Jules grinned and stepped closer to his friend. A pair of large cockroaches scurried out of his way. “You drive a cab in this town, there’s not much youdon’t believe.”

“I hear ya.” The jazzman sat down on a window ledge and fanned himself with his hat. “Well, my pop, he growed up in the Quarters, back when it was piss-poor Italians livin‘ here instead of all these tourists. And man, did he used to tell mestories! One that always stuck in my head, it was about the rats that live in the Quarters. These rats, they live inside all these two-hundred-year-old buildings we got here. Inside thewalls, see. They got it so good in there, they never need to come out. In fact, my pop, he told me there was whole generations of rats that lived and died without ever seein’ the sun. Imagine that! Generation after generation, they got whiter and whiter, those rats, livin‘ in the dark like that, until their skins got so white that you could look right through it. Rightthrough it, and see their hearts and lungs and stuff!”

“No shit?”

“Noshit. I never forgot that story. Well, just earlier tonight I be walkin‘ over here from my apartment, takin’ the same old route I always take, when I hear a noise from this alleyway. Sounds like trash cans bein‘ spilled over. I figure it’s some dog or somethin’. Just outta curiosity, I take a look down the alleyway. There, sittin‘ on top of one of them cans, be a rat big as my trumpet. Bad enough, huh? But it’s like no other rat I ever seen. I’m starin’ at it, andit’s starin‘ atme, and I can see its heart beatin’, and blood flowin‘ through its veins. Like its skin isglass.”

“It wasn’t no trick of the light, you think?”

The musician shook his head vigorously. “No trick of no light, no sir. That rat was clear like a neon tube. And the whole while I was starin‘ at it, I had the sense my daddy’s ghost was standin’ there next to me, his hand restin‘ on my shoulder. That’s the absolute truth.” He stopped fanning himself and stared directly into Jules’s eyes. “There’s more strange stuff out there than you or me can imagine, my friend.”

Jules grunted his agreement.

Porkchop Chambonne glanced down at his watch. “Shee-yit! Time slipped away on me. I gotta git. You comin‘ inside to hear the second set?”

“I brought my ears, didn’t I? Lead the way, pal.”

They rounded the corner onto Decatur Street. The bandleader hurried through the Palm Court’s door and headed directly for the stage, where his sidemen were already playing an opening tune. Jules paused outside to slip on his trench coat; he didn’t want to distract attention from the band.

The stage was lit with red and green spotlights. The rest of the club, divided evenly between a polished oak bar and a restaurant seating area, was dimly but charmingly lit with glass-enclosed candles. Jules couldn’t make out faces among the audience; all he could see were silhouettes and hands clutching glasses of beer or wine. The place was about three-quarters full. The six-piece band wound down its rendition of “Chimes Blues,” leaping immediately into a rousing “Basin Street Blues” as Jules wormed his way through the crowded room to an empty table near the back.

The kids were good-damn good-but even the most precocious among them couldn’t touch the lyrical artistry flowing so effortlessly from their leader’s trumpet. Sixty-plus years of experience counted for something, after all. Jules listened, enraptured, as his friend slid sinuously into the famous blues first popularized by King Oliver and Louis Armstrong. That was just after World War I, back in the days of Jules’s youth. Maybe Chop didn’t have Oliver’s fiery aggressiveness on trumpet, and perhaps he couldn’t match Satchmo’s almost supernatural virtuosity, but he had a languid warmth all his own. As long as music like this endured, New Orleans would always be heaven for Jules Duchon.

At first he didn’t feel the soft hand that settled lightly on his shoulder. “Mind if I join you? The other tables are all taken, and I hate listening to the blues alone.”

It was a woman’s voice. Unfamiliar, but as warm and smoky as Chop’s tireless trumpet. Jules leaned back in his chair, and when he saw who it was, he nearly fell out of it. It washer — the woman from the Trolley Stop. The cover girl fromBig Cheeks Pictorial!

She smiled at him, her teeth sparkling in the candlelight. “I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said. “I could see how much you’re enjoying the music. But seeing you again is such a wonderful coincidence. I simply couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t come over and introduce myself. May I sit down?”

Was this really happening? Or was it a hallucination brought on by accumulated stress, a bizarre waking wet dream? He pinched his upper arm with every last ounce of his vampiric strength. She didn’t fade away. He could smell her musky perfume. He could feel the electric warmth of her body, so provocatively close to his own.If this is a wet dream, he told himself,I’m gonna go all the way with it, all the way to the sticky finish line.

“So may I sit down?” she asked again. So patiently, so unpetulantly (so unlike Maureen, who would’ve bitten his head off by now).

“Uh, you wanna sit withme?”

“Yes,” she smiled.

“Buh-be my guest,” he said, catapulting himself out of his seat in an effort to pull out a chair for her.

“That’s very gallant.” He noticed her voice had a sweet trace of a hill-country twang. Gracefully, she settled herself down, smoothing the folds of her emerald silk pantsuit to avoid wrinkling. Beneath her jacket she wore a daringly low-cut T-shirt, which showcased her mountainous cleavage. Jules’s dream girl turned appreciatively toward the stage, closing her eyes and nodding gently in time with the music. No matter how sublime Chop’s solos were, Jules might as well’ve been stone deaf. His complete attention was glued to the rise and fall of her magnificent chest.

When the band slid into the closing bars of “St. James Infirmary,” she sighed with pleasure. “Isn’t the music simplywonderful?”

“Some of the best in the city,” said Jules, trying hard to sound authoritative. “That means some of the best in the whole world.”

“You sound like someone who knows his music.”

“Sure! I been around music and musicians my whole life.”

Her eyes flashed with interest. “How fascinating!” She laughed and patted his arm affectionately. “I promised to introduce myself, didn’t I? My name’s Veronika, with ak. I’m visiting from New York. I know this’ll soundhorribly immodest, but I’m a model-a plus-sized model-and I’m in New Orleans working on a series of shoots for various magazines. Most of my photos are for women’s clothing magazines, and the others-well, let’s just say I doubt a gentleman such as yourself would’ve seen them.”

“My loss,” Jules said with a poker face.

“I think your city is simplymagical. I’ve been hoping to meet someone who could help me see it with a native’s eyes. When I saw you at that little trolley car diner, you seemed so friendly andinteresting, and I wanted to meet you, or at least say hello, but at the last second I was too shy. Then you were gone. So seeing you again tonight, in this place, with this wonderful music, I just know that we were meant to be friends.”

Jules felt suspended in a warm velvet fog. Every honey-coated word she spoke sizzled a path from his ears straight to his groin. He caught sight of his empty outfit in a mirrored post. Why did this woman have to meet him on a night when he was dressed in Maureen’s harlequin costume?

“I, uh, I’m comin‘ back from some kids’ party. Crippled kids, actually. All stuck in wheelchairs. Charity work, y’know. I do this sorta thing all the time.”

“That’s sonoble of you.” She grasped his paw tightly between her two soft hands and stared into his eyes. They listened to the remainder of the set in silence.When the band finished their final number the house lights came up like a sudden dawn. The forty or so patrons gathered their coats and purses and began shuffling toward the doors.