Brain Damage

2

I was drinking beer and eating Cajun shrimp with Ma

"Bad news, Ben," he said. "Please accept my sincere condolences on the loss of your leader. I feel for you."

Bobby didn't know me that well, but he saw the way Ma

"Black, tu culo," I told him.

"Oh, no, Mister Slade, not mine. Mine is pink; como una rosa en el mes de mayo. You go

"Not me. I might be tempted to piss on his grave."

Ma

"Maybe you should just send flowers," said Bobby. He was big, and flabby, and his lips were greasy from the shrimp. "I heard about that guy, I heard he went crazy. I heard he had the brain cancer."

I nodded. "Tumors."

"Menos mal. In a job like that it helps to be a little crazy."

I didn't argue the point, it was too close to the truth. "You mean you don't have any crazies in your outfit? Is that what you mean?"

They looked at each other. They both were Cuban, and they worked for the DEA. They decided to laugh. Ma

"Shit floats," was Bobby's contribution. "Who gets this guy's job?"

"Man called Jessup."

"Is he crazy, too?"

"Give him time."

I pressed the icy beer bottle against my forehead. It was February, but the night was hot and moist, Louisiana muggy. The shrimp joint was five miles up the road from the 7-Eleven where the meet was supposed to go down at two in the morning. Tailgate party in the parking lot, fifty thousand in cash for a small barrel of China White. We had the money under the table in a carrying case that looked like the satchel your Aunt Edna left behind the last time she came to visit. Ma

Bobby grabbed a handful of shrimp, and called over his shoulder for another beer. He stuffed shrimp into his mouth, chewed, and spat the shells onto the floor. He had the table ma

"As long as you know it," I told him.

"That's nothing," said Ma

"I'll pass."

The girl who was working the tables came with the beer, and Bobby watched her walk back to the bar, her haunches rolling. She was chubby, and she wasn't wearing much. She was fifteen at the most, and the chub was baby fat.

Bobby said speculatively, "You know what I'm thinking?"

I knew exactly what he was thinking. I was inside his head, tapping him. He was thinking in crude and graphic terms about taking the girl back to the motel with him. He didn't have much imagination.

"Come off it," said Ma

"I know it, I know it." Bobby made a show of licking his lips. "Around here she's legal."

"Christ, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You got a daughter that age."

"My daughter isn't bad for her age. You should try her sometimes."

"I already did. She's almost as good as your wife."

That was the level of the conversation. We sat at the table with the shrimp and the beer until after midnight, then we drove around until it was time to set up the meet. Bobby and Ma

The trouble is television, too many drug agents wear wires. Well, the bad guys watch television, too, and now every time a major buy goes down the buyer gets a skin search. So it takes some balls to wear a wire these days, but there are times when it has to be done, mostly when recorded evidence is needed. That wasn't the case here. No one was getting busted, and the only need for a wire was to make sure that Bobby didn't get himself iced. He'd be sitting out in the open with a satchel full of cash, dealing with people he didn't know, and there had to be a way for him to call in the Marines. A wire back to Ma

We split up at one o'clock. Ma

We came out of the gully in back of the 7-Eleven, and climbed the emergency ladder up to the roof. The roof was flat and tarred, and with a waist-high façade at the front that gave plenty of cover. The parking lot below was dark and almost deserted. Only Bobby's car was there, parked directly in front of the store. I had picked the spot for him. My maximum range is one hundred and fifty feet, and the car was well within it. Ma

I tuned into Bobby's head. Sitting down there in the car, staring out into the night, he was still thinking about that kid in the shrimp joint. He had her twisted into an impossible position. Or maybe it was possible, but not for anybody I knew. I told Ma

"Bobby is okay," he said. "It's just that he's still growing up."