"What are you doing here?"

"I came in to see you."

My eyes were still adjusting to the darkness, but I could see her face now, a pale orb wrapped in shadow. "Where's my piece?" I said.

"Your what?"

"My forty-five, where is it?"

She stood up from the chair and walked to the side of the bed. She wore Mexican-style jeans, gold sandals, hoop earrings, and a white blouse that was fluffy with lace. She sat down beside me, her rump pressing deep into the mattress. "I hid it," she said.

I couldn't smell alcohol on her, nor even cigarette smoke, which meant she had probably not been in a bar. "My handcuff key is in my pants. You need to unhook me, Honoria," I said.

"Why?"

"Because friends don't do this to one another," I replied.

She looked into my face and brushed back my hair, then leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. "You like me, don't you?" she said.

"I'm too old for you."

"No, you're not." She placed her hand on my stomach and leaned down again.

"What you're doing is no good for either of us, Honoria," I said.

She took her hand away and sat very still. I could see her breasts rising and falling against the light from the street.

"I think the devil lives under the bayou. I think the devil lives in my father, too," she said.

"I believe you need some help with this stuff. I know a doctor in Lafayette," I said.

"A therapist?"

"I used to see him after my wife Annie was killed. He helped me a lot," I said.

She looked at nothing, her small hand by my hip. "Do you mind if I stay with you a while?"

"No, but I -"

"Just say yes or no."

"No, I don't mind."

"I didn't think you would. I always liked you, Dave. You're a misplaced figure from Elizabethan theater, you know. Your tragedy is the fact no one ever explained that to you."

And with that, she curled up next to me, her face on my shoulder, her arm across my stomach, and went to sleep.

The sun was above the rooftops when I woke. The space beside me was empty and my right wrist was free of the handcuffs that hung from the bedstead. My.45 and slapjack had been replaced on the nightstand, along with the key to my cuffs. From the kitchen I could hear someone clattering pots or pans on the stove.

After I used the bathroom, I pulled on my khakis and went into the kitchen. Honoria was dripping coffee, heating a pan of milk and stirring a pot of oatmeal. Both Snuggs and Tripod were eating out of their pet bowls on the floor. Honoria's hair was brushed and her face made up, but when she glanced in my direction her face had the stark expression of someone who has been caught unawares by a photographer's flash.

"There was no water in the cat's bowl," she said.

"He drinks out of the toilet," I said.

"That's disgusting."

"That's what I've been telling him," I said.

But she saw no humor in my remark. She served oatmeal in two bowls and placed them on the breakfast table, then began hunting for spoons and coffee cups. I looked at my watch. "I'm running a little bit late for Mass," I lied.

"Where's your butter dish?"

"I don't have one. Look, Honoria -"

"The oatmeal is getting cold. I fixed it for you. It would be nice if you ate it."

"Sure," I said, and sat down at the table.

She poured coffee, and placed toast, jam, and sugar in front of me, preoccupied, her eyes darting about the room, as though somehow she needed to impose order on it. "Your cat is climbing in the sink," she said.

"Snuggs is his own man," I said.

"You should train your animals," she said, lifting him off the drainboard and scooting him out the back door. "Don't you ever rake your leaves? A couple of days' work and this place would look fine."

"Last night you said the devil lived under the bayou and also inside your father."

"Where'd you get that?" she said, smiling for the first time that morning.

I studied her eyes. They were dark brown, like warm chocolate, possessed of visions and privy to voices and sounds that I believed only she saw and heard. They were the eyes of someone who would never be changed by therapy, analysis, Twelve-Step programs, religion, or medical treatment.

"Do you know what you did in your sleep last night?" she said.

"Nothing," I said.

"Have it your way. I don't kiss and tell," she said.

"This bullshit ends now, kiddo. The Robicheaux Fun House is officially closed. Thanks for fixing breakfast," I said, and dumped my food into a sack under the sink.

She took a half pint of gin from her purse, poured a three-finger shot into a glass, and drank it at the back door, staring in a desultory fashion at the yard. "Have you ever spent the spring in Paris? I fell in love there with a boy who was gay. My father hounded him without mercy. He drowned himself in the Seine," she said.

But I was all out of Purple Hearts and had decided that Honoria was going to leave of her own accord or be picked up by a cruiser. My determination suddenly dissipated when I looked out the front window and saw the Chalonses' handyman, with his son and Sister Molly next to him, turn into my driveway.

"I'm going to talk to some people out front. There's no need for you to leave right now," I said to Honoria.

"Too late, my love," she said. She walked out the front door and down the street toward the Shadows, her purse swinging from a shoulder string.

I stood on the gallery, barefoot, unshaved, looking down at Molly Boyle, my face burning.

"I should have called first, I guess, but Tee Bleu says he knows where the boat is," she said, speaking awkwardly and too fast, trying to hide her embarrassment at my situation.

"Which boat?" I said.

"The one the man with the gun was in. Tee Bleu says it's moored in a canebrake the other side of the drawbridge."

But I couldn't concentrate on her words. "There's a misunderstanding about what you just saw here. The lady who just left has some mental problems. I left my door unlocked and she -"

"I know who she is. You don't have to explain."

"No, hear me out. She hooked me up to my bed with my cuffs. I was trying to get her out of the house when you arrived."

"Locked you in your own handcuffs?"

"Right. I was asleep."

"I didn't mean to intrude. I thought you should know about the boat."

"You didn't intrude. Y'all come inside."

"No, we'd better run. Thank you. It's a beautiful day, isn't it?"

She tried to smile over her shoulder as she got into her car.

Way to go again, Robicheaux, I thought, my stomach churning. "Give me ten minutes. I'd really appreciate it," I said.

I followed Molly and the handyman and his son to the drawbridge south of Molly's agency. The little boy pointed at a boat that had floated into a flooded clump of reeds and bamboo. I waded into the water and dragged the boat's hull up on the mudbank. The boat was old, made of wood, the stern printed with rust where the engine mounts had been removed. There were no tags or registration numbers of any kind on it. "What makes you think this was the man's boat, Tee Bleu?" I asked.

"It got blue paint on the front end," he replied.

"Thanks for telling me about this," I said.

"I seen the gun. I ain't made it up. Seen the man, too. He was old," he said.

"Y'all gonna dust the boat for fingerprints?" his father said.

"It doesn't work quite like that," I said.

The father's half-moon eyebrows gave him a happy look, even when he wasn't smiling. He had a habit of turning his whole head as he glanced about himself, like a curious owl on a tree branch. "I got to make my deliveries. Can y'all run Tee Bleu home for me?" he said.

"Show Dave your birdhouses," Molly said.

"They ain't that much to look at," he said.