[17] “And he don’t drink wine, either,” Dak said. “So what’s that make him? A gin-o? Whatever, it don’t make his vomit any sweeter.”

“So, we gonna take him home or not?”

“Where’s home?” Kelly asked.

We all looked down at him again. He was still smiling, humming something I didn’t recognize. A wavelet hit him and eddied around our feet, then sucked a little deeper hole under him as it ran back out. That must have been how his legs got buried. An hour from now he’d be under the sand, somebody else’s problem. But none of us wanted that.

So I reached down and grabbed the side of his pants and pulled him up a bit, then fished his wallet out of his hip pocket.

It was hand-tooled leather and fairly thick. The first thing I saw was the corner of a hundred-dollar bill sticking out. I opened it and pulled out a wad of cash. I thrust it out to Dak, who looked startled and took it. He counted it.

“Eight hundred big ones,” he said.

“So take out a taxi fee and let’s get him home.”

He handed the cash back to me. “What’s eating you, anyway?”

I didn’t really know. Part of it was that I sure could have used the money. Who would know? Certainly not this whacked-out jerk, lying there pissed out of his mind.

You’d know, Manuel, Mom said. She had this annoying habit of speaking just as loudly when she wasn’t there as when she was.

“We’ll just dump him in the back,” I said. “I’ll ride with him. He barfs, I’ll clean it up.” Dak waved it away, and I looked at the wallet again. Visa, MasterCard, American Express, all platinum, all made out to one Travis Broussard.

“Cajun,” Kelly said, peering over my shoulder.

“Huh?”

“The name,” she explained. “There’s some Cajun families from the Florida panhandle, I think.” I didn’t know what difference that made, unless he lived in the panhandle. That would be too far to drive him. I found the driver’s license, and as I pulled it from its pocket another card fell to the sand. Alicia picked it up. I pointed out the address on the license to Dak and Kelly.