and pop in the refrigerator if you want some."

"Who did it, Kim?" I said.

"Jimmie Lee Boggs."

"When?"

"This morning. Just after I got up. I opened the door to get the newspaper and he hit me in the face and knocked me back inside the room. I never had anybody hit me like that. I didn't believe anyone could hit that hard."

I could hear the humiliation in her voice, see the shame in her face. I had seen the same look of debasement in victims of violence many times, and it was almost impossible to convince them that they were not deserving of their fate. I could feel Clete's awkwardness next to me.

"I think I'll take that beer," he said, walking to the refrigerator. "Then I'll just step out here on the balcony and have a cigarette."

He slid open the glass doors that gave onto a small balcony with a barbecue grill on it, then closed them behind him and looked out over a lighted, weed-filled lake that was dented with rain.

She sat on the couch with her hands in her lap and her head bowed.

"Why didn't you think I'd come?" I asked again.

"Because you know I'm a snitch."

"What else?"

Her eyes were averted. She looked small sitting on the couch. I sat down next to her. She turned her face up, then looked away again.

"What else, Kim?"

"Because you know I betrayed you. I told Lieutenant Baxter about the buy down at Cocodrie. That's why Jimmie Lee Boggs came after me. He said he figured it was either you or me who dropped the dime on him. He beat me all over the apartment. Then he twisted a towel in my mouth and filled up the sink and held my head under the water until I almost passed out. He kept saying, 'Gargle time, beautiful. Rinse out your mouth, now. Think about the canary I'm gonna stuff in it.' He would have killed me if the landlady hadn't started banging on the door for the rent."

She glanced sideways at my face.

"Why were you snitching for Nate Baxter?"

"My brother's a groom at the Fairgrounds. Lieutenant Baxter has him in jail for possession. He says he can upgrade the charge to conspiracy to distribute, and Albert-that's my brother-will get fifteen years in Angola."

"Baxter put you inside Tony's crowd?"

"I already had the job at the club. All I had to do was become available."

"Available?" I said.

"I said to Baxter, 'What do you mean, exactly?' He says, 'You've got a piece of equipment that'll get you anything you want.' He looks across his desk, then he goes. "That's big-picture clear, isn't it? Talk it over with your brother. Let me know what you decide. It doesn't matter to me, hon, one way or another.'"

"You should have reported him, Kim."

"Great. I work in a skin joint run by the Mafia, my brother's a druggie in custody, and I'm going to report a Vice lieutenant? Look, it doesn't matter what he said. I did what he wanted. I told him everything Tony was doing, I told him about you, I'm to blame for what happened down at Cocodrie."

"You tried to warn me. Give yourself a little credit."

"Are you going to tell Tony?"

"No. But as of tonight you're out of the life, Kim. You don't go back to that job, or back to your apartment, or out to Tony's. I also advise you to stay away from Nate Baxter. He's a liar and a coward and a bully. Also, he doesn't have the power to upgrade your brother's charges. That comes out of the prosecutor's office. Believe me, your brother will be better off taking his own chances."

She took a Kleenex out of her robe and touched one nostril with it. Her face had no makeup on it, and it looked shiny and white where it wasn't bruised.

"I don't know what to do," she said. "I only have a little money. I have to have a job."

"Somebody's going to take care of you. I guarantee it."

She put the Kleenex away and played with her fingernails.

"I have to ask you something," she said.

"Yes?"

"It's not a very appropriate question, I guess, but there's no chance, is there? Not now."

"Of what?" I said, although I already knew the answer.

"What I mean is, it's like when people do something to one another, or maybe to themselves, something shameful, it kills what might have been between them, doesn't it?"

"I don't know, Kim."

"Yes, you do. It's why my brother Albert is the way he is. Years ago he had a wife and a little girl. Then one night he got drunk at a party and slept with another woman. So he had all this Catholic guilt about what he'd done, and rather than blow it off, he got his wife drunk and talked her into getting into the sack with another guy. All he got out of it was the knowledge that he couldn't love himself anymore, and so he doesn't think anybody else can, either."

"I wouldn't try to figure it all out now, Kim."

"Tony's right. We're the cluster fuck. The human race is."

"Cynics and nihilists are two bits a bagful," I said. "Don't let them sell you that same old tired shuck. Listen, a man named Minos Dautrieve is going to contact you. He's an old friend with the DEA, so trust him. We're going to take care of you."

"I was right, then. You're still a cop."

"Who cares? The only thing that matters here is that you're out of the life. We're clear on that, aren't we?"

"Yes."

I put my hand on her forearm.

"Kim, you stood up for your brother," I said. "Everything you did took courage. Most people aren't that brave. I think you're one special lady."

She looked up at me. Her unswollen eye glimmered softly.

"Really?" she said.

"You bet. I've had some good people cover my back, like Cletus out there, but I'd put my money on you anytime."

She smiled, and her free hand touched the backs of my fingers.

It was still raining when we left the apartment building and got back inside my truck.

"Your face looks like a thunderstorm," Clete said.

"Nate Baxter," I said.

"She was working for him?"

"Yep."

"He's the guy mommies warned them about. I always had the feeling that if we ever had a Third Reich here, you might see Nate manning the ovens."

"There's a bar up here on the corner. I want to stop and use the phone."

"You're not going after Baxter?"

"Not now. But he's not going to get away with this."

"Hmm," Clete said, grinning in the dashboard light, his eyebrows flipping up and down like Groucho Marx's.

We went inside the corner bar, and Clete ordered a drink while I called Minos at his guesthouse from a phone booth next to a pinball machine. I told him about Kim, the beating she had taken from Jimmie Lee Boggs, the fact that she was an informant for Nate Baxter.

"Can you get her into a safe house?" I said.

"If she wants it."

"Tomorrow morning."

"No problem."

"But I've got one. Why did you guys cut Cletus from the payroll?"

"I was going to tell you about it. It just happened today. I didn't have any say in it."

"We had a deal."