'He tells me he lives two blocks away, up by Audubon Park, and he's been walking his dog. I say, "That's funny, I don't see any dog." He says, "No duh, Purcel. Because my dog run away." "Oh, I see. That's why you're in the shrubs," I say. "No duh, my fast-thinking man," he says.

'I say, "I got another problem here, No Duh. People like you don't live by Audubon Park. Not unless the neighborhood has recently been rezoned for meltdowns and toxic waste. If I remember right, you live in a shithole by the Industrial Canal. So why are you hiding here by Martina's garage, and if you give me one more wiseass answer, I'm going to stuff your dented head up the tailpipe of my car."

'So he puts his fingers in the corners of his mouth and stretches out his lips like a jack-o'-lantern. Can you believe this guy? I say, "No Duh, your mother must have defecated you into the world," and I shake him down against the wall, and what do we find, our man's got a bottle of muriatic acid in his pants pocket.'

'I don't get it. Dolowitz isn't an enforcer,' I said.

'I didn't get it, either. Also, dispensation time for dimwits was starting to run out. I go, "What do you think you're doing with this, fuckhead?" Suddenly he's like a guy who just sobered up. He goes, "It's just a prank, Purcel. I don't hurt people." That's when I screwed the trash can down on his head and got a ball bat out of my car and bounced him around the alley. Finally he's yelling inside the can, "I was going to put it in her gas tank! I wasn't going to have nothing to do with the rest of it!"

'You want to know what "the rest of it" was?' Clete mashed out his cigarette in the ashtray. His eyes cut sideways toward the rear of the café, 'Martina goes, on shift cocktail-waitressing at a club in Gretna at ten P.M. Dolowitz was going to mess up her car so it'd kill somewhere between her house and work. A guy was going to be following her. You want to hear how No Duh put it? "Max and Bobo Calucci got some kind of geek working for them, not no ordinary button guy, either, Purcel, a guy who can fuck up people real bad, in ways nobody ever thought about."'

Clete propped his elbow on the table and inserted a thumbnail in his teeth.

'You think I was too hard on ole Dogshit?' he said.

'Sir, could you watch your language?' the manager, who had come out from behind the cash register, said quietly.

'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' Clete said, flipping his hand at the air.

'You think it could be Buchalter?' I said.

'Maybe. But I don't know how he'd tie in with the greaseballs back there in the booth.'

'Maybe he's connected with Tommy Lonighan's interest in the Nazi sub, and now Lonighan's mixed up with the Caluccis. Anyway, he was in my house last night,' I said.

'He was what?'

'Standing in our closet, watching us while we slept.'

'Jesus Christ, Dave.'

'He cut the back screen, prized out the deadbolt, walked around in the house, and I never heard him.'

Clete sat back in his chair.

'This guy's a new combo, mon,' he said. 'I thought if he ever came back, it'd be to cool you out.'

'You think the real problem is y'all don't have no idea of what you're dealing with?' Oswald Flat said.

We both looked at him. His clip-on bow tie was askew on his denim shirt. His pale eyes looked as big as an owl's behind his glasses.

'You cain't find that fellow 'cause maybe he ain't human,' he said. 'Maybe y'all been dealing with a demon. You ever consider that?'

'I can't say that I have,' I said.

'It's the end of the millennium,' he said.

'Yes?' I said.

'Son, I don't want to be unkind to you. But when the brains was passed out, did you grab a handful of pig flop by mistake?'

He paused to let his statement sink in.

'The prophesy is in Nostradamus. The Beast and his followers are going to be loosed on the earth,' he said. 'Call me a fool. But you're a policeman, and the best you got ain't worth horse pucky on a rock, is hit?'

I looked back at him silently. His short, dun-colored hair was combed neatly and parted almost in the center of his scalp. His washed-out eyes never blinked and seemed wide with a knowledge that was lost on others.

The waiter set plates of deep-fried pork chops, greens, and dirty rice in front of him and Clete.

'You're not going to eat?' Oswald Flat said.

'No, thanks.'

'I offended you?'

'Not at all,' I said.

Clete lowered his fork onto his plate and looked toward the rear of the restaurant again.

'It looks like the Vitalis twins are about to finish their lunch. I don't know if they should slide out of here that easily,' he said.

'Let it go,' I said.

'Trust me.'

'I mean it, Clete. Baxter's got you in his bombsights. Don't play his game.'

'You worry too much, big mon. It's time to check out the jukebox and the ole hippy-dippy from Mississippi, yes indeed, Mr. Jimmy Reed. I'll be right back.'

Clete strolled to the rear of the restaurant, past the Caluccis' table, his eyes never registering their presence. He dropped a quarter into the jukebox and punched off 'Big Boss Man,' then began snapping his fingers and slapping his right palm on top of his left fist while he scanned the other titles. The back of his neck looked as thick as a fire hydrant.

The preacher's gaze moved back and forth from Clete to the Caluccis. His false teeth were stiff and white in his mouth.

'He'll be all right, Reverend. Clete just likes to let people know he's in the neighborhood,' I said.

But Oswald Flat didn't answer. There were pools of color in his cheeks, nests of wrinkles at the edges of his eyes.

'You play guitar?' I said.

'I played with Reno and Smiley, I played with Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys. Hit don't get no better than that,' he said. But his eyes were riveted on the Caluccis when he spoke.

Clete sat back down, his green eyes dancing with light, while Jimmy Reed sang in the background.

The Caluccis were watching him now. Clete made a frame of his hands, with his thumbs joined together, tilting the frame back and forth, sighting through it at Max and Bobo, the way a movie director might if he were envisioning a dramatic scene. Then he began pointing his finger at them, grinning, tapping it in time to 'Big Boss Man's' driving rhythm.

'Knock it off, Clete,' I said.

'They need to know they've been ratted out, mon. You never let a shit bag forget he's a shit bag. You got to keep them buttoned down under the sewer grates, big mon.'

'You're both good fellows, but one is as wrongheaded as the other,' Oswald Flat said.

'Excuse me?' Clete said.

'You don't outwit evil. You don't outthink hit, you don't joke with hit, no more than you tease or control fire by sticking your hand in hit.'

'You all right, Reverend?' I said.

'No, I ain't.'

His sun-browned, liver-spotted hands were flat on the table-cloth. His nails looked like hooked tortoiseshell.

'What's the trouble, partner?' I said.

'They took my boy.'

'Who?' Clete said.

'He come back from Vietnam with needle scars on his arm. Wasn't no he'p for hit, either. Federal hospitals, jails, drug programs, he could always get all the dope he needed from them kind yonder. Till he killed hisself with hit.'

The music on the jukebox ended. Clete looked at me and raised his eyebrows. Oswald Flat slipped the purple rose out of the dimestore vase in the center of the table and sliced off the green stem with his thumbnail.

'Hey, hold on, Brother. Where you going?' Clete said.

Oswald Flat walked toward the rear of the restaurant. He moved like a crab, his shoulders slanted to one side, the rose hanging from his right hand. The Caluccis were finishing their coffee and dessert and at first did not pay attention to the man with the clip-on bow tie standing above them.