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  The plan, such as it was, was to contact the Chief of Police and get his cooperation to introduce me to Bonnet while I posed as a drug dealer. Dewey’s black humor forced him to embrace the ridiculous scheme while Ed Silkey, not much brighter than Pike, assumed there was more to the plan than he knew, so said nothing.

  The police station was a converted blue Victorian house just two blocks off the square with white trim and a hanging wooden sign. We had no trouble meeting Police Chief Robbie Morganthal, who ushered us into his comfortable office, which was decorated with pictures, banners, and trophies of Green’s football team. He stared at this menagerie of creatures from New York City: a fat, stupid man desperate to be in charge; a mean-looking thug with creepy eyes; a giggling, harmless-looking teenager wearing a two-thousand-dollar suit; and me, a long-haired grease-ball punk. Finally, the bewildered Police Chief said, “I got your call from Agent Blanker. Of course I’m willing to help, but boy I’m not sure what you all want to do.”

  Pike started the first round of embarrassments, “We want to get the skinny on doper Bonee.”

  “Who’s doper Bonee?” Chief Robbie asked.

  Pike shot back, “You know who I mean, Bonnetlee or whoever, you know, the Mayor.”

  “His name is Larry Bonnet; the ‘t’ is silent. Just ‘a’, Bone-ay. If you are conducting a federal investigation, of course, I want to assist wherever possible, but what is it that you have in mind?”

  Pike waved his hands in the air. “We want to do an insertion of an undercover operative into your community. We have a classified covert purpose that’s top secret.”

  Chief Robbie tried not to smile and looked us over again. “Uh, who do you have in mind leaving behind here for insertion into this covert operation?”

  Dewey giggled and pointed to me.

  Chief Robbie tried not to laugh. “Yes, he looks like he’d fit right in. You know, all three of you look like you were born and raised here. How much thought have you guys given to this plan? Tell ya what … Why don’t you get settled in at the hotel and meet me for dinner. It’ll give us some time to think things through a little better. There’s a great Italian restaurant here that will impress you guys. It’s just the other side of the square, one block further, the Half Moon. Seven o’clock, okay?”

  Even Pike knew how ridiculous the situation was, although he would never admit it. We checked into our hotel and strolled through the park, killing time before dinner. The townspeople greeted us, but rolled their eyes when they passed. By the steps at City Hall was a glass encasement of photographs taken at the City’s events. Mayor Lorenzo “Larry” Bonnet was in most of them – handsome, gray-streaked black hair – smiling and hugging. There was a picture of Mayor Larry Bonnet holding a trophy in one hand while his other arm draped around the high-school football coach, Police Chief Robbie Morganthal.

  The more we saw, the more we realized how impossible it would be to reach Bonnet. He was protected by good townspeople who loved and respected him.

  The Half Moon was not what we expected. It was a replica of the mob joint in the Bronx: big oak bar, great food, and white tile floor. The waiters were all Italian and wore starched white shirts with black ties. Chief Robbie ordered Chianti and constantly waved or smiled to other tables. After a few sips of wine, Chief Robbie unveiled his own plan: I would pretend to be a graduate college student working on a thesis about small-town government and its law enforcement. As dumb as it was, at least it would give me an excuse to snoop around for a couple of months and no one had a better idea. Even Dewey, who had forsaken the wine for vodka martinis, fell silent.

  Dewey had already knocked down three drinks and was fingering his olive when he stared around the room. Suddenly, as I dabbed my chin with a napkin, Dewey snatched it from my hand and began stuffing it into his mouth. He made gagging sounds as he tried to push it down his throat. It got everybody’s attention. He motioned to us that he was okay, but got up and staggered out the front door with the white rag still hanging from his mouth.

  They brought me another napkin; our conversation started up again. Pike apologized, “I’m sorry, Agent Paris does love his martinis.” Chief Robbie smiled and nodded, but I wasn’t so sure. I looked across the room where Dewey had been staring.

  Sometimes innocent little things can kill a whole town – a pond that goes stagnant, breeding disease, or a raging tornado from an innocent breeze, or a bearded old man cleaning the tables in a small restaurant. You could hear a soft rattle of plates as Michael Giovanni’s quivering hand struggled to stack the dirty dishes on a serving tray.

