A Morning for Flamingos by James Lee Burke

as many lowlifes as we can and let somebody else worry about the rest, right?”
    “Minos—”
    “Okay, take it easy. Have you tried to turn up that black kid?”
    “It’s all dead-end stuff. His grandmother and his girlfriend probably know where he is, but they’re not saying. I ended up last night talking with a traiteur woman named Big Mama Goula in a hot-pillow joint. That’s a long way from Jimmie Lee Boggs.”
    “Look, I think your life’s been too dull. So I talked with some people on the task force, then I talked with the Iberia sheriff. We want to put you inside the mob.”
    “What?”
    “You’re the perfect guy.”
    “Are you out of your mind?”
    “Hear me out.”
    “No. I went back with the sheriff’s department to pay off some big debts. I got shot. You think I want to go undercover now?”
    “That’s why you’re the perfect guy, Dave. It wouldn’t be undercover. You resign from the department, we set you up in New Orleans, give you a lot of money to flash around the lowlifes. Then we put out the word with a couple of our snitches that you were encouraged to resign, you’re a burnout, maybe you’ve been on a pad.”
    I was shaking my head, but he kept talking.
    “There’s a new player in New Orleans we want to nail real bad. His name’s Anthony Cardo, also known as Tony C. and Tony the Cutter. No, he’s not a shank artist. He’s supposed to have a schlong that’s a foot and a half long, the Johnny Wad of the Mafia. He grew up across the river in Algiers, but he’s got operations in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. In fact, we think he’s a linchpin between the dope traffic in South Florida and southern Louisiana.”
    “I’m not interested.”
    “Look, it’d be a three- or four-week scam. If it doesn’t work, we’ll mark it off.”
    “It won’t work.”
    “Why not?”
    “They won’t buy a cop who just turned in his badge.”
    “Yeah, they will. They’ll buy you,” he said, and tapped his finger at the air.
    “I have a feeling you’re about to say something else complimentary.”
    “Let’s look at your record, fair and square, podna. You were almost fired from the force in New Orleans, you have an alcoholic history, you’ve been in your own drunk tank, you were up on a murder charge, for God’s sakes. All right, it was a frame, and that situation with the New Orleans P.D. was a rotten shake, too, but like I told you when I first met you, it makes socko reading material. How about your old Homicide partner, what’s his name?”
    “Cletus Purcel.”
    “He didn’t have any trouble going to work for the wiseguys, did he? They bought him, toenails to hairline.”
    “He’s clean now. He owns a club on Decatur.”
    “That’s right. But he still knows the greaseballs. They come in his place.”
    “It’s a free country.”
    “You’ve got the conduit into the mob, Dave. They’ll buy it.”
    “Not interested.”
    “It’s no more complicated than a simple sting.”
    “I told you you’re talking to the wrong guy, Minos.”
    “There’s another factor. We think Jimmie Lee Boggs might be back in New Orleans.”
    “Why?”
    “A telephone tap. Last week one of Tony Cardo’s people was talking about bringing in a mechanic from Florida to take care of a guy who held back twenty thou on a sale. Then yesterday somebody did this black street dealer with a baseball bat in Louis Armstrong Park. Sound familiar?”
    “Why would he go back to a state where he’s already been sentenced to the chair?”
    “It doesn’t make any difference where he is. There’re warrants on him in three other states, and the FBI’s after him as an interstate fugitive. Number two, he’ll go where Tony Cardo tells him to go.”
    “I’m not up to it. You’ll have to get somebody else.”
    “That’s it, huh?”
    “Yep.”
    He looked at me reflectively in the moonlight. I could see his scalp glisten through his thin crew cut.
    “How you feeling?” he said.
    “Fine.”
    “You’re a good