I dropped her off at her house, went back to the apartment and packed, left a message for Minos on his answering machine; then two hours later she and I were on our way across the Atchafalaya Basin, on a perfect blue and gold fall day, the wind blowing across the bays and saw grass and dead cypress, the elevated highway like a long white conduit into the past.
You never forget an LSU-Ole Miss game: the tiers upon tiers of seats filled with people, the haze around the banks of lights in the sky, the thunder of marching bands on the field, cheerleaders tumbling like acrobats, Confederate flags waving wildly in the crowd, Mike the Tiger in his cage riding stiff-legged around the track, the coeds with mums pinned on their sweaters, their breath sweet with bourbon and Coca-Cola-then, suddenly, one hundred thousand people rising to their feet in one deafening roar as LSU's team pours onto the field in their gold and purple and white uniforms that shine with light and seem tighter on their bodies than their very muscles.
Alafair fell asleep between us on the way back home, and I carried her into her bedroom and tucked her in. Then I heated some boudin, and Bootsie and I ate it at the kitchen table. Her face was sleepy with the long day, and she smiled and tried to stay attentive while I talked, but her eyes kept shutting lazily and finally her hand slipped off the side of the table.
"I think it's time you went to sleep," I said.
"I'm sorry. I'm so tired. It's been a wonderful day, Dave."
"It'll be an even better one tomorrow."
"I know," she said.
"Good night."
"Good night. I'm sorry to be so tired."
"It's all right. You're supposed to be tired. I'll see you tomorrow."
She went into the back bedroom, and I could see the light for a few minutes under her door. I turned on the television set in the living room and lay down on the couch. Her light went off, and I stared at a late show starring a famous actor who had been deferred from service during the Vietnam War because he had been the sole support of his mother. I didn't blame the actor for his deferment, but I didn't have to watch him, either. I turned off the set and lay back down on the couch with my arm over my eyes. I heard the scream of a nutria out in the marsh, the sound of night birds out in the bare sugarcane fields behind my property, the occasional thump of pecans falling to the ground in the front yard.
It had been a fine day. Why did I always expect more out of the day than perhaps I had earned?
A few minutes later I heard her click on the bedside lamp; then she opened the door and stood framed against the light. She didn't speak. Her face was dark with shadow, her body outlined against her white nightgown, her short-cropped hair diffused with light.
I went into the room with her, and she closed the door as though it were her house rather than mine. She clicked off the lamp, smoothed the pillows, pulled back the covers, then touched my face with her hand, kissing me on the mouth, lightly at first, then her mouth opening and wet, her face changing the angle, her tongue inside me, her eyes opening and shutting but always focusing on mine as though I might somehow elude the moment she was creating for both of us.
She worked her nightgown over her head and lay down partially on her side with her knees close together, her palm behind her head, and waited for me. When I lay down beside her, she stretched out against me, breathing on my neck and chest, rubbing her hair against my face as though she were a cat. I kissed her eyes and mouth and breasts, and felt the smoothness of her stomach and thighs and the contours of her hips. I brushed her hair with my palm, stroked the stiffness of it where it was tapered at the back of her head, smelled the expensive and delicate perfume behind her ears.
Then she took me in her hand, her thighs widening, and placed me inside her. Her lips parted, her eyes closed and opened, and she slipped her arms low on my back and tucked her face under my chin. She didn't speak while she made love. Her concentration and body heat were so intense, the movement of her hands and thighs and stomach so directed and encompassing, the hoarse, regular sounds in my ear so natural and heart-swelling, that I knew she too was back thirty years before on the float cushions in my father's boat-house, the lavender sky streaked with fire through the cracks, the shrimp boat knocking against the pilings, the raindrops dripping like lead shot out of the cypress into the bay.
But on Monday Alafair was back with my cousin Tutta, Bootsie was at work at her vending machine company, and I was talking with Minos in his room at the guesthouse on St. Charles about New Orleans flake and people who gave you reason to think that toxic waste had been dumped in the human gene pool.
He stood at the ceiling-high window with a coffee cup in his hand, looking down on the courtyard behind the guesthouse. Banana trees and bamboo grew along the back brick wall, and on the other side of the wall there were garbage cans in the alley. Minos had on tan slacks and a yellow golf shirt with an alligator on it. As always, his scalp gleamed through his close-cropped hair and his jaws looked as though he had just shaved.
"I understand, they're dangerous. You don't have to convince me of that," he said. "But it comes with the territory. I don't think the situation will improve because we make Purcel a player."
"You don't have anybody inside. So we bring him in with me. Give the guy a break. He has a lot of qualities."
"He worked for the mob, for Christ's sake."
"I think he took some of them off the board, too."
"That's the last kind of cowboy bullshit we want in this operation."
"What's it going to be, partner?"
"We did some homework over the weekend. Purcel has some bad debts around town. One of them is to a loan company owned by the greaseballs. He's also got a reputation for parking his swizzle stick in anything that looks vaguely female."
"In or out?" I asked.
He bit a corner of his lip and continued to look down into the courtyard. He seemed almost as tall as the window.
"The money comes out of the snitch fund," he said. "You can tell him whatever you want to. But he's not an employee of the DEA. Nor its representative."
"How much?"
"Two hundred a week."
"That's an insult."
"Too bad."
"Listen, Minos, let's stop messing around. You give the guy five hundred a week, treat him with some respect, or I'm going to walk out of this."
"I'll talk to somebody about it later."
"No, make the call now."
I saw him take a breath, his fingers tap on his thigh.
"All right, you've got my word," he said.
"He was a good cop till he had marital trouble and got on the sauce. He'll do fine. You'll see."
"I hope so. Because if he doesn't, somebody's going to feed your butt through the paper shredder an inch at a time."
"You really know how to say it, Minos."
He picked up a towel from the bathroom floor and started buffing one of his loafers on top of a wood chair.
"Where'd this broad, Kim, the one at the score, tell you she was from?"
"She didn't."
"Hmmm."
"What is it?"
"We checked her out. Her last name's Dollinger. She's an assistant manager at one of Cardo's clubs on the Airline Highway. She hit town about six months ago. She tells people she worked at a lounge in North Houston, some dump on Jensen Drive. We made a couple of calls. They never heard of her."
"She said something. About everything down here smelling like mold and leaking sewage. I don't think she's from Houston."
"Those kinds of broads make up their own dossiers. I've got something else on my mind that's giving me the start of a migraine, Dave."
I waited for him to go on.
"Bootsie Giacano," he said.
"I had a feeling you'd say that. Do you have a tail on me?"
"It wouldn't be a bad idea, but we don't."
"A tap on her phone?"