  I tipped the “busboy” at the Half Moon as he slipped me a note scribbled on a paper napkin: Fuck Lucille. That’s all it said. Dewey said that I should take Michael’s instructions literally, otherwise Michael would have given the note to Silkey. Dewey and I were the only two that knew. Eventually Silkey would be the only one told. I was not to make any contact with Michael. Dewey would wait for Michael’s orders and then call me. Meanwhile I should find Lucille and fuck her.

  LUCILLE

  The next morning Pike, Silkey and Dewey left, leaving me feeling like a stupid kid being dropped off at college by his parents. I hung around the police station and met the entire Green police force: a cop named Ken whose uniform was three sizes too big. Day after day I pretended I was writing a thesis paper on local government. I tried to sell my cover by asking stupid questions of everyone I met. Days passed and I developed a habit of spending my afternoons sitting on the same park bench, staring at the pay phone that never rang. At night I would drink and snort coke in my hotel room and then the next afternoon return to the same park bench and wonder if I would ever find Lucille and what terrible scheme Michael was hatching to destroy this innocent town.

  After three days of sitting on the same park bench I finally looked up at a five-foot sign in front of me, hanging on the biggest store in town. It read, ‘Lucille Bonnet’s General Store, everything you need or want with a smile.’

  She was about fifteen years older than me, with crow’s feet at the edge of her eyes, but she had a runner’s body and a great smile. Meeting her was easy, I just walked in and told her I wanted to learn about Green and invited her to dinner at the Half Moon. Michael even cleared our table, but never looked at us. Lucille Bonnet was a widow with a teenage son and a young daughter. After dinner we went for a walk and she teared up while telling me about her late husband. “Bobby came home from Nam cold, cold as a popsicle. He was a war hero – ribbons, medals, stories and Army buddies – but he was ripped inside. Bobby couldn’t let go of the horror, the killings. I fucked, kissed, sucked, hugged … but I couldn’t reach him. Bobby’s dad, Lorenzo, made it worse, you know the family business. Bobby finally shot himself in the woods and that was that.”

  I acted clueless. “What family business?”

  Lucille shook her head. “Christ, everybody knows what Lorenzo does, but Bobby had seen too much. He didn’t want to be part of it. This whole town accepts Larry’s mob reputation and union connections. When unions have a problem he fixes it. It’s not so bad to just take it in small bites, there’s no crime of any kind in Green. Whatever goes on outside of here, well that’s someone else’s problem. Larry’s a good Mayor, a good politician – how do you think we got that four-lane highway they call Lorenzo Way that connects us to Lafayette? – and a good grandfather. Bobby was his older son. He loved him more than life itself. Larry has been good to me and his grandchildren. If you love and care about people, happiness is easy; just forget about everything else.”

  She leaned over and kissed me.

  * * *

  I spent the next day with Lucille and that evening I moved into her two-story house on the edge of a beautiful small lake surrounded by weeping willows and bellowing frogs at night. I was in the bedroom when I overheard her explain me to her son Bobby Junior and her daughter Jamie. She told them that she had a life to live too and wanted some period of happiness. Besides, I would be fun to have around the hous
e.

  Lucille was a great mother, a successful business owner, a member of the city council, a jogger and an affectionate lover. She wore a spicy perfume and we slept like two spoons stacked in a drawer. I never let her see me do coke and she ignored my six to eight drinks of vodka in the evening. My blue automatic remained hidden in the bottom of my suitcase.

  Bobby Junior was the high school’s starting quarterback. Every afternoon when Bobby came back from practice I would work with him in the backyard. I had played ball in college and could see that his passing strength and accuracy would soon be on a professional level. Lucille was already courting football scouts for a scholarship at Tulane.

  Every other weekend I would go back to New York to “consult with my professors and get my mail”. Pike had gotten all the agents to sign a get-well card and sent it off to the Jonathan Wilham Institution with a box of candy. The candy came back with a note prohibiting outside food being sent to the institution. The guys in Group Six ate the whole box. Dewey had been in a car wreck while in New Orleans. I wondered why he was even driving, since Silkey always drove him around.

