inserting matchsticks into each slice. 'Why you worried about them signs, Dave? People leave them here all the time.'
'Because they're for Bobby Earl, and Bobby Earl's a shit!' Alafair said.
I looked down at her, stunned.
'Put the cork in that language, Alf,' I said.
'I heard Bootsie say it,' she answered. 'He's a shit. He hates black people.'
Two men at the beer cooler were grinning at me.
'Dave, that's right. Them is for that fella Earl?' Batist said.
'Yeah, but you didn't know, Batist,' I said. 'Here, I'll throw them in the trash.'
'I ain't never seen him on TV, me, so I didn't pay his picture no mind.'
'It's all right, podna.'
The men at the cooler were still grinning in our direction.
'Do you gentlemen need something?' I said.
'Not a thing,' one of them said.
'Good,' I said.
I took Alafair by the hand, and we walked back up the slope to the gallery. The wind was cool blowing out of the marsh and smelled of wet leaves and moldy pecan husks and the purple four-o'clocks that were just opening in the shadows. Alafair's hand felt hot and small in mine.
'You mad, Dave?' she said.
'No, I'm real proud of you, little guy. You're what real soldiers are made of.'
Her eyes squinted almost completely shut with her smile.
That evening Alafair went to a baseball game with the neighbors' children, and Bootsie and I were left alone with each other. It had stopped raining, and the windows were open and you could hear the crickets and the cicadas from horizon to horizon. Our conversation, when it occurred, was spiritless and morose. At nine o'clock the phone rang in the kitchen.
'Hello,' I said.
'Hey, Streak, I thought I'd pass on some information in case you're wondering about life down here in the Big Sleazy.'
'Just a minute, Clete,' I said.
I took the telephone on its extension wire out on the back steps and sat down.
'Go ahead,' I said.
'I found the perfect moment to drop the dime on our man. His dork just went into the electric socket big time.'
In the background I could hear people talking loudly and dishes clattering.
'Where are you?'
'I'm scarfing down a few on the half shell and chugging down a few brews at the Acme, noble mon. There's also a French lady at my table who's fascinated with my accent. I told her it's Irish-coonass. She also says I'm a sensitive and entertaining conversationalist. She's talking about painting me in the nude…. Hey, trust me, Dave, everything'scopa cetic. I'll never go down in a manual on police procedure, but when it's time to mash on their scrots, you do it with hobnailed boots. Hang loose, partner, and come on down this weekend and let's catch some green trout.'
I replaced the receiver in the phone cradle and went back inside the house. Bootsie had just put away some dishes in the cabinet and was watching me.
'That was Clete, wasn't it?' she said. She wore a sundress printed with purple and green flowers. She had just brushed her hair, and it was full of small lights.
'Yep.'
'What have you two done, Dave?'
I sat down at the breakfast table and looked at the tops of my hands. I thought about telling her all of it.
'Back at the First District, we used to call it 'salting the mine shaft.'
'What?'
'The wiseguys have expensive lawyers. Sometimes cops fix it so two and two add up to five.'
'What did you do?'
I cleared my throat and thought about continuing, then I made my mind go empty.
'Let's talk about something else, Boots.'
I gazed out the back screen at the fireflies lighting in the trees. I could feel her eyes looking at me. Then she walked out of the kitchen and began sorting canned goods in the hallway pantry. I thought about driving into town and reading the newspaper at the bar in Tee Neg's poolroom. In my mind I already saw myself under the wood- bladed fan and smelled the talcum, the green sawdust on the floor, the flat beer, and the residue of ice and whiskey poured into the tin sinks.
But Tee Neg's was not a good place for me to be when I was tired and the bottles behind the bar became as seductive and inviting as a woman's smile.
I heard Bootsie stop stacking the canned goods and shut the pantry door. She walked up behind my chair and paused for a moment, then rested her hand lightly on the back of the chair.
'It was for me and Alafair, wasn't it?' she said.
'What?'
'Whatever you did last night in New Orleans, it wasn't for yourself. It was for me and Alafair, wasn't it?'
I put my arm behind her thigh and drew her hand down on my chest. She pressed her cheek against my hair and hugged me against her breasts.
'Dave, we have such a wonderful family,' she said. 'Let's try to trust each other a little more.'
I started to say something, but whatever it was, it was better forgotten. I could hear her heart beating against my ear. The sun-freckled tops of her breasts were hot, and her skin smelled like milk and flowers.
By nine o'clock the next morning I had heard nothing of particular interest out of New Orleans. But then again the local news often featured stories of such national importance as the following: the drawbridge over the Teche had opened with three cars on it; the school-board meeting had come to an end last night with a fistfight between two high school principals; several professional wrestlers had to be escorted by city police from the National Guard armory after they were spat upon and showered with garbage by the fans; the drawbridge tender had thrown a press photographer's camera into the Teche because he didn't believe anyone had the right to photograph his bridge.
So I kept diddling with my paperwork, looking at my watch, and wondering if perhaps Clete hadn't simply spent too much time at the draft beer spout in the Acme before he had decided to telephone me.
Then, just as I was about to drive home for lunch, I got a call from Lyle Sonnier.
'Sorry to be so late getting back to you, Loot, but it was hard getting everybody together. Anyway, it's on for tomorrow night,' he said.
'What's on?'
'Dinner. Actually, a crab boil. We're gonna cook up a mess of 'ern in the backyard.'
'Lyle, that's nice of you but-'
'Look, Dave, Drew and Weldon feel the same way I do. You treated our family decent while we sort of stuck thumbtacks in your head.'
'No, you didn't.'
'I know better, Loot. Anyway, can y'all make it or not?'
'Friday night we always take Batist and Alafair to the drive-in movie in Lafayette.'
'Bring them along.'
'I don't know if your father is anxious to see me again.'
'Come on, Dave, he operates on about three brain cells, poor old guy. Have a little compassion.'
'That's the second time this week somebody has said that to me about the wrong person.'
'What?'
'Never mind. I'll ask Boots and Batist and get back to you. Thanks for the invitation, Lyle.'
I drove home, and Bootsie and I fixed a pitcher of iced tea and poor-boy sandwiches of shrimp and fried
