'You're unbelievable, Tommy.'

'If Max or Bobo did something to him, I'd a heard about it, and I ain't.' He freed something from a nostril and sniffed dryly. 'Can I tell you something? I don't give a shit, either. I wish the Caluccis would try to hit somebody now. Maybe they'd get taken down like they deserve.'

'You're talking about my friend.'

'I should worry about Purcel? I got maybe three, four months, then the doctor says he'll start me on morphine. Maybe it ain't gonna do the job, either. You know why I got all this grief in my life? It's punishment 'cause I got mixed up with those fucking greasebags. They're immoral, they got no honor, they-'

'Then why not dime 'em and be done with it, Tommy?'

'I thought you knew.' His eyes were close-set, like BB's. Blotches of color broke in his face. 'You guys don't use telephones, you don't talk to each other?'

'What is it?' I said.

'Late yesterday, I spilled my guts, everything,' he said. 'I haven't been charged yet, but they'll do that Monday.'

I waited. The room was ablaze with sunlight and color-the deep blue tile floor, the cane deck furniture and canary yellow cushions-but in its midst Tommy looked stricken, like a man who had mistakenly thought the source of his abiding shame had at least become known and accepted if not forgiven.

'Max and Bobo wanted to scare the coloreds out of the trade in the projects,' he said. 'They used Manny to do three guys. They told him these coloreds were evil spirits and had to be killed 'cause they were selling dope and corrupting little kids. He comes from a bunch of headhunters or cannibals that's got a flower and death cult or something. Or maybe Max made him think he did after he got ahold of this documentary on these prehistoric people that's running around in South America. I don't know about that stuff.'

He scowled into space. White clouds were tumbling in the sky, leaves blowing across the freshly clipped lawn.

'You think I'm toe jam, don't you?' he said.

I kept my face empty and brushed at the crystal on my watch with my thumb.

'A couple of button guys did the other hits, I heard Jamaicans out of Miami,' he said. 'It's been putting boards in my head. I feel miserable. It's like nothing's any good anymore. There's some kind of smell won't wash out of my clothes. Here, you smell it?'

He extended his shirt cuff under my nose.

'Where you going?' he said.

'I've got to find Clete.'

'Stay. I'll fix some chicken sandwiches.'

'Sorry.'

He blew his nose in a Kleenex and dropped the Kleenex in a paper bag full of crumpled tissue, many of them flecked with blood.

'You seen Hippo?' he said.

'We're not on good terms, I'm afraid.'

'He ain't such a bad guy.' He stared disjointedly at the leaves blowing against the windows. 'You see him again, tell him I said that.'

'Sure.'

'You want to take some movie cassettes? I get them for two bucks from a guy sells dubs in Algiers.'

'Dubs?'

'What world you hang out in, Dave? Anything that's electronically recorded today gets dubbed and resold. Those music tapes you see in truck stops, you think Kenny Rogers sells his tapes for three-ninety-five? What, I'm saying the wrong thing again?'

'No, I just haven't been thinking clearly about something, Tommy. See you around.'

I went by Clete's office on St. Ann in the Quarter. It was locked, the blinds drawn, the mailbox inside the brick archway stuffed with letters. I used a pay phone in Jackson Square to call Ben Motley at his home.

'Why didn't you tell me Lonighan made a statement yesterday?' I said.

'It happened late. I don't know how it's going to go down, anyway… Look, the bottom line is Lonighan implicated himself and the Indian. Lonighan's already a dead man, and the Indian's a retard. The interpreter says he'll testify he works for Spiderman if you want him to. The prosecutor's office isn't calling news conferences.'

'What's the status on the Caluccis?'

'That's what I'm trying to tell you, Robicheaux. There isn't any. We'll see what happens Monday. But we got an old problem, too. The Caluccis go down, Nate Baxter goes down. He's going to screw up the investigation any way he can.'

I felt my hand squeeze tightly around the receiver. The sunlight through the restaurant window was like a splinter of glass in the eye.

'Cheer up,' he said. 'We're getting there.'

'Purcel's completely off the screen.'

'Cover your own ass for a change. You know how Purcel'll buy it? He'll catch some kind of incurable clap when he's a hundred and fifty. Call me Monday.'

I drove up St. Charles to Hippo's drugstore. He was sitting in the shade on a collapsible metal chair by the entrance, eating a spearmint snowball. Two streetcars were stopped at a sunny spot on the neutral ground, loading and unloading passengers. At first he ignored me and continued to eat the ice out of the paper cone; then he smiled and aimed his index finger and thumb at me like a cocked pistol.

'A weird place to sit, Hippo,' I said.

'Not for me. I love New Orleans. Look up and down this street-the trees, the old homes, the moss in the wind. There's not another street like it in the world.' He reached next to him and popped open a second metal chair. 'Sit down. What can I do for you?'

'You're okay, Hippo.'

'Why not?' His eyes squinted into slits with his smile.

'You know about almost every enterprise on the Gulf Coast, don't you?'

'Business is like spaghetti… pull on one piece, you move the whole plate.'

'Let me try a riddle on you. Mobbed-up guys don't torture cops, do they?'

'Not unless they're planning careers as crab bait.'

'Buchalter's not mobbed-up.'

'That's a breakthrough for you?'

'But what if Buchalter was selling duplicated recordings of historical jazz, or making blues tapes and screwing the musician on the copyright?'

'Dubs are in. Some lowlifes tried to get me to retail them in my drugstores. I don't think there's any big market for historical jazz, though.'

'Stay with me, Hippo. A guy selling dubs would have to piece off the action or be connected, right?'

'If he wants to stay in business.'

'So Buchalter's not part of the local action. Where's the biggest market for old blues and jazz?'

His eyes became thoughtful. 'He's selling it in Europe?'

'I think I've got a shot at him.'

He took another bite out of his cone and sucked his cheeks in.

'You want some backup? From guys with no last names?' he asked.

'Buchalter probably has a recording studio of some kind over on the Mississippi coast. I can go over there and spend several days looking through phone books and knocking on doors.'

He nodded without replying.

'Or I can get some help from a friend who has a lot of connections on the coast.'

'I provide information, then me and my friends get lost, that's what you're saying?'

'So far we don't have open season on people we don't like, Hippo.'

He crumpled up the paper cone in his hand, walked to a trash receptacle, and dropped it in.

'We'll use the phone at my place,' he said.

It didn't take long. He made four phone calls, then a half hour later a fax came through his machine with a list of addresses on it. He handed it to me, his sleek, football-shaped head framed by the corkboard filled with death camp photos behind him.

'There're seven of them, strung out between Bay St. Louis and Pascagoula,' he said. 'It looks like you get to knock on lots of doors, anyway.'

I folded the fax and put it in my coat pocket.

'Did you hear about Tommy Bobalouba?' I said.

'He knew he had cancer two years ago. He shouldn't have fooled around with it.'

'That's kind of rough, Hippo.'