Reggie stood up and picked up the photos. Just as he was about to leave, Cleotha came barreling in the door with a stack of pink message slips. “Didn’t want to bother you when you were with that girl, Sheriff,” she said. “You got a mess of calls on the tip line. Five of them from that Chester Pratt man. I don’t want to say nothing bad about nobody, but that man sounded drunk as hell.”

Quinn looked to Reggie, and Reggie raised his eyebrows before moving past Cleotha and back into the hallway.

“Man said he knows TJ Byrd is about to get killed,” she said. “He was messed up and babbling on. But sure did sound like he was blaming himself.”

Quinn grabbed his cap and his jacket and headed for the door.

*   *   *

Dusty and Daddy got to New Orleans that night, worn the hell out from the road and hungry as a goddamn horse, trying to get over to the address Mr. Stagg had given them. But the roads were closed with some kind of street parade and they had to double back to the main drag downtown. There wasn’t a fucking parking spot anywhere, folks trying to charge them twenty dollars just to pull in a dang lot. They ended up leaving their truck over on Rampart Street by an old cemetery and walked back to the center of town. They didn’t get two blocks before some raggedy man offered to show them his peter for a buck right before they saw a whole group of men walking down the sidewalk dressed up like goddamn Barbie dolls. Big blonde wigs and bikini tops. Dusty recalled his preacher telling them that New Orleans was a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, and now he was sure the pastor was right. This was the kind of place folks went after strange flesh, needing a little housecleaning by way of fire and brimstone. Everything stunk like a sewer ditch, the air heavy with cigarettes and liquor breath. His head spun with all the neon and glitter, people drunk and their necks heavy with all kinds of baubles and beads. Some man walked up to Daddy and placed a giant cup of beer in his hands before walking over to the street corner to throw up.

Daddy didn’t do nothing but take a big ole sip and kept walking. The old man’s eyes were as big as silver dollars.

“Don’t tell Momma nothin’,” Daddy said.

Dusty nodded. They watched as a crew of women walked down the street, flapping their shirts up and down in the cool breeze, giving everyone a chance to check out their titties. The cold air feeling good on his face as they’d been stuck in that truck for eight hours driving south. Stagg had given them five hundred dollars each with orders of calling him on a burner phone if they needed any more.