  I met Silkey at a bar in Midtown. “What the hell is going on?”

  Silkey ordered his usual Black Label. “Michael called Dewey, gave him the name of a guy in New Orleans, told Dewey he had forty-eight hours to go down there, go undercover and get all the information cause the guy was leaving town, going back to Europe; you know, gone, gone for good.”

  “New Orleans, that’s where Dewey had his wreck? Was he hurt?”

  Silkey laughed. “Are you kidding? Nah, Dewey got a baby crib mattress from the hotel and put it between him and the steering wheel before he crashed. Totaled both cars. The other guy was banged up, so Dewey went to the hospital to, you know, meet the guy, apologize and all that. How else you going to meet the guy, keep him from running off to Europe? Dewey brought him some flowers and some coke to snort. Turns out he’s got a brother named Albert who’s a wise guy that’s connected. Anyway, Albert gets drunk and brags about helping to get Danny killed. It seems that Albert has an in with someone at the Justice Department who got into Louis Turko’s file. That’s how they found out about Danny ratting them out. Michael was afraid that would happen, that’s why he told Danny to live on the boat for a while. Somebody in the inside told them where to find Danny. Danny gets clipped, Albert hides out and Michael is mad.”

  “So, Albert, the mob guy, killed Danny?”

  Silkey sipped his scotch. “Jesus, no. Albert may be mob but he’s just a mope. Danny got clipped by a pro, direct orders from Bonnet. The killer’s name is Glass, Sergio Glass.”

  “Silkey, are you telling me that Dewey crashes into a guy, gives him some flowers and a taste of coke and learns all of this?”

  Silkey shook his head, losing patience. “No. Dewey made friends with him. The guy bragged to Dewey about his connected brother Albert and where he’s hiding in New Orleans. It was big Albert who told us.”

  It was bad enough to imagine Dewey and Silkey driving around New Orleans crashing into people, but I had to know more. “Okay, Silkey, how did Dewey get Albert the brother, the wise guy, to give up Glass?”

  “Dewey says we had suspicion so we should go and arrest the mope. We waited outside Albert’s house. When Albert comes out Dewey yells at him all the way from across the street that he’s under arrest for murder. Big Albert panics and pulls out his gun.”

  “Oh God, I think I know what happens next,” I said.

  “No, you don’t. Dewey only winged him. Dewey’s not as good as he used to be. Usually, it’s Come meet Jesus with a tight cluster to the chest. This time Dewey just sent a forty-five round through the guy’s kneecap. Albert laid down screaming and bleeding. I had to go over and help him.”

  I had seen all of this before, but still I had to ask, “You went over to help him?”

  “Yeah, his knee was really bad. I had to stop the bleeding. You know, apply pressure; stop all of the blood coming out. You know what I mean, but I didn’t want to use my hands with all that blood, you know, so I used my foot.”

  “Okay, I think I get the picture, but let me guess: Albert volunteered the information about Glass while you were helping to stop the bleeding with your foot, right? Did you even call an ambulance?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. Dewey said we didn’t know which hospital to call. There was some lady screaming her head off down the street so she probably called them. The fucking mope was lucky we didn’t take him in. But, there’s something more. Albert is hooked into Aggi Angelici, who supports Judge Carl Wineburg’s campaign and Wineburg is the judge on Turko’s case and had the file.”

  Before I left New York to return to my quiet life I skimmed some coke from the evidence lockers and met with Pike and Dewey. Dewey was restricted from driving any government vehicle for six months because of his wreck in New Orleans, so Silkey, who regularly wrecked cars, drove him around as usual.

  Pike was pleased to learn that Chief Robbie was helping me with my cover. “You can trust him,” Pike said. “Robbie is a cop, he’s one of us.”

  Dewey let out a high-pitched giggle.

