“What-how-you tried to-you,you- ”

“It’s extremely important that I see you again.”

One question finally tore loose of the pack. “How did you know I’d be here?”

“I know all sorts of things about you.”

“What the hell’s this all about? Whoare you?”

“I know I owe you an explanation-much more than an explanation. I want to come clean, Jules. But I can’t do it over the phone.“ Jules saw Maureen staring through the doorway with the intensity of a hawk eyeing a plump field mouse. Doodlebug was standing next to her. Jules tried to keep his voice low. It wasn’t easy. ”What the hell do you want?“

“I need to see you again.”

All thoughts of stealthiness were blown out the window by the fury of a male ego scorned. “You must be outta yer fuckin‘mind! Do I look retarded? Am I some droolingidiot? You tried tokill me! You invited me up to your room with, y’know, with false pretensions-I thought you wereinto me!”

“Honey, I can explain-”

“Explain?Explainwhat? That you’re some kinda vampire-huntin‘ wacko-oh yeah, Isaw your little arsenal in the bathroom under the sink. But idiot me, I clambered into that hot tub with you anyway. And boy, did I pay-you tried toboil me like some fuckin’ four-hundred-and-fifty-poundcrawfish!”

Even with the bad connection (she was on either a cheap cell phone or one of the battered-and-abused pay phones in the Quarter), he could hear the anguish in her voice. “Jules, please believe me-Ihad to do it! I had no choice! They’re watching me all the time. My loyalty wasalready in question. So I had to do something to you-but I picked theleast lethal weapon they gave me. Don’t you think Ihated doing it? I’ve been crying my eyes out ever since you ran out of my hotel room. I hate myself for letting them force me to hurt you.”

Jules’s head was swimming. “Wait a minute-who’s this ‘they’ you keep talkin‘ about? Your loyalty to who was bein’ questioned? And what’d you stick in the tub water, anyway?”

Her voice lightened a bit. “Oh,that — that was holy water. A little vial of it. That’s why you felt the burning and I didn’t.”

He waited for her to continue. She didn’t. For all her tearful apologies, she was still yanking his chain. “Again, lady-who’s this ‘they’ that’s makin‘ you do all these bad things?”

Her voice turned serious again. “I told you-I can’t explain that over the phone. It’s too dangerous. They could be listening in on our conversation right now.”

Maureen was standing with hands on her shelflike hips. “Jules, who thehell is that on the line with you? This ismy house-I don’t appreciate you giving out my number to your goddamn floozies!”

Jules put his paw over the phone and glared at Maureen. “Shut your face and gimme some peace! I’m tryin‘ to figure things out here-”

“Not onmy phone, you aren’t! And never,ever tell me to ‘shut my face,’ you womanizingfreeloader!”

Trapped between two obstinate women was no place to be. “Look,” he said huffily into the receiver. “If you ain’t spillin‘, then I’m ending this conversation right now. You got two seconds before I slam this phone down. One-one-thousand-”

“Wait!”The phone was silent for a few long seconds. “I–I can’t reveal their identities over the phone. But I can tell you this-they know you were the one who killed those twenty-three people in Covington.”

Jules’s heart plummeted. He’d almost forgotten about that little misadventure. “You mean the Knight supporters?”

“Yes. My handler headed up a special crisis intervention team following the massacre. They tagged you as the culprit within forty-eight hours.“

“How…?” He was sinking again. Sinking into the grasping mud that underlay every street and sidewalk in New Orleans, just when he thought he’d been starting to climb toward the light.

“I can help you, Jules. We can help each other. I know this operation. I’ve been near the center of it for the past eighteen months. I know I hurt you, but I’m not your enemy. I want to be yourally, if only you’ll let me.”

Her words clutched him like silk tentacles. Jules realized he had no choice but to find out what she knew. “All right… where do I meet you?”

“Would the Palm Court be okay? In half an hour?”

“Sure.” He hung up the phone with the weariness of a death-row inmate who’d just been denied his final reprieve.

Maureen’s fists were still planted on her hips. Only now they were trembling. “So now you’re going to meet this whore of yours?“

Jules shuffled toward the basement to retrieve the rest of his clothes. “Ain’t none of your business, Maureen.”

Doodlebug grabbed his arm. “What’s this I overheard about the Nathan Knight rally?”

Jules shook him off and headed down the steps. “I got some investigating I gotta do. And I gotta do it alone.”

Maureen followed him down the steps. “Investigating!I know what you’ll be ‘investigating’! You’ll be

‘investigating’ that whore’spussy!“

Jules pulled on his shirt. “I should be so lucky,” he mumbled to himself under his breath.

Doodlebug descended the steps. “I don’t like the sound of this. If you’re going somewhere tonight, I’m going with you.“

Jules turned a steely gaze on his partner while he tied his shoes. “Like hell you are. Sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. And this here man’s gonna do it.”

“But-”

“‘But’nothin‘. You’re off the case tonight, Doodlebug. You try to tag along, I’ll send you packin’ back to California. This is a solo job. The Lone Ranger rides the prairie. And Tonto hightails it back to the wigwam.“

Maureen tailed him back up the stairs. “Jules-listen to me, Jules! If you walk out that door… if you walk out thatdoor — I’ll neverspeak to you again!”

Jules put his hand on the front doorknob. The wordsFrankly, my dear… flittered briefly through his mind, but he decided he could be more original than that (if not quite as pithy). He turned to face her.

“Y’know, Maureen, I just realized somethin‘. You’re a helluva lot more worried that I might get laid than you been scared I might get killed. Well, you can rest your pretty little head, babe. ’Cause before the night’s over, I might doboth.”

Jules arrived at the Palm Court half an hour later. He’d darted from doorway to darkened doorway through half the Quarter. When he squeezed himself through the entrance to the club, the wait staff were beginning to put chairs on top of the tables. Nearly all the late-night crowd had cleared out. Half a dozen young musicians, plus a couple of middle-aged veterans Jules recognized from traditional jazz sessions around town, were packing up their instruments. Porkchop Chambonne, standing near the end of the bar, was engaged in a heated discussion with a younger man whom Jules recognized as Roddy Braithwhite, the club’s owner.

The elderly musician’s eyes lit up when he noticed Jules enter the room. He stopped arguing in midsentence to call his friend over. “Jules! Hey, Jules! C’mon over here!” He turned back to the owner. “Nowhere’s a man who remembers how good the music useta be. Jules, tell him about my big bands back in the forties and fifties.”

“Uh, Chop, that was my dad, JulesSenior, remember?”

The trumpet player huffily smoothed his stringy comb-over back into place atop his head. “Oh,stop! I ain’t got time for that foolishness right now. Rod here is tellin‘ me I can’t have my big band no more. He wants me to cut back to a quartet, or even atrio!”

The club owner looked acutely embarrassed. “Uh, Mr. Chambonne’s a little upset-”

“Upset!You want me to lay off half my frickin‘ band! Rod, I ain’t gonna be around this earth forever. How is them teenagers gonna learn enough to become the Porkchops of tomorrow if I can’t have them in my bandtoday?”

The owner stared at the floor. “In a perfect world, I’d employ you and your big band-hell, atwenty — piece band-from now until the end of time. I’m a music fan. You know that. But I’m also a businessman. And right now I’m a businessman who’s facing four new competitors in the Quarter. I just can’t afford to hire the whole band anymore. Maybe you could get some of the youngsters to sit in on weekends-”