Her eyes closed and opened and refocused on mine.

"Where is he?" she said.

"Feeding the pigs."

She looked at me uncertainly, then started out the back door.

"Let it go. You don't want to look back there," I said.

But she didn't listen. A minute later I heard her make a sound like she had suddenly stepped into an envelope of fouled air. Her face was gray when she came back through the door.

"That's gross," she said. "Shouldn't you take him to a funeral home or something? Yuk."

"Sit down. I'll fix you a cup of coffee."

"I can't hang around here. I've got an aerobics and meditation cla.s.s at ten o'clock. The guy I work for enrolls us in the cla.s.s so we won't build up a lot of tensions. He gets mad if I miss. G.o.d, how do I get around all these crazy people? You know what he did? He got naked in his army boots and started lifting weights on the front porch. The dog got off the leash and chased a chicken into the privy and he shot the dog with a shotgun. Then he tied it up and gave it a bowl of milk like nothing had happened."

"Who was the dude he went out back with?"

"He looked like he had a pink bicycle patch on his face."

"What?"

"I don't know what he looked like. He was big. I was kind of indisposed, you know what I mean?"

"Say it again about his face."

"His nose and part of his eyebrow were messed up. Like with a scar."

"What did he say?"

Her eyes seemed to reach out into s.p.a.ce. Her mouth was slightly parted, her facial muscles collapsed with thought.

"He said, 'They want you to find some new geography. Work on your golf game.' Then what's-his-name said, 'Money talks and bulls.h.i.t walks, biscuit-eater. I got to feed my pigs.'"

She chewed on a hangnail and her eyes went flat again.

"Look, I got a problem," she said. "He didn't pay me. I got to give the guy I work for twenty bucks when I get back to the bar. Will you get his wallet for me?"

"Sorry. I think the hogs got it, anyway."

"You want some action?"

"I'll drop you where you want to go, kiddo. Then I'm going to call the sheriff's office about Starkweather. But I'll deal you out of it. If you want to tell them something later, that's up to you."

"You are heat, aren't you?"

"Why not?"

"Why you cutting me loose? You got something in mind for later?"

"They might lock you up as a material witness. That guy out there in the hog lot has killed dozens, maybe hundreds of people. But he was a novice and a b.u.mbler compared to the people he worked for."

She sat against the far door of my car, her face thick with a drug hangover, and didn't speak during the long ride through the marsh to the parish road. Her yellowed fingers were wrapped tightly in her lap.

Like many others, I learned a great lesson in Vietnam: Never trust authority. But because I had come to feel that authority should always be treated as suspect and self-serving, I had also learned that it was predictable and vulnerable. So that afternoon I sat under my beach umbrella on my houseboat deck, dressed only in swimming trunks and an open tropical shirt, with a shot of Jim Beam and a beer chaser on the table in front of me, and called Sam Fitzpatrick's supervisor at the Federal Building.

"I ran down Abshire," I said. "I don't know why you held out on me at the hospital. He's not exactly well concealed."

There was a moment's silence on the line.

"Have you got wax in your ears or something?" he said. "How do I get through to you? You stay off federal turf."

"I'm going to kick a board up his a.s.s."

"You're not going to do a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing, except get a warrant filed on you for obstruction."

"You want in on it or not?" I asked.

"I have a strong feeling you're drunk."

"So what? I'm going to cool him out. You want to be there for the party, or do you want us local boys to write the story for you in the Picayune? It's going to be socko stuff, partner."

"What the h.e.l.l is the matter with you? You don't seem to have any bottom. One of my best men is burned to death in your car. Your own people dump you like a sack of dog t.u.r.ds. You're evidently working on becoming a full-time drunk again, and now you're talking about taking out a retired two-star general. You think it's possible you're losing your mind?"

"You're a good man, but don't take up poker."

"What?"

"It's a terrible vice. It'll lead you to ruin."

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you're not going to get away with this," he said.

I hung up the phone, knocked back the jigger of Jim Beam, and sipped from the gla.s.s of beer. The sun looked like a yellow balloon trapped under the lake's surface. The wind was warm, and sweat ran down my bare chest in the hot shade of the umbrella. My eyes burned with the humidity of the afternoon. I dialed Clete down at the First District.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"At home."

"There's a bunch of people asking about you. You sure spit in the soup, Dave."

"I'm not hard to find. Who's curious about me?"

"Who else? Feds. Did you really call up the CIA? Man, that's unbelievable."

"I have a lot of time on my hands. A guy has to do something for kicks."

"I don't know as I'd want to fire up these babies. A nasty bunch. They're not our crowd."

"You think I ought to get lost for a while?"

"Who knows? I just wouldn't pull on their tallywackers anymore."

"Actually, I called you for a point of information, Clete. In all the shootings you've investigated, how many times have you known the shooter to recover his bra.s.s?"

