"No, he's not," she replied.

"Can I ask where he is?"

"I don't know," she said irritably.

She got up from her chair and walked primly into a small kitchen in back and poured herself a cup of coffee. I followed her inside. Her back was to me, but I could see her cup trembling on the saucer.

"What's going on, Miss Eula?" I asked.

"I'm not supposed to tell that man out there where Mr. Perry is. His name is Legion. He frightens me."

"I'll get him out of here," I said.

"No, he'll know I told you."

"Where's Perry?" I asked.

"At Victor's Cafeteria. With Barbara Shanahan." Then her eyes went past me and widened with apprehension.

Legion stood in the kitchen doorway, listening.

"You tell Robicheaux where Perry LaSalle's at, but not me?" he said.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"You sorry, all right," he said, then walked back in the waiting area and stood in the middle of the room, biting a hangnail on his thumb.

He picked up his hat and put it on his head, then slipped his raincoat over his shoulders. Miss Eula poured her coffee down the sink and began rinsing her cup and saucer under the faucet, her face burning. I heard glass breaking in the waiting area.

Legion had picked up a globular paperweight, one with a winter landscape and drifting snow inside it, and smashed the glass case on the wall and removed the Confederate battle flag that had been carried by Perry's ancestor at Manassas Junction and Gettysburg and Antietam.

Legion bunched up the sun-faded and bullet-rent cloth in his hand and blew his nose in it, then wiped his nostrils and upper lip carefully and threw the flag to the floor. When he left, he closed the door behind him and lit a cigarette on the gallery before running through the rain for his truck.

I got in the cruiser and drove up the street to Victor's and went inside. Perry LaSalle and Barbara Shanahan were having coffee and pie at a table against the side wall. A half-dozen city cops, both male and female, were drinking coffee a short distance away. Perry set down his fork and looked up at me.

"I'm not interested in whatever it is you have to say," he said.

"Try this. I just talked to William O'Reilly's sister in New York. Legion Guidry murdered her brother in 1966. O'Reilly was writing a book about your family.

Legion's not too smart, but he knew a book that revealed the LaSalles' family secrets would end his career as a blackmailer. So he killed this poor fellow from New York outside a Morgan City bar."

"You have an obsession, Dave. It seems to be an obvious one to everyone except yourself," Perry said.

"Why don't you join us and give this a rest for a while?" Barbara said, and placed her hand on the back of an empty chair.

"You knew Legion murdered this man, Perry. And you knew why, too," I said.

"You're mistaken," Perry said.

"After you left the Jesuit seminary, you were a volunteer at a Catholic Worker mission in the Bowery. It's the same mission William O'Reilly used to work in. I think you were trying to do penance for your family's sins. Why not just own up to it? It's not the worst admission in the world."

Perry rose to his feet. "You want it in here or out in the street?" he said.

"I'm the least of your problems. I just left your law office. Legion Guidry not only terrified your secretary, he literally blew his nose on your Confederate battle flag."

I turned and started to walk away from him. He grabbed my arm and whirled me around, swinging his fist at the same time. I caught the blow on my forearm and felt it graze the side of my head. I could have walked away, but I didn't. Instead, I let the old enemy have its way and I hooked him in the jaw and knocked him through the chairs onto the floor.

The entire cafeteria was suddenly quiet. Barbara Shanahan knelt beside Perry, who was trying to push himself up on one elbow, his eyes glazed.

"I know where Clete gets it now. You're, unbelievable. You belong in front of a cave with a club in your hand," Barbara said to me.

"Don't listen to her! Way to go, Robicheaux!" one of the city cops yelled. Then the other cops applauded.

I went back to the department and soaked my hand in cold water, then ate two aspirin at my desk and pressed my fists against my temples, my face still burning with embarrassment, wondering when I would ever learn not to push people into corners, particularly a tormented man like Perry LaSalle, who had every characteristic of an untreated sexaholic, psychologically incapable of either personal honesty or emotional intimacy with another human being.

Three deputies in a row opened my door and gave me a thumbs-up for decking Perry. I nodded appreciatively and ate another aspirin and tried to bury myself in my work.

I pulled out my file drawer and began going through some of the open cases I had been neglecting since the murders of Amanda Boudreau and Linda Zeroski. Many of these cases involved crimes committed by what I call members of the Pool, that army of petty miscreants whom nothing short of frontal lobotomies or massive electroshock will ever change. Some of the cases were a delight.

For six months the department had been looking for a burglar we named the Easter Bunny, because witnesses who had seen him said he was an albino with pink eyes and silver hair. But it was not only his appearance that was unusual. His attitude and methods of operation were so outrageous we had no precedent for dealing with him.

In one home he left a handwritten note on the refrigerator door that read:

Dear Folks Who Own This House,

I rob homes in this neighborhood only because most people who live hereabouts try to keep up decent standards. But after breaking into your house I think you should consider moving to a lower rent neighborhood. You don't have cable TV, no beer or snacks in the icebox, and most of your furniture is not worth stealing.

In other words, it really sucks when I spend a whole day casing a house only to discover the people who live in it take no pride in themselves. It is people like you who make life hard on guys like me. Sincerely,

A guy who doesn't need these kinds of problems

He took a shower and shaved in one home, ordered delivery pizza in another, and sometimes answered the telephone and wrote down phone messages for the home owners.

Two nights ago he robbed a city councilman's house, a short distance from City Park. Evidently the councilman had locked his pet poodle in a pantry by mistake and the poodle was dying to go to the bathroom. The Easter Bunny leashed him up and took him for a walk along the bayou, then returned him to the house and filled his bowls with fresh water and dog food.

The phone on my desk rang.

"What are you doing, Streak?" Bootsie said.

"Looking for the Easter Bunny," I replied.

"If that's a joke, it's not funny. I just heard you punched out Perry LaSalle in Victor's Cafeteria."

"I guess that's fair to say," I replied.

I expected a rejoinder, but in the silence I realized she had called for another reason.

"The homeless man, the ex-soldier you told me about, he's down at the bait shop," she said.

"What's he want?"

"He said he thought you usually came home for lunch. He wanted to talk to you."

"What's he doing now?"

"Reading the newspaper. Is he dangerous, Dave?"

"I'm not sure. Is Batist there?"

"Yes."

"I'll call the shop, then ring you back," I said.

The phone at the bait shop was busy. Five minutes later Batist picked up the receiver.

"That homeless fellow in the shop? He's a couple of quarts down. Everything okay there?" I said.

"All our boats is full of water. That's about it," he replied.

"Give me a call if you need to."