"What if somebody was looking out the window? They see me up on the ladder, and the two guys?" Dennis glanced toward the hotel saying it.

"People come here to gamble," Charlie said, "not look out the window. Anybody happened to, what would they see? Nothing. It was dark."

"It wasn't that dark."

Charlie put his hand on Dennis' shoulder. "Come on, let's move away from here." They walked toward the hotel, Charlie saying, "You ever see anybody in the swimming pool? Hell no, they're inside there trying to get rich. I mean it, you got nothing to worry about."

Not sounding worried himself, talking Southern in his way. It didn't help Dennis. "But you know those guys. They kill Floyd and you say to them, `You trying to mess up my deal?' "

"I meant their hanging around here. I know 'em as the kind you don't want to be associated with. Understand, I did not know they shot Floyd till they told me. I come out, I thought they mighta stopped by to scare him, remind Floyd to keep his mouth shut is all."

"About what?"

"Anything. Hell, I don't know." Charlie let his breath out sounding tired of this.

Dennis kept after him. "You said Floyd had been to prison but don't worry about it."

They stopped at the edge of the patio.

"I was talking about the kind of person Floyd is, or was. I told you he went to Parchman on a burglary charge. Floyd sucked up to some cons there, but they had no use for him, beat him up when they felt like it. I thought, well, since you didn't know anything about that, the kind of people he tried to associate with, there's nothing to worry about."

"Charlie, the police, the sheriff, they're gonna ask me questions, you know that. The man worked for me."

"He ever talk about his life? Tell you the kind of snake he was, ready to give up people to get his sentence reduced?"

"Why would you get me a guy like that?"