But she wasn't at the bar. In fact, Smiling Jack's was almost empty. The mirrored runway behind the bar was darkened; the musical instruments of the three-piece band sat unattended in the small pit at the end of the runway; and in the empty gloom a turning strobe light overhead made a revolving shotgun pattern of darkness and light that could be equaled only by seasickness. I asked the bartender if she would be in. He was perhaps thirty and wore hillbilly sideburns, a black fedora, and a black T-shirt with the faces of the Three Stooges embossed whitely on the front.
"You bet," he said, and smiled. "The first show is at eight. She'll be in by six-thirty for the glug-glug hour. You a friend of hers?"
"Yes."
"What are you drinking?"
"Do you have a Dr. Pepper?"
"Are you kidding me?"
"Give me a 7-Up."
"It's two bucks. You sure you want to drink soda pop?"
I put the two dollars on the bar.
"I know you, right?" he said, and smiled again.
"Maybe."
"You're a cop, right?"
"Nope."
"Hey, come on, man, I got two big talents-one as a mixologist and the other for faces. But you're not vice, right?"
"I'm not a cop."
"Wait a minute, I got it. Homicide. You used to work out of the First District on Basin."
"Not anymore."
"You get moved or something?"
"I'm out of the business."
"Early change of life, huh?" he said. His eyes were green and they stayed sufficiently narrowed so you couldn't read them. "You remember me?"
"It's Jerry something-or-other. Five years ago you went up the road for bashing an old man with a pipe. How'd you like it up there at Angola?"
His green eyes widened a moment, looked boldly at me from under the brim of the black fedora, then narrowed and crinkled again. He began drying glasses with a towel, his face turned at an oblique angle.
"It wasn't bad. I was outdoors a lot, lots of fresh air, gave me a chance to get in shape. I like farm work. I grew up on one," he said. "Hey, have another 7-Up. You're impressive, man. A sharp guy like you should have a 7-Up on the house."
"You drink it for me," I said, and picked up my glass and walked to the back of the bar. I watched him light a cigarette, smoke only a few puffs off it, then flip it angrily through the front door onto the tourist-filled sidewalk.
She came in a half hour later, dressed in sandals, blue jeans low on her hips, and a tank top that exposed her flat, tanned stomach. Unlike most of the strippers, she wore her black hair cut short, like a 1940 schoolgirl's. And in spite of all the booze, coke, and speed that went into her body, she was still good to look at.
"Wow, they put the first team back on the street," she said, and smiled. "How you doing, Streak? I'd heard you were remarried and back on the bayou, selling worms and all that jazz."
"That's right. I'm just a tourist now."
"You really hung it up for good, huh? That must take guts, I mean just to boogie on out of it one day and do something weird like sell worms to people. What'd you say, 'Sayonara, crime-stoppers, keep your guns in your pants'?"
"Something like that."
"Hey, Jerry, does it look like we got AIDS down here? It's glug-glug time for mommy."
"I'm trying to find out something about a guy," I said.
"I'm not exactly an information center, Streak. Didn't you ever want to touch up that white spot in your hair? You've got the blackest hair I've ever seen in a man, except for that white patch." She touched the side of my head with her fingers.
"This guy had a green and red snake tattooed on his chest. I think he probably came in here."
"They pay to see me take off my clothes. It's not the other way around. Unless you mean something else."
"I'm talking about a big, dark guy with a head the size of a watermelon. The tattoo was just above the nipple. If you saw it, you wouldn't forget it."
"Why's that?" She lit a cigarette and kept her eyes on the vodka collins that Jerry was mixing for her down the bar.
"There was a tattoo artist in Bring-Cash Alley in Saigon who used the same dark green and red ink. His work was famous in the Orient. He was in Hong Kong for years. British sailors all over the world have his work on them."
"Why would I get to see it?"
"Listen, Robin, I was always your friend. I never judged what you did. Cut the bullshit."
"Oh, that's what it is, huh?" She took the collins glass from Jerry's hand and drank from it. Her mouth looked wet and red and cold when she set the glass down. "I don't do the other stuff anymore. I don't have to. I work this place six months, then I have two gigs in Fort Lauderdale for the winter. Ask your pals in vice."
"They're not my pals. They hung me out to dry. When I was suspended I found out what real solitude was all about."
"I wish you had come around. I could have really gone for you, Dave."
"Maybe I wish I had."
"Come on, I can see you hooked up with a broad that whips out her jugs every night for a roomful of middle-aged titty-babies. Hey, Jerry, can you take it out of slow motion?"
He took away her glass and refilled it with vodka and mix, but didn't bother to put fresh ice or an orange slice in it.
"You're always a class guy," she said to him.
"What can I say, it's a gift," he said, and went back down the bar and began loading beer bottles in the cooler. He turned his face from side to side each time he placed a bottle in the cooler in case one of them should explode.
"I gotta get out of this place. It gets crazier all the time," she said. "If you think his burner's turned off, you ought to meet his mom. She owns this dump and the souvenir shop next door. She's got hair like a Roto-Rooter brush, you know, the kind they run through sewer pipes. Except she thinks she's an opera star. She wears muumuu dresses and glass jewelry hanging all over her, and in the morning she puts a boom-box on the bar and she and him scrub out the toilets and sing opera together like somebody stuck them in the butt with a hayfork."
"Robin, I know this tattooed man was in here. I really need you to help me."
She flicked her cigarette ashes into the ashtray and didn't answer.
"Look, you're not dropping the dime on him. He's dead," I said. "He was in a plane crash with a priest and some illegals."
She exhaled smoke into the spinning circles of light and brushed a strand of hair out of her eye.
"You mean like with wetbacks or something?" she said.
"You could call them that."
"I don't know what Johnny Dartez would be doing with a priest and wetbacks."
"Who is he?"
"He's been around here for years, except when he was in the marines. He used to be a stall for a couple of street dips."
"He was a pickpocket?"
"He tried to be one. He was so clumsy he'd usually knock the mark down before they could boost his wallet. He's a loser. I don't think this is your guy."
"What's he been doing lately?"
She hesitated.
"I think maybe he was buying room keys and credit cards," she said.
"I thought you were out of that, kiddo."
"It was a while back."
"I'm talking about now. What's the guy doing now, Robin?"
"I heard he was a mule for Bubba Rocque," she said, and her voice fell to almost a whisper.
"Bubba Rocque?" I said.
"Yeah. Take it easy, will you?"
"I gotta go in back. You want another collins?" Jerry said.
"Yeah. Wash your hands when to go to the bathroom, too."
"You know, Robin, when you come in here I hear this funny sound," he said. "I got to listen real close, but I hear it. It sounds like mice eating on something. I think it's your brain rotting."
"Who's your PO, podna?" I said.
"I don't have one. I went out free and clear, max time, all sins forgiven. Does that mess up your day?" He grinned at me from under his black fedora.