"I don't understand."

"Sure you do."

"I don't guess I ever gave it much thought."

"I've never seen it once," I said. "Except when a cop was the shooter."

"What's the point?"

"It's funny how that can be trained into a guy, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Imagine that."

"If I was the shooter, I'd rather leave the sh.e.l.l casing than my signature."

"Maybe some things aren't worth speculating about, Dave."

"Like I said, I'm idle now. It fills the time. I spent two hours this morning over at the St. Charles sheriff's department answering questions about Bobby Joe Starkweather. Did they contact you all yet?"

"We heard about it." His voice was becoming irritated.

"A truly big mess out there. Another hour or so and I don't think there would have been anything left of Bobby Joe except his belt buckle and his boot nails."

"He's better off as sausage links. A guy finds his proper level after a while. I got to split, partner."

"Do me a favor. How about punching on the computer and seeing if you can turn up a retired two-star general named Abshire?"

"Stay idle, Dave. Adjust. We'll get out of this bulls.h.i.t eventually. You'll see. Adios."

The phone went dead in my hand, and I looked at the smoky green surface of the water in the summer haze and poured another jigger of Jim Beam. What did they have on him? I wondered. Wh.o.r.es? Juice from narcotics? It seemed sometimes that the best of us became most like the people whom we loathed. And whenever a good cop took a big fall, he could never look back and find that exact moment when he made a hard left turn down a oneway street. I remembered sitting in a courtroom when an ex-major-league baseball pitcher from New Orleans was sentenced to ten years in Angola for extortion and trafficking in cocaine. Seventeen years earlier he had won twenty-five games, had thrown fastb.a.l.l.s that could destroy barn doors, and now he weighed three hundred pounds and walked as though a bowling ball were slung between his thighs. When asked if he had anything to say before sentencing, he stared up at the judge, the rings of fat on his neck trembling, and replied, "Your Honor, I have no idea how I got from there to here."

I believed him, too. But as I sat in the warm breeze with the drowsy heat of the whiskey working in my head, my concern was not for Clete or an ex-baseball pitcher. I knew that my own fuse was lit, and it was only a matter of time before my banked fires would roar out of control in my life. I had never felt more alone, and I uttered a prayer that seemed a contradiction of everything I had learned back at the Catholic school: Dear G.o.d, my higher power, even though I've abandoned You, don't abandon me.

EIGHT.

Late that afternoon I fixed a poor-boy sandwich of oysters, shrimp, lettuce, and a sauce piquante, then drove through the cooling, tree-shaded streets toward the Times-Picayune, where a night editor sometimes let me use their morgue.

But first I wanted to make amends to Annie for deserting her at the houseboat the other night. Afternoon Jim Beam always endowed me with that kind of magical power.

I bought a bottle of Cold Duck and a box of pralines wrapped in orange cellophane and yellow ribbon, kept my freshly pressed seersucker coat on, and strolled up her sidewalk in the dusky light. The air smelled of lilac and spaded flower beds and clipped lawns and water sprinklers clicking across hedges and the trunks of trees.

When she didn't answer the bell, I walked around back and found her barbecuing steaks on a portable grill on a brick patio under a chinaberry tree. She wore white shorts and Mexican straw shoes and a yellow shirt tied under her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her eyes were watering in the smoke, and she stepped away from the fire and picked up a gin gimlet from a gla.s.s tabletop that was set with plates and silverware. The gimlet gla.s.s was wrapped in a paper napkin with a rubber band around it. Her eyes lighted briefly when she saw me, then she looked away.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo, Dave," she said.

"I should have called. I caught you at a bad time."

"A little bit."

"I brought these pralines and some Cold Duck," I said.

"That was nice of you."

"I'm sorry I left you the other night. It's something you won't understand very well, I'm afraid."

The light came back in her blue eyes. I could see the red birthmark on the top of her breast.

"The best way to end a conversation is to tell somebody she can't understand something," she said.

"I meant there was no excuse for it."

"There was a reason. Maybe you just don't want to look at it."

"I went after liquor. I was drunk all night. I ended up in a bar on Old 90 with a bunch of sideshow performers. I called up the CIA and cussed out the duty officer."

"I guess that prevented you from finding a telephone for two days."

"I tried to find Bobby Joe Starkweather. Somebody canceled him out in a hog lot."

"I'm not interested, Dave. Did you come by to screw me?"

"You think I'm giving you a shuck?"

"No, I think you're singleminded and you're bent on revenge. I made the overture the other night and complicated things for you. Now you're feeling the gentleman's obligation. Sorry, I'm not in the absolution business. I don't have any regrets. If you do, that's your problem."

She began to poke the meat on the grill with a fork. The fire flared up and her eyes winced in the smoke. She poked at the meat all the harder.

"I'm truly sorry," I said. "But you're right about my being singleminded. There's only one girl I'm interested in."