"You said 'not like some.' You calling me a liar?" I said.

"You spread rumors I was a snitch. I was in the Flat Top at Raiford. I never gave anybody up."

"Listen, Johnny, you backed out on the Little Face Dautrieve contract. You're still on this side of the line."

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't pretend you don't understand. Look at me."

"I don't like people talking to me like that, Mr. Robicheaux. Let go of my boat."

I looked hard into his face. His eyes were dark, his cheeks pooled with shadow, like a death mask, his mouth compressed into a small flower. I shoved his boat out into the current.

"You got it, kid," I said.

He cranked the engine and roared down the bayou, glancing back at me once, the bow of his boat swerving wildly to avoid hitting a nutria that was swimming toward the bank.

LATER THAT MORNING I called the prison psychologist at Raiford in Florida, a social worker in Letcher County, Kentucky, and a high school counselor in Detroit. By quitting time I had received at least three dozen fax sheets concerning Johnny Remeta.

That afternoon Clete Purcel sat next to me on a wood bench at the end of the dock and read through the file I had put together on Remeta.

"He's got a 160 I.Q. and he's a button man?" Clete said.

"No early indications of violence, either. Not until he got out of Raiford."

"You're saying he got spread-eagled in the shower a few times and decided to get even?"

"I'm just saying he's probably not a sociopath."

Clete closed the manila folder and handed it back to me. The wind ruffled and popped the canvas awning over our heads.

"Who cares what he is? He was on your turf. I'd put one through his kneecap if he comes back again," Clete said.

I didn't reply. I felt Clete's eyes on the side of my face. "The guy's of no value to you. He doesn't know who hired him," Clete said. "Splash this psychological stuff in the bowl."

"The social worker told me the kid's father was a drunk. She thinks the old man sold the kid a couple of times for booze."

Clete was already shaking his head with exasperation before I finished the sentence.

"He looked Zipper Clum in the eyes while he drilled a round through his forehead. This is the kind of guy the air force trains to launch nuclear weapons," he said.

He stood up and gripped his hands on the dock railing. The back of his neck was red, his big arms swollen with energy.

"I'm pissed off at myself. I shouldn't have helped you fire this guy up," he said.

"How's Passion?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Waiting for me to pick her up." He let out his breath. "I've got baling wire wrapped around my head. I can't think straight."

"What's wrong?" I said.

"I'm going to drive her to the women's prison tomorrow to visit her sister."

"You feel like you're involving yourself with the other side?"

"Something like that. I always figured most people on death row had it coming. You watch Larry King last night? He had some shock-jock on there laughing about executing a woman in Texas. The same guy who made fun of Clinton at a banquet. These are America 's heroes."

He went inside the bait shop and came back out with a sixteen-ounce can of beer wrapped in a paper towel. He took two long drinks out of the can, tilting his head back, swallowing until the can was almost empty. He blew out his breath and the heat and tension went out of his face.

"Dave, I dreamed about the Death House at Angola. Except it wasn't Letty Labiche being taken there. It was Passion. Why would I have a dream like that?" he said, squeezing his thumb and forefinger on his temples.

But I WAS to hear Letty Labiche's name more than once that day.

Cora Gable had volunteered her chauffeur, Micah, to deliver a thousand-name petition on behalf of Letty to the governor's mansion. After he had picked up several friends of Cora's in New Orleans, driven them to the capitol at Baton Rouge, and dropped them off again in New Orleans, he ate dinner by himself in a cafe by the river, on the other side of the Huey Long Bridge, then headed down a dusky two-lane road into Lafourche Parish.

He passed through a small settlement, then entered a long stretch of empty road surrounded by sugarcane fields. A white car closed behind him; a man in the passenger's seat glanced back over his shoulder and clapped a battery-powered flashing red light on the roof.

The cops looked like off-duty narcs or perhaps SWAT members. They were thick-bodied and vascular, young, unshaved, clad in jeans and sneakers and dark-colored T-shirts, their arms ridged with hair, handcuffs looped through the backs of their belts.

They walked up on each side of the limo. Micah's windows were down now, and he heard the Velcro strap peeling loose on the holster of the man approaching the passenger door.

"Could I see your driver's license, please?" the man at Micah's window said. He wore pilot's sunglasses and seemed bored, looking away at the sunset over the cane fields, his palm extended as he waited for Micah to pull his license from his wallet.

"What's the problem?"

The man in sunglasses looked at the photo on the license, then at Micah's face.

"You see what it says over your picture? 'Don't drink and drive… Don't litter Louisiana,'" he said. "Every driver's license in Louisiana has that on it. We're trying to keep drunks off the road and the highways clean. You threw a beer can out the window back there."

"No, I didn't."

"Step out of the car, please."

"You guys are from New Orleans. You don't have authority here," Micah said.

"Walk around the far side of the car, please, and we'll discuss that with you."

They braced him against the roof, kicked his ankles apart, ran their hands up and down his legs, and pulled his pockets inside out, spilling his change and wallet onto the shale.

A car passed with its lights on. The two cops watched it disappear between the cane fields. Then one of them swung a baton into the back of Micah's thigh, crumpling it as though the tendon had been cut in half. He fell to one knee, his fingers trying to find purchase against the side of the limo.

The second blow was ineffective, across his shoulders, but the third was whipped with two hands into his tail-bone, driving a red shard of pain into his bowels. Micah rolled in the dirt, shuttering, trying to control his sphincter muscle.

The cop who had taken his license dropped it like a playing card into his face, then kicked him in the kidney.

"You got a sheet in New Mexico, Micah. Go back there. Don't make us find you again," he said.

"I didn't do anything," he said.

The cop with the baton leaned over and inserted the round, wooden end into Micah’s mouth, pushing hard, until Micah gagged and choked on his own blood.

"What's that? Say again?" the cop said, bending down solicitously toward Micah's deformed face.

Clete called me the next afternoon and asked me to meet him in Armand's on Main Street. It was cool and dark inside, and Clete sat at the antique, mirrored bar, a julep glass in his hand, an electric fan blowing across his face.

But there was nothing cool or relaxed about his demeanor. His tropical shirt was damp against his skin, his face flushed as though he had a fever. One foot was propped on the runner of the barstool; his knee kept jiggling-

"What is it, Clete?"

"I don't know. I probably shouldn't have called you. Maybe I should just drive up the stock price on Jack Daniel's by three or four points."

"I got a call from Cora Gable. A couple of NOPD goons beat up her driver. She says they scared him so bad he won't press charges."