'Because you always suggest going out to dinner when you feel guilty about something.'
'Not me.' I looked out at the rain striking against the half-opened windows of the streetcar.
'I'm sorry about last night,' she said.
'See you later, kiddo.'
'Hang on to your butt in the Big Sleazy.'
That's more like it, Boots, I thought.
I called Motley at headquarters in the Garden District.
'I got a strange story for you, Robicheaux,' he said. 'We've had some fag bashers running around the city. A couple of them are UNO pukes; the others are ju
st ugly and stupid or probably latent queerbait themselves. Anyway, they're always on the prowl for fresh meat down in the Quarter. This time they picked up a transvestite on Dauphine and took him to a camp out in St. Charles Parish. I think he blew a couple of them, then they got him stinking drunk, pulled his clothes off, and poured pig shit and chicken feathers all over him. Nice boys, huh?
'Anyway, the transvestite is no ordinary fruit. He looks like Frankenstein in a dress and panty hose. He starts sobering up and realizes this isn't a Crisco party. That's when he starts ripping puke ass, I mean busting slats out of the walls with these guys. The pukes made an instant conversion to law and order and called the sheriffs office.
'Right now Frankenstein's in a holding cell, scared shitless. Guess who he called to bail him out?'
'Lonighan?'
'Right. Then twenty minutes go by, and guess who calls back on the fruit's behalf?'
'I don't know, Ben.'
'A lawyer who works for the Calucci brothers. That's when the St. Charles sheriff called us. Why do the Caluccis want to help a cross-dresser with feathers and pig flop in his hair?'
'Is the guy's name Manuel?'
'Yeah, Manuel Ruiz. The sheriff thinks he's a lobotomy case. He's probably illegal, too.'
'How long has he been in custody?'
'Two hours.'
'I'll get back to you. Thanks, Ben.'
An hour later Manuel Ruiz was still in the holding cell, a narrow, concrete, barred room with a wood bench against one wall and a drain hole and grate in the floor. There were dried yellow stains on the grate and on the cement around the hole. He was barefoot and wore a black skirt with orange flowers on it and a torn peasant blouse with lace around the neck; his hair was matted and stuck together in spikes. His exposed chest looked as hard and flawless in complexion as sanded oak.
'You remember me, Manuel?' I asked.
The eyes were obsidian, elongated, unblinking, lidless, his wide, expressionless mouth lipsticked like a fresh surgical incision.
'I just talked with the prosecutor's office,' I said. 'The boys aren't pressing charges. You can go home with me if you want.'
The skin at the corner of one eye puckered, like tan putty wrinkling.
'Or you can wait for the Caluccis' lawyer to get here. But he left word he's running late.'
'Caluccis no good. No want.' His voice sounded as though it came out of a cave.
'Not a bad idea. The other problem we might have is the INS, Manuel.'
He continued to stare at me, as though I were an anomaly caged by bars and not he, floating just on the edge of memory and recognition.
'Immigration and Naturalization,' I said, and saw the words tick in his eyes. 'Time to get out of town. Hump it on down the road. ¿Vamos a casa? Tommy's house?'