"Yes, that would be fine."

"I want my money," she said.

"Carrie, Carrie, Carrie," he said, patting her shoulder.

He leaned across her to pick up the piece of carrot cake from the shelf. She could feel the outline of his phallus press against her back.

JUST before noon Carrie bathed and fixed her hair and dug in the back of her closet for a dress that had been made for her by a tailor in New Orleans. Then she powdered her face until it was almost white, rouged her cheeks, darkened her eyes with eyeliner and, with a silk parasol held aloft, sat regally in the back of her carriage while a Negro driver delivered her to the front of Abigail Dowling's cottage on East Main.

"Could I help you?" Abigail said, opening the door, looking past Carrie, as though an emergency of some kind must have developed in the street.

"I want to talk bidness," Carrie said.

"I'm probably the wrong person for that," Abigail said.

"Not this time, you ain't," Carrie said.

They sat down in the living room. Carrie fixed her eyes out the window, her back not touching the chair. Her red-streaked black hair looked like a wig on a muskmelon. She took a deep breath and heard a rattling sound in her lungs.

"Are you feeling all right, Miss LaRose?" Abigail asked.

"I got chest pains at night," she said.

"You need to see a doctor."

"The only good one we had was killed at Malvern Hill. I want you to find out what's wrong wit' me."

"I'm not qualified," Abigail replied.

"I wouldn't take my horse to the doctor we got. What's wrong wit' me?"

"What else happened when you had the chest pains?"

"I couldn't breathe. It hurt real bad under my right arm, like somebody stuck me wit' a stick."

Abigail started to speak, but Carrie raised a hand for her to be silent.

"I hear a man walking in a long corridor. I hear an iron door scraping across a stone flo'," she said. "I t'ink maybe somebody's coming for me."

"Who?" Abigail said.

"I growed up in Barataria, right here in Lou'sana, but I run a house in Paris. A colonel in the French army kilt my husband over some money. When I got the chance I fixed him good. Wit' a poisoned razor in his boot."

Carrie paused, waiting to see the reaction in Abigail's face. "I see," Abigail said.

"I was supposed to die on the guillotine. I done some t'ings for the jailer. Anyt'ing he wanted, it didn't matter.You know what I'm saying to you? I done them t'ings and I lived."

"Yes?" Abigail said.

"Anot'er woman went to the headsman 'stead of me. They put a gag in her mout' and tied her feet and hands. From my window I saw them lift her head out of the basket and hold it up by the hair for the crowd to see."

Abigail kept her eyes on the tops of her hands and cleared her throat.

"I think you've had a hard life, Miss Carrie," Abigail said.

"You been trying to borrow money around town. Ain't nobody gonna give you money to go up against Todd McCain. He's in the White League."

"How do you know?"

"He visits my house."

"You're offering to lend me money?"

"He's gonna set up a saloon, probably wit' girls out back. What's good for him is bad for me."

"And part of the deal is I help you with your health? I'd do that, anyway, Miss Carrie."

"There's somet'ing else." Carrie rotated a ring on her finger.

"What might that be?" Abigail asked.

"I cain't read and write, me. Neither can my brother, Jean-Jacques."

IT was late evening when Willie Burke walked into town and stood in front of his mother's boardinghouse on the bayou. A rolled and doubled-over blanket, with his razor, a sliver of soap, a magazine and a change of clothes inside, was tied on the ends with a leather cord and looped across his back. A narrow-chested, shirtless boy, wearing a Confederate kepi, was sweeping the gallery, his face hot with his work, his back powdered with dust in the twilight.

The boy rested his broom and stared at the figure standing in the yard.

"Mr. Willie?" he said.

"Yes?"

"Ms Abigail said she thought maybe you was killed."

"I don't know who you are."

"It's me-Tige."

"The drummer boy at Shiloh?"

"Lessen hit's a catfish dressed up in a Tige McGuffy suit."

"What are you doing on my mother's gallery?"

"Cleaning up, taking care of things. I'm staying here. Miss Abby said it was all right."

"Where's my mother?"

A paddle-wheeler, its windows brightly lit, blew its whistle as it approached the drawbridge. "She died, Mr. Willie."

"Died?"

"Last month, in New Orleans. Miss Abby says it was pneumonia," Tige said. He looked away, his hands clenched on the broom handle.

"I think you're confused, Tige. My mother never went to New Orleans. She thought it was crowded and dirty. Why would she go to New Orleans? Where'd you hear all this?"

Willie said, his voice rising. "Miss Abby said the Yanks took your mother's hogs and cows. She thought she could get paid for them 'cause she was from Ireland," Tige said.

"The Yanks don't pay for what they take. Where'd you get that nonsense?"

"I done told you."

"Yes, you did. You certainly did," Willie said. He went inside the house and stamped around in all the rooms. The beds were made, the washboards and chopping block in the kitchen scrubbed spotless, the pots and pans hung on hooks above the hearth and woodstove, the walls and ceiling free of cobweb, the dust kittens swept out from under all the furnishings. He slammed out the back of the house and circled through the side yard to the front. He squeezed his temples with his fingers. "Where is she buried?" he said. Tige shook his head. "You don't know?" Willie said.

"No, suh."

Willie pulled his blanket roll off his shoulder and flung it at the gallery, then winced and clasped his hand on his left collarbone.

"There's blood on your shirt," Tige said.

"A guerrilla gave me a taste of his sword," Willie replied. He sat down on the steps and draped his hands between his legs. He was quiet a long time. "She went to the Yanks to get paid for her livestock?"

"I reckon. Miss Abby said 'cause your mother was from Ireland, the Yankees didn't have no right to take her property. How come they'd have the right if she was from here? That's what I cain't figure."

"This war never seems to get over, does it, Tige? How you been doin'?" Willie said.

"Real good." Tige studied the failing light in the trees and the birds descending into the chimney tops. "Most of the time, anyway."

"Will you forgive a fellow for speaking sharply?" Willie asked.

"Some folks say my daddy got killed at Brice's Crossroads. Others say he just run off 'cause he didn't have no use for his family. I busted a window in a church after somebody told me that. Knocked stained glass all over the pews," Tige said.

"I doubt Our Lord holds it against you," Willie said.

Tige sat down beside him. He aimed his broom into the dusk as though it were a musket and sighted down the handle, then rested it by his foot. "Miss Abby done bought a big building she's turning into a schoolhouse. Her and a high-yellow lady named Flower is gonna teach there. She talks about you all the time, what a good man you are and what kind ways you have. In fact, I ain't never heard a lady talk so much about a man."

"Miss Abigail does that?"

"I was talking about the colored lady-Miss Flower."