I heard the rail fold under my bumper, then snap loose altogether from its fastenings just as the front wheels dropped over the edge of the concrete and my car tilted forward and slid out into space like it was beginning the first downward rush of a rollercoaster ride. The back end started to roll over, and I was pressed flat against the steering wheel, watching the street below roar up at me through the windshield, my mouth open wide with a sound that would be caught forever in my throat.

The car hit the corner of another building or concrete abutment of some kind, because I heard metal shear, as though the underside of the car had been surgically gutted, smelled a drench of gasoline briefly, then we crashed upside down in the middle of a sidewalk in a thunderous roar of glass, crumpling metal, and doors exploding off the hinges.

I was outside on the pavement, my clothes covered with oil and glass shards. We had beat it, I thought. The bad guys had done their worst and hadn't been able to pull it off. We were painted with magic, Fitzpatrick and I, and after we had recuperated it would be our turn to kick butt and take names.

But only drunkards and fools believe in that kind of poetic simplicity. The fuel tank was gashed open and the car was soaking in gasoline. I saw wisps of smoke rise from the crushed hood like pieces of dirty string, then there was a poof and a burst of light from the engine, and a strip of flame raced along the pavement to the gas tank and the whole car went up in an orange and black ball that snapped against the sky.

I hope he didn't suffer. The inside of the car was a firestorm. I couldn't see anything except flames swirling inside the gutted windows. But in my mind's eye I saw a papier-mache figure, with freckles painted on its face, lying quietly between the roaring yellow walls of a furnace, ridging and popping apart in the heat.

The next morning the sun was bright through the windows of my hospital room, and I could see the green tops of the oak trees against the red brick of the nineteenth-century homes across the street. I was only half a block off St. Charles, and when the nurse cranked up my bed I could see the big dull-green streetcar passing along the esplanade.

I had a concussion and the doctor took seventeen stitches in my scalp, and small pieces of oily glass were embedded in my shoulder and all down one arm, so that the skin felt like alligator hide. But my real problem was with the whiskey and Quaaludes that were still in my system, and the series of people who came through my door.

The first one was Sam Fitzpatrick's supervisor from the Treasury Department. He wasn't a bad guy, I guess, but he didn't like me and I believed he felt it was Fitzpatrick's involvement with me, rather than with Philip Murphy and Central American guns, that had led to his death.

"You keep talking about an elephant walk. There's nothing like that in Fitzpatrick's notes and he never talked about it, either," he said. He was forty, wore a business suit and a deep tan, and his gray hair was cut short like an athlete's. His brown, green-flecked eyes were steady and intent.

"He didn't have a chance to," I said.

"You tell a strange story, Lieutenant."

"Psychopaths and government fuckheads out of control do strange things."

"Philip Murphy isn't government."

"I'm not sure about that."

"Take my word," he said.

"Then why don't you take mine?"

"Because you have a peculiar history. Because you keep meddling in things that aren't your business. Because you killed a potential major government witness and because one of our best agents burned to death in your automobile."

My eyes broke and I had to look away from his face. The trees were green in the sunlight outside and I thought I heard the streetcar clatter on the esplanade.

"Have you heard of a guy named Abshire?" I asked.

"What about him?" he replied.

"I think these guys work for somebody named Abshire." His eyes looked into space, then back at me. But I had seen the recognition in them.

"Who is this guy?" I asked.

"How would I know?"

"You circling up the wagons?"

"We can't afford to have you around," he said.

"Too bad."

"What does it take for you to get the message, Lieutenant?"

"I liked that kid, too."

"Then make a tribute to his memory by staying out of federal business."

He left without saying good-bye and I felt foolish and alone in the sunlit whiteness of my room. I was also starting to shake inside, like a tuning fork that starts to tremble at a discordant sound. There was a bottle of Listerine on my nightstand. I walked stiffly to the bath, rinsed my mouth, and spit into the sink. Then I sucked the juice out of my cheeks and tongue and swallowed it. Then I rinsed again, but this time I didn't spit it out. I could feel the alcohol in my stomach like an old friend.

A half hour later, two detectives from Internal Affairs stood over my bed. It was the same two who had investigated the shooting at Julio Segura's. They wore sports clothes and mustaches, and had their hair cut by a stylist.

"You guys are making me nervous. You look like vultures sitting on my bedposts. How about sitting down?" I said.

"You're a fun guy, Robicheaux, a laugh a minute," the first detective said. His name was Nate Baxter and he had worked for CID in the army before he joined the department. I had always believed that his apparent military attitudes were a disguise for a true fascist mentality. He was a bully, and one night a suspended patrolman punched him headlong into a urinal at Joe Burton's old place on Canal.

"We don't need too much from you, Dave," his partner said. "We're just vague on a couple of points."

"Like what you were doing in that snatch-patch out by the airport," Baxter said.

"I heard about a girl that wanted to turn a couple of Segura's people."

"You didn't find her?"

"No."

"Then why did you have to spend all that time out there watching the gash?" Baxter said.

"I waited to see if she'd come in."

"What'd you have to drink?"

"7-Up."

"I didn't know 7-Up caused people to shit their pants," Baxter said.

"You've read the report. If you don't believe me, that's your problem."

"No, it's your problem. So run through it again."

"Stick it up your butt, Baxter."

"What did you say?"

"You heard me. You get out of my face."

"Slow down, Dave," his partner said. "It's a wild story. People are going to ask questions about it. You got to expect that."

"It's supposed to be a wild story. That's why they did it," I said.

"I don't think there's any mystery here. I think you fell off the wagon, got a snootful, and crashed right on your head," Baxter said. "The paramedics say you smelled like an unflushed toilet with whiskey poured in it."

"I keep defending you. No matter what everybody says, I tell them that under that Mortimer Snerd polyester there's a real cop who can sharpen pencils with the best administrators in the department. But you make it hard for me to keep on being your apologist, Baxter."

"I think your mother must have been knocked up by a crab," he said.

His partner's face went gray.

"I'm going to be out of here by tomorrow," I said. "Maybe I ought to call you up off-duty, meet you someplace, talk over some things. What do you think?"

"You call me up off-duty, you better be asking for bus fare to an AA meeting."

"I've got a feeling it won't make much difference if I go out of control here today."

"I wish you would, wise-ass. I'd love to stomp the shit out of you."

"Get out of here, Baxter, before somebody pours you out with the rest of the bedpans."

"Keep popping those Quaaludes, hotshot, because you're going to need them. It's not me that's dropping the hammer on you, either. You blew out your own doors this time. I hope you enjoy the fall, too, because it's a big one." Then he turned to his partner. "Let's get out in the fresh air. This guy's more depressing every time I see him."