"Plus scopes."

"What do I do with them?"

"Hold them," Mackey said.

"Who are we talking about here?"

"Keep them absolutely secure and ready."

"What is the subject of this meeting? Because I have to know there's complete trust between us."

"You do know. Take my word. Or I wouldn't be here."

"Don't make me feel I'm getting too old for certain operations. This is my trade. There's only one subject for people like us."

Paint flakes on the desktop and floor, steel cabinets covered in dust. Inside the cabinets were Banister's intelligence records. He kept files on people who volunteered for the anti-Castro groups in the area. He kept microfilmed records of left-wing activity in Louisiana. He had the names of known communists. He had material supplied by the FBI on Castro agents and sympathizers. Mackey had seen handbooks on guerrilla tactics, back issues of a racist magazine Guy published. There were files on other organizations renting space at 544 Camp, past and present, including the Cuban Revolutionary Council, an alliance of anti-Castro groups put together by the CIA with Banister's help.

"People like us," he said to Mackey, "we have this dilemma we have to face. Serious men deprived of an outlet. Once we're pushed out, how do we retire to a chair on the lawn? Everyday lawful pursuits don't meet our special requirements." He laughed happily. "For twenty-some-odd years in the Bureau I lived in a special society that pretty much satisfied the most serious things in my nature. Secrets to trade and keep, certain dangers, an opportunity to function in tight spots, wave a gun in people's faces. That's a charmed society. If you've got criminal tendencies, and I'm not saying this is true of you or me, one of the places to make your mark is law enforcement." A short happy laugh. "How much of my manhood is watery puke? That's what I want to know. I was involved in the Dillinger case, earliest days of my career. Public enemy number one. Famous finish, got him coming out of a movie house in Chicago, sweltering night, the Biograph. I was with the Office of Naval Intelligence in the war, just like young Jack Kennedy. " He took a swallow. "Spy work, undercover work, we invent a society where it's always wartime. The law has a little give."

He set the mug of bourbon to one side and ran his hand over the newspapers and files to find his cigarettes.

"In John Birch," he said, "we have a hundred thousand members. Way out of hand. Then there's General Ted Walker going on tour with the Reverend Billy James Hargis, coast to coast, in ten-gallon hats. The Minutemen are leaner, move close to the ground. But there's a fervor I don't trust. They're waiting for the Day. They've got their ammo clips hidden in the garage and they know the Day is fast approaching. They get their politics all mixed up with the second coming of Christ. I respect your methods, T-Jay. You want a unit that's small, tight and mobile. None of these bullshit mailing lists. You don't want theory and debate. Just impact. Two or three men to do serious things."

David Ferrie walked in wearing an undersized panama hat and a turtleneck shirt with a drooping collar. To Mackey, who'd met him once before, he had a look of sad apology, like a man who'd betrayed a public trust. (Banister claimed he was a defrocked priest.) He moved in a languid glide, loafers slapping.

He said to Banister, "Shouldn't be drinking this time of day."

"What do we have in the storeroom?"

Ferrie glanced at T-Jay.

"Some old, old Springfields. Thirty-aught-six. I mean old. We have M-ls, a whole raft of Yugoslav Mausers with markings stamped in Russian if that impresses you. We have some M-4s out by La-combe. I burnt off a magazine only yesterday. "

"Where do we keep our scopes?" Banister said.

"Most of the scopes and mounts are out at the camp. We have some extra-long target scopes stored here. Of course it depends on what you want to shoot. Hairy big game like Fidel, you want a wide field of view because he's always in motion. The fact is I used to admire Dr. Castro, secretly. A brief moment only. I wanted to fight by his side."

His voice was whispered, incredulous; something about the curious paths of his own life caused him endless surprise. The face itself was disbelieving, the stark pasted brows looped high over his pale eyes. Nothing he said could be separated from the eerie facts of his appearance, least of all, apparently, by Ferrie himself.

"Where would you park a light plane below the border?" Mackey said. "Figure you're leaving home in a hurry."

"I'd point her right on down to Matamoros. Below Brownsville. There's a field there. You want to go deeper into Mexico, you can play hopscotch on dry lakes. Avoid populated areas entirely."

"No offense. How old are you?"

"Forty-five. Perfect astronaut age. I'm the dark scary side of John Glenn. Great health except for the cancer eating at my brain."

"You'll die violently," Banister said.

"I want to believe it."

"A nacho stuck in your throat."

"I speak Spanish," Ferrie said, amazed to hear it.

He went into the small room behind the office, where Delphine Roberts was compiling one of the lists that someone in the firm was always gathering material for. Delphine was Banister's secretary and research aide, a nailed-down American, middle-aged, with airy spraywork hair.

"These are supposed to be runless stockings," she said.

"Everything is supposed to be something. But it never is. That's the nature of existence."

"I know. You studied philosophy where was it."

"Did you eat lunch?"

"I'm back on Metrecal." "But you're a wisp, Delphine."

He turned on the little TV.

"Why do you think a Negro would want to be a communist?" she said, running a finger down the list. "Isn't it enough for them being colored? Why would they want a communistic tinge added on?"

"Are you saying why be greedy?"

"I'm saying don't they have enough trouble. Besides, if you're colored, you can't be anything else."

She worked at a Formica desk by the window. A cardboard shirt support was taped over a hole in the screen.

"I priced a bomb shelter last week," Ferrie told her.

"It's not the bombs coming out of the sky I worry about. The missile crisis came and went. It's the troops that will just appear one quiet morning, armies landing on the beaches, paratroops dropping through the clouds. Guy received a report that the Red Chinese are massing troops in Baja California."

"I have private torments, Delphine. They require something larger than an army."

They were watching As the World Turns. Ferrie sat in a folding chair with his legs crossed. He took off his hat and placed it on his right kneecap.

"I say to myself, I wonder why Delphine comes to this rat-trap office every day. A woman like her. With a background and so forth. A real pretty house on Coliseum Street. Social niceties, let's say. The DAR."

"This is the real work of the nation. What could I accomplish in the City Council or some ladies' group? Guy Banister is the vanguard of what is going on in this country, so far as actually making an impact. Recruiting, training, collecting information. I feel like this is a contribution I can make that I couldn't do in the normal ways, through committee work and so forth."

She glanced at Ferrie's faded red toupee, an object that resembled some windblown piece of street debris. She looked at the sloped forehead, the somewhat Roman profile, eagle-beaked, oddly impressive despite the man's overgrown ears, the clownish aspects of his appearance. In fact she'd seen the profile before she ever met Ferrie. There was a mug shot in Banister's files. It commemorated two arrests in 1961, in Jefferson Parish, for what were officially described as crimes against nature.