82 Desire

said, “Henry saw it.”
    “Who’s Henry?”
    “Ol’ black dude. Shoppin’ basket.”
    “Where’s Henry now?”
    “I don’t know, man. Am I s’posed to keep track of every wino on the street?”
    She got as many details as she could for a bulletin on Henry, but she didn’t hold out much hope for it. Unless there was physical evidence like hair or fibers, this case needed a reliable eyewitness. If Henry did turn up, he probably couldn’t convince a jury it had twelve members. George was bad enough, and he didn’t even have a shopping basket. If Henry had dreads, that was it—the killer walked.
    When the formalities were complete, she let the bright-eyed kid take George in to sober up and wait for questions later. Quickly, she canvassed the neighborhood, a chore which took very little time, as no one lived there; and then she went back to question the men in the bar a little more carefully.
    Finally, since there was no way to put it off any longer, she went to break the news to Deb Cavignac. Deb said what Skip had heard before, maybe every third time she had to inform someone: “Why? Why my husband?”
    For once, Skip thought she knew—though a lot of good it did her.

Twenty-three
    WHEN HE HAD drunk as much of the Scotch as he could get into his body without an IV, Russell dragged himself to bed and flung himself on it. At some point, he woke up, registered briefly that he found himself disgusting, pulled off his clothes while remaining supine, and dozed all night in the fitful fashion of drunks who haven’t quite managed to pass out.
    He woke up early and often, finally deciding at about seven-thirty to get up and take a walk, maybe get some coffee. He felt like a sack of manure.
    After brushing his teeth for about twenty minutes, he gave up on making progress in that area and drove to the beach.
    This truly was the most beautiful thing about Fort Lauderdale—maybe the only beautiful thing—and this morning the play of clouds and sun and green water was so stunning he simply sat on the sea wall and watched the show for a while. He got some coffee and came back and did it some more. The caffeine gave him such a lift he actually did start out on that walk he’d promised himself. He worked up a sweat in about ten minutes, but he was so weak it took all he had to continue for another ten.
    Okay, twenty minutes. Some experts say it’s plenty , he told himself.
    He moseyed across the street and found a hotel restaurant serving breakfasts of eggs and bacon and hash browns with sour cream on top. Plenty of butter on the toast. And a whole lot more coffee.
    He tried not to think of Dina while he wolfed it. Not to obsess about whether he had truly blown it once and for all. Surely not , he thought. She was just in a mood, momentarily pissed off and confusing him with the T-shirt-wearing cads and bounders she met in bars with too many television sets. If such was the case, though, a peace offering was required, and it should probably be some nice flowers.
    Florists weren’t open yet. Or maybe they were, but he wasn’t up to picking up the phone. He headed for home and a nap, first stopping at a 7-Eleven for The New York Times —as long as World War Three hadn’t broken out, it should make a nice soporific.
    Days like this , he thought, you kind of wish you watched the soaps.
    He made himself yet more coffee and sat in the cockpit with the paper. He was starting to carve out a sense of comfort and well-being, full of grease and flying on caffeine, when he saw a story about New Orleans: The city was having one of its record crime weeks. Once there had been fourteen murders in a week—or was it nineteen in three days? Actually, Russell had forgotten the numbers, just that crime had run rampant. And here we were again—a dozen in four days. Maybe the piece was premature, he thought—why not go for fifteen in five?
    He started to skim the story, but got no farther than the second sentence before he felt his body go rigid: “The latest victim was identified as oil company executive Beau Cavignac.”
    No , he thought, not Beau. Not sweet Beau who was my only link with home. This can’t be—I just talked to him.
    And then it occurred to him that the two events might be connected. He shivered in the light breeze. This could not be happening. They had killed Beau—or more likely, had him killed. His two best friends, Douglas and Edward. They had killed their buddy to save their own sorry asses.
    Or one of