  NYMPH

  Early in this period of my small-town domestic bliss I had a bizarre vision. Lucille’s upstairs bedroom balcony overlooked the lake. The whole area was isolated except for a small house next door. Lucille was always the first one up to get the kids off to school. Very early one morning as I tried to resist waking, I heard a lyrical musical sound, like a flute. At first I thought it was the radio. I staggered out onto the balcony to face the morning fog rolling off the lake and shrouding the weeping willows covering the ground like deep gray snow. There, standing on a branch of an oak tree in the yard next door, was a naked teenage girl playing a flute. Her long blonde hair touched her breasts, which were still budding and stood straight out. Her fingers danced up and down a long bright silver flute. The music was classical, complex, and passionate. She leaned and bobbed as she sent her magical sounds against the fog. When it ended she did a complete somersault out of the tree and struck a perfect landing, then walked inside the little house.

  Lucille interrupted my vision. “So you’ve met Alice?” She led me back in like I should not have been out there in the first place. “They tried to teach her music at school, but all she wanted to do was to learn how to read notes. She learned the flute completely on her own. Most of the time she plays her own original music and teaches her songs to the other kids. She’s pretty good, isn’t she? She’s our head cheerleader.”

  The Bonnet household accepted me as one of their own. After my brief encounter with the Wood Nymph I did something that I could never tell Dewey or Michael; I went to church on Sunday night to a Christmas music recital, even though it was still a couple of months before the real holiday. An early Christmas show was a tradition in Green. Alice and Lucille’s daughter Jamie were on the program. Alice played her long silver flute, Jamie played saxophone, and a little fat boy named Howie played the drums.

  The preacher introduced them and their song, “Silent Night.” The group started out traditionally, beautiful and soft, then Howie seemed to snap. He went into a loud snare-drum roll. Alice joined in, whipping her flute up and down, blazing notes to match Howie’s drum rolls. Little Jamie hopped to the center of the stage, spread her legs, and wailed away on the sax. It was still “Silent Night,” but the jazz version was as good as anything I had ever heard at the Half Note in Greenwich Village. I wished Daisy was here to see this. She would have been impressed. The church rocked. The startled preacher leaped to the stage and pulled the amplifier plug, then dragged fat Howie off his stool. Jamie and Alice stopped and glared at the frantic preacher, who announced to the audience, “I regret this sacrilegious spectacle. I’m sorry about this, folks, but this concludes the evening’s performance.”

  Jamie spun around, bent over and flipped her dress up; written across her panties was a day of the week. Lucille was next to me and I heard her say, “Oh my God, Tuesday, and t
oday is Sunday.”

  There was an awkward silence in the congregation, and then Lucille stood up and yelled at the preacher, who was leading Alice off the stage, “Reverend, that was an original composition: maybe it was a surprise, but these kids worked hard and did it for us. I agree with my daughter, you can kiss my ass.”

  On the way out I recognized Lorenzo Bonnet sitting in the back row. He hugged his granddaughter as we passed. Next to Lorenzo was a thin man dressed completely in black. It was Sergio Glass, Lorenzo’s bodyguard and Danny’s murderer.

  VINNY

  Coach Robbie made me his assistant football coach. Lucille came to one of our practices to see how Bobby Junior and I were doing. Alice, the Wood Nymph, was there practicing cheerleader routines with the other girls. She was terrific, doing backflips, cartwheels, and hip grinds. In the stands was a small group of rowdy boys howling and whistling. One of them, older than the rest, was fixated on Alice. He stared at every move she made, like a thirsty dog on a hot day, with his mouth open and tongue going in and out. His obsession was obvious to everyone.

  “Who’s that kid?” I asked Lucille.

  She knew exactly which one I meant. “Vinny, Larry’s youngest son.”

  * * *

  Police Chief Robbie finally got a “perpetrator.” While I was wasting the morning at the police station a man walked in waving a summons and said, “Fuck you, Robbie. I know what you’re trying to do with these bullshit charges. You want me to help you. You are not going to screw her and you’re not going to win. She’s a Valkyrie. A stone-cold dyke warrior and the best football coach I’ve ever seen. We lose to her every year. This year we lost by three points, but she could have driven the score up to thirty. She didn’t want to humiliate my kids. Now either put me in jail or buy my lunch.”