Jo-el looked confused. "But I didn't hire you."

"We are under agreement with Jodi Taylor to work in your best interests. If you are so informed and agree to that arrangement, then we are, de facto, your attorneys."

Jo-el looked at me. "Do I need lawyers?"

I said, "Just listen to her, Jo-el."

He frowned and nodded and looked back at her. Lucy said, "We are about to discuss your awareness of and involvement in activities that may, in the future, result in criminal charges being filed against you. We don't want anything said by you today to prejudice your case at that time."

Jo-el looked embarrassed. "I'm not going to try to get out of anything."

Lucy spread her hands. "That is your choice, of course. You may feel differently at some later date. Also, we may discuss issues of a personal and potentially criminal nature as regards other members of your family. By accepting the attorney-client privilege with us, you also serve to protect them. Do you understand that?"

Jo-el nodded. "Protect them."

"Do you accept this arrangement?"

Jo-el said, "Yes."

Lucy nodded, then glanced at Merhlie Comeaux. "We have prior consent from Jodi Taylor to discuss her affairs openly with the Elvis Cole Detective Agency." She looked back at Jo-el. "As we discussed, Mr. Comeaux is here in an advisory capacity in the criminal apprehension of Milt Rossier. He can't speak for the state, but he can provide his opinion and guidance in the building of such a case. Do you understand that, too, Sheriff?"

"Yes. I need all the help I can get."

Merhlie Comeaux said, "Why don't you gentlemen give me what you have?"

Jo-el raised his eyebrows at me, and I told Comeaux everything that I knew. I started at the head of it with Jimmie Ray Rebenack and what happened at Rossier's crawfish farm, and I brought it up through the meeting between Rossier and Donaldo Prima at the Bayou Lounge and what I had seen at the pumping station. When I told him about the old man's murder and the bodies we recovered from the grave, Comeaux asked for the police report. Jo-el showed him the file and Comeaux stared at the pictures. He said, "Did you get an ID?"

"Not yet. We're running it through New Orleans."

Comeaux shook his head and sighed. "You got any coffee around here?"

Jo-el asked the receptionist to bring in coffee. After she had, I went through the rest of it, describing my meeting with del Reyo and what I had learned about Donaldo Prima and Frank Escobar and how Prima was using Rossier to move illegals up through the Gulf Coast waterways. When I was finished with it, Merhlie Comeaux nodded like he was thinking, then looked at the sheriff. "Do you have anything to add to that?"

Jo-el said, "Unh-unh. No, sir."

Merhlie looked back at me and laced his fingers across his ample belly. He had clear, hard eyes, and the eyes made me think he had been an aggressive prosecutor. "Let's go back to what happened at the pumping station. You saw this Prima pull the trigger?"

"Yes."

He looked at Joe Pike. "You saw it, too?"

Pike nodded.

"Where was Rossier?"

"He wasn't there."

"How about those two boys who work for him?"

"Bennett and LaBorde were inside with Prima."

"You get IDs on any of the illegals who came in?"

"Can you produce any of these people?"

"No."

Merhlie Comeaux pursed his lips and sipped at the coffee. When he lifted the cup his little finger stuck out at an angle.

Lucy said, "What do you think, Merhlie?"

Comeaux made a shrug, like he would do the best he could with what he had to work with. "It's not a lot, Lucille. You have Mr. Prima all right, but you don't have a thing on this Rossier."

Boudreaux said, "Well, hell."

Comeaux spread his hands. "He holds a lease on the land, maybe the state could file on an accessory, but it's junk. You want him, you gotta get him at the scene."

I said, "What about on the illegals?"

"What illegals? If you can't produce them, you cannot, in fact, prove that these people are aliens."

Lucy said, "Oh, come on, Merhlie."

He spread his hands again. "That's my opinion. If you think you can get more, go to the state and see what they say."

Jo-el said, "If we go in now that sonofabitch will know we're onto him." He chewed at his lip, then went to the window before turning back and staring at the largemouth on his wall. He stared at it, but I'm not sure he was seeing it. "Goddammit, me and my family are gonna do something pretty goddamn hard here. Maybe we shoulda done it a year ago, but if we're gonna do it now I want that sonofabitch to pay for his pleasure. I want him in jail. I don't want any more little girls like that." He jerked an angry gesture toward the case file. The one with the pictures.

I said, "So you'll have to bust him in the act."

They looked at me.

I said, "That wasn't the first time Prima brought up a load of people. We just have to be there the next time. And we have to make sure that Rossier is there to take delivery."

Comeaux was shaking his head. "Go easy with that, son. If he's entrapped, you've got nothing."

I was thinking about Ramon del Reyo. "All we have to do is give him a strong enough reason to be there. It won't be easy, but it might be possible."

Comeaux said, "Tell me what you have in mind."

I did. It didn't take very long, and then he got up and Lucy got up with him. The last thing he said was, "It's your neck, podnuh. Go with God."

A frown line had appeared between Lucy's eyebrows. "Can you pull something like that off?"

I looked at Pike. "Can we pull this off, she asks."

Pike was frowning, too. I guess he had his doubts.

I used Jo-el's phone to make some calls, and when I was finished Lucy and Merhlie were gone. Jo-el stood in his office window, passing his palm across his hair and staring down along the street of his town. Maybe at the rows of buildings, maybe at the cars and the people walking on the sidewalks. He said, "I should've done this six months ago. When that bastard came to my house and started all this, I should've dropped the hammer on him then and goddamned there."

"You were caught off guard, and you were scared. People get scared, they don't think straight."

"Yeah." He didn't look convinced. He glanced at the floor, and then he looked up at me. "I appreciate this. So will Edie."

Pike said, "Buy us a beer if we live through it."

That Joe. He's a riot, isn't he?

We went out to our car and drove to New Orleans.

CHAPTER 32

T he Haitian was waiting for us at a beignet shop on South Rampart Street along the northern edge of the French Quarter. He hung there just long enough to make eye contact, then started walking without waiting for us. We went west to Canal, then south, and after a couple of blocks, Pike said, "Across the street and half a block behind."

I glanced back and saw the guy with the Ray-Bans. I nodded. "Security conscious."

Pike said, "Creepy."

Ramon del Reyo was waiting in the front passenger seat of a Yellow Cab a little bit down from Carondelet, where the old green streetcars make their turnaround from St. Charles and the Garden District. The cab's Off Duty light was on. The Haitian opened the back door for us, then got in behind the wheel. He didn't start the engine. Ramon smiled at Pike. "So. You are with us this time, señor."

"With you last time, too." Pike tilted his head. "Guy with the glasses across the street. Another guy to our left by the horse carriage. I haven't made the rifle."

Ramon made a little shrug. "But you know he's there. The man with the rifle is always there, you see?"

Pike's mouth twitched.

I said, "I can take Donaldo Prima and Frank Escobar off the board. How badly do you want it to happen?"