The blood had risen in her face, and her eyes were shiny with embarrassment.

"You didn't know what he was like, Boots."

"It doesn't help. I think about him and want to wash my body with peroxide."

"I'm going to help Batist close up, then we'll go for some ice cream," I said.

I walked down to the bait shop and called Dana Magelli, my NOPD friend, at his home and got the unlisted number for Jim Gable's condo in New Orleans.

"Why are you messing with Gable?" Magelli asked. "Cleaning up some paperwork, interdepartmental cooperation, that sort of thing."

"Gable leaves shit prints on everything he touches. Stay away from him. It's a matter of time till somebody scrambles his eggs."

"It's not soon enough."

I punched in Jim Gable's number. I could hear opera music playing in the background -when he answered the phone.

"Y'all are picking up Johnny Remeta tomorrow," I said.

"Who is this?" he asked.

"Dave Robicheaux. Remeta thinks somebody might want to blow up his shit."

"Hey, we owe you a big thanks on this one. You made the ID through that home invasion in Loreauville, didn't you?"

"He'd better arrive in New Orleans without any scratches on the freight."

"You're talking to the wrong man, my friend. Don Ritter's in charge of that case."

"Let me raise another subject. I understand you've made 'some remarks about my wife."

I could hear ice cubes rattle in a glass, as though he had just sipped from it and replaced it on a table.

"I don't know where you heard that, but it's not true. I have the greatest respect for your wife," he said.

I stared out the bait shop window. The flood lamps were on and the bayou was yellow and netted with torn strands of hyacinths, the air luminescent with insects. My temples were pounding. I felt like a jealous high school boy who had just challenged a rival in a locker room, only to learn that his own words were his worst enemy.

"Maybe we can take up the subject another time. On a more physical level," I said.

I thought I heard the voice of a young woman giggling in the background, then the tinkle of ice in the glass again.

"I've got to run. Get a good night's sleep. I don't think you mean what you say. Anyway, I don't hold grudges," Gable said.

The woman laughed again just before he hung up.

But the two New Orleans detectives who were assigned to take Johnny Remeta back to their jurisdiction,

Don Ritter and a man named Burgoyne, didn't show up in the morning. In fact, they didn't arrive at the department until almost 5 p.m.

I stayed late until the last of the paperwork was done. Ritter bent over my desk and signed his name on a custody form attached to a clipboard, then bounced the ballpoint pen on my desk blotter.

"Thanks for your help, Robicheaux. We won't forget it," he said.

"You taking the four-lane through Morgan City?" I said.

"No, 1-10 through Baton Rouge," Burgoyne, the other detective, said.

"The southern route is straight through now. You can be in New Orleans in two hours and fifteen minutes," I said.

"The department uses prescribed routes for all transportation of prisoners. This one happens to go through Baton Rouge," Burgoyne said. He grinned and chewed his gum.

He was young, unshaved, muscular, his arms padded with hair. He wore a faded black T-shirt and running shoes and Levi's with his handcuffs pulled through the back of his belt. He wore his shield on a cord around his neck, and a snub-nosed.38 in a clip-on holster on his belt.

"We've had Remeta in a holding cell since this morning. He didn't eat yet," I said.

"We'll feed him at the jail. I'll ask him to drop you a card and tell you about it," Burgoyne said, his eyes merry, his gum snapping in his jaw.

Ten minutes later I watched Ritter and Burgoyne lead Johnny Remeta, in waist and leg chains, to the back of a white Plymouth and lock him to a D-ring anchored on the floor. When they pulled out of the parking lot, Remeta stared out the side window into my face.

I went back inside the building, the residue of a burned-out, bad day like a visceral presence on my skin.

Why had they waited until quitting time to pick up Remeta? Why were they adamant about returning to New Orleans through Baton Rouge, which was the long way back? I was bothered also by the detective named Burgoyne. His clothes and looks and manner reminded me of the description that Micah, Cora Gable's chauffeur, had given of one of the cops who had beaten and terrorized him.

I signed out a cruiser, hit the flasher, and headed for the four-lane that led to Lafayette and Interstate 10 East.

It was almost sunset when I crossed Henderson Swamp on the causeway. There was no wind, and the miles of water on each side of the road were blood-red, absolutely still, the moss in the dead cypress gray and motionless against the trunks. I stayed in the passing lane, the blue, white, and red glow of the flasher rippling across the pavement and cement railings in the dying light.

Then I was on the bridge above the Atchafalaya River, rising above its wide breadth and swirling current and the deep green stands of gum trees along its banks. Only then did I realize the white Plymouth was behind me, off the highway, in the rest area on the west side of the river.

I'd blown it. I couldn't remember the distance to the next turnaround that would allow me to double back and recross the river. I pulled to the shoulder, put the cruiser in reverse, and backed over the bridge to the rest area exit while two tractor-trailers swerved around me into the passing lane.

The rest area was parklike, green and freshly mowed and watered, with picnic tables and clean rest rooms, and a fine view of the river from the levee.

But the Plymouth was not by the rest rooms. It was parked not far from the levee and a stand of trees, in a glade, its doors open, its parking lights on.

I entered the access road and clicked off the flasher and parked behind a truck and saw Ritter and Burgoyne walking from the Plymouth to the men's room. Burgoyne went inside while Ritter smoked a cigarette and watched the Plymouth. Then Burgoyne came back outside and both of them sat at a picnic table, smoking, a thermos of coffee set between them. They watched the Plymouth and the T-shirted, waist-chained form of Johnny Remeta in the backseat.

I thought they would finish their coffee, unlock Remeta from the D-ring, and walk him to the men's room. The sodium lamps came on overhead and still they made no move toward the Plymouth.

Instead, Ritter went to a candy machine. He peeled off the wrapper on a candy bar and dropped the wrapper on the ground and strolled out toward the parking lot and used a pay phone.

The wind started to blow off the river, then I heard a solitary pop, like a firecracker, in a clump of trees by the levee.

Johnny Remeta pitched forward in the seat, his shoulders curled down toward the floor, his chained wrists jerking at the D-ring. There were three more reports inside the trees; now I could see a muzzle flash or light reflecting off a telescopic lens, and I heard the rounds biting into metal, blowing glass out the back of the car.

I pulled my.45 and ran toward the picnic table where Burgoyne still sat, his cigarette burning on the edge of the wood, his hands motionless in front of him. Ritter was nowhere in sight. The few travelers in the rest area had either taken cover or flattened themselves on the lawn.

I screwed the.45 into Burgoyne's spine.

"You set him up, you shitbag," I said, and hoisted him up by his T-shirt.

"What are you doing?"

"Walk in front of me. You're going to stop it. You touch your piece and I'll blow your liver out on the grass."

I knotted my fist in the back of his belt, pushing him ahead of me, into the mauve-colored twilight and the smell of cut grass and the wind that was filled with newspaper and dust and raindrops that stung like hail. I tried to see over his shoulder into the clump of trees by the levee, but the limbs were churning, the leaves rising into the air, and the light had washed out of the sky into a thin band on the earth's rim.