"You think they care what some old nigger say?" he said.

"I do."

He didn't answer. He put his dead pipe in his mouth, made a wet sound with his tongue, and stared blankly at the television screen.

"I'll be going now," I said, standing up. "I'm sorry about what happened to your daughter. I really am."

His face turned back toward me.

"We had eleven, us," he said. "She the baby. I call her tite cush-chush cause she always love cush-cush when she a little girl. He'p me walk out front, you."

I put my hand under his arm and we stepped out into the bright sunlight on the porch. The wind was ruffling the green fields of sugarcane on the opposite side of the road. The old man's arm was webbed with veins. He limped along with me to my automobile before he spoke.

"They kilt her, them, dint they?" he asked.

"I think they did."

"She just a little colored jellyroll for white mens, then they throw her away," he said. His eyes became wet. "I tolt her 'Jellyroll, jellyroll, rollin' in the cane, lookin' for a woman ain't got no man.' She say 'Look the television and the clock and the table I give Mama.' She say that, her. Little girl that don't know how to read can buy a five-hundred-dollar television set for her mama. What you gonna do when they nineteen? Ain't no listenin', not when she got white men's money, drive a big car down here from New Orleans, tellin' me she gonna move us up North, her. Little girl that still eat cush-cush gonna outsmart the white mens, her, move her old nigger daddy up to New York. What she done they got to kill her for?"

I didn't have an answer for him.

I was on an empty stretch of road bordered on one side by a flat, shimmering lake and on the other by a flooded woods, when I saw the blue and white patrol car in my rearview mirror. The driver already had on his bubblegum light, and when he drew close to my bumper he gave me a short blast with his siren. I started to pull to the shoulder, but there were shards of beer-bottle glass like amber teeth shining in the weeds and gravel. I tried to drive on to a clear spot before I stopped, and the patrol car leaped abreast of me, the engine roaring, and the deputy in the passenger's seat pointed to the side of the road with an angry finger. I heard my tires crunch over the beer glass.

Both deputies got out of the car, and I knew it was going to be serious. They were big men, probably Cajuns like myself, but their powerful and sinewy bodies, their tight-fitting, powder-blue uniforms, polished gunbelts and holsters, glinting bullets and revolver butts made you think of backwoods Mississippi and north Louisiana, as though they'd had to go away to learn redneck cruelty.

Neither one of them had a citation book in his hand or pocket.

"The siren means pull over. It don't mean slow down, Lieutenant," the driver said. He smiled back at me and took off his sunglasses. He was older than the other deputy. "Step out of the car, please."

I opened the door and stepped out on the road. They looked at me without speaking.

"All right, I'll bite. What have you got me for?" I said.

"Sixty in a fifty-five," the other deputy said. He chewed gum, and his eyes were humorless and intent.

"I didn't think I ever got over fifty," I said.

"'Fraid it creeped up on you," the older man said. "On a pretty morning like this you get to looking around, maybe looking at the water and the trees, maybe thinking about a piece of ass, and before you know it you got lead in your pecker and foot, both."

"I don't guess we're going to have an instance of professional courtesy here, are we?" I said.

"The judge don't allow us to let too many slide," the older man said.

"So write me a ticket and I'll talk to the judge about it."

"Lot of people from outside the parish don't show up in court," the older deputy said. "Makes him madder than a hornet with shit on its nose. So we got to take them down to the court."

"You guys didn't get completely dressed this morning," I said.

"How's that?" the other deputy said.

"You forgot to put on your name tags. Now, why would you do that?"

"Don't worry about any goddamn name tags. You're coming back to the courthouse with us," the younger deputy said. He had stopped chewing his gum, and his jawbone was rigid against his cheek.

"You got a flat tire, anyway, Lieutenant," the older man said. "I figure that's kind of our fault, so while you ride in with us I'll radio the tow to come and change it for you."

"Facts-of-life time," I said. "You don't roust a City of New Orleans detective."

"Our territory, our rules, Lieutenant."

"Fuck you," I said.

They were both silent. The sun was shimmering brilliantly on the flat expanse of water behind them. The light was so bright I had to force myself not to blink. I could hear both of them breathing, see their eyes flick at each other uncertainly, almost smell the thin sweat on their skin.

The younger man's shoe shifted in the gravel and his thumb fluttered toward the strap on the holster that held his chrome-plated.357 Magnum revolver. I tore my.38 out of the clip holster on my belt, squatted, and aimed with two hands into their faces.

"Big mistake, podjo! Hands on your head and down on your knees!" I shouted.

"Look-" the older deputy began.

"Don't think, do it! I win, you lose!" My breath was coming hard in my throat.

They looked at each other, laced their hands on their heads, and knelt in front of their car. I went behind them, pulled their heavy revolvers from their holsters, and pitched them sideways into the lake.

"Take out your cuffs and lock up to the bumper," I said.

"You're in over your head," the older deputy said. The back of his suntanned neck was beaded with sweat.

"That's not the way I read it," I said. "You guys thought you'd be cowboys and you got your faces shoved into the sheepdip. What was it going to be, a day or so in the tank, or maybe some serious patty-cake in the backseat on the way to the jail?"

They didn't reply. Their faces were hot and angry and pained by the rocks that cut their knees.

"Put the cuffs through the bumper and lock your wrists," I said. "You didn't answer me, which makes me wonder if I was going to make the jail. Are you guys into it that big?"

"Kiss my ass," the younger deputy said.

"Tell me, are y'all that dumb? You think you can pop a New Orleans cop and walk out of it?"

"We'll see who walks out of what," the older deputy said. He had to twist sideways on his knees and squint up into the sun to talk to me.

"The sheriff is letting you clean up his shit for him, isn't he?" I said. "It looks like lousy work to me. You ought to get him to spread the juice around a little more. You guys probably rip off a little change now and then, maybe get some free action in the local hot-pillow joint, but he drives a Cadillac and raises Arabians."

"For a homicide cop you're a stupid bastard," the older deputy said. "What makes you think you're so important you got to be popped? You're just a hair in somebody's nose."

"I'm afraid you boys have limited careers ahead of you."

"Start figuring how you're going to get out of here," the younger deputy said.

"You mean my fiat tire? That is a problem," I said thoughtfully. "What if I just drive your car down the road a little ways with you guys still cuffed to it?"

For the first time their faces showed the beginnings of genuine fear.

"Relax. We have our standards in New Orleans. We don't pick on the mentally handicapped," I said.

In the distance I saw a maroon car approaching. The two deputies heard it and looked at each other expectantly.

"Sorry, no cavalry today," I said, then squatted down at eye level with them. "Now look, you pair of clowns, I don't know how far you want to take this, but if you really want to get it on, you remember this: I've got more juice than you do, more people, more brains, more everything that counts. So give it some thought. In the meantime I'm going to send somebody back for my car, and it had better be here. Also, tell that character you work for that our conversation was ongoing. He'll get my drift."