Jo-el looked at Merhlie Comeaux. "How we doin' with this? We clear on entrapment?"

Merhlie nodded. "I don't see a problem, sheriff. It looks clean. We give the state a clean bust with Rossier in possession of cash and a truck full of illegal aliens, and they'll put his name on a double occupancy suite in Angola. I guarantee." He said it gah-rawn-tee. Cajun.

I said, "Rossier may not actually take possession of the cash. It could go to Bennett. That's what happened last time."

"Same thing," Merhlie said. "Bennett works for Rossier, and Rossier holds the lease on the land." He looked back at Boudreaux. "I'll wait by the phone.

Just lemme know when it's done and I'll call Jack Fochet at state and we'll have of Milt arraigned by tomorrow noon. Jack Fochet is a good boy."

Berry was looking concerned. "I know the old Hyfield Oil station. How are we supposed to see any of this if it happens inside there?"

"Prima flags the towboat in from the shore, then they bring the trucks into the building through a couple of barn doors," I said. "They leave the doors open. You won't have any problem. That's how we saw the old man killed."

Jo-el said, "We're gonna be in the weeds, so we may not be able to see what's going on. Maybe we oughta have a sign or somethin'."

Merhlie frowned. "Well, hell, Jo-el, what do you want him to do, wave a red bandanna? Those sons of bitches have guns and they like to use them."

When he said it, Lucy sat forward in her chair. "You're going to be with them when the arrests are made?"

"Yes."

She looked at Pike, and then back to me. "Is that necessary?"

"I'm what holds it together. I'm putting Rossier and Escobar together, and they're going to want me with them all the way. Rossier's nervous, and Escobar's only going along because he thinks he's going to kill Prima." I looked at Boudreaux. "Prima isn't expecting Escobar, so when these guys see each other all hell's going to break loose. You'll have to move fast."

Jo-el nodded. "Sure. You bet." He was pale and he kept rubbing at his jaw.

Willets hooked a thumb at Pike. "Where are you going to be, podnuh?"

Pike said, "Watching."

Willets didn't like that. "What in hell does that mean?"

Jo-el said, "Don't worry about it, Tommy. He'll be there."

Willets stayed with it. "We should know where everyone is. There might be shooting. Be a shame if somebody got shot accidental-like."

Pike said, "Don't worry about it, Willets."

Willets frowned, but he let it go.

Berry said, "Where we gonna be?"

Boudreaux said, "We'll set up in the cane with a view through the doors. We'll have to hide the cars off the main road, then hike in. I want you fellas to go home and get your waders. You're gonna need'm."

Willets said, "How much time do we have? I got things I need to do."

Boudreaux checked his watch. "We got about an hour before we have to get in place. That about right?" He looked at me, asking. I nodded, and Willets snorted, disgusted that Boudreaux would ask. Boudreaux ignored him and went on. "I want you boys to change into old clothes, cause we're gonna get wet, but I want everybody in a Sheriff's Department shell parka. I wanna know who's who out there." Boudreaux had brought it to the end, and now he looked at me. "I think maybe we oughta get going. You got anything you wanna say?"

"Yeah. Nobody shoot me."

Berry and Champagne laughed, and everybody stood, moving toward the door. The sheriff went to Merhlie Comeaux, and Lucy pulled me aside. Her mouth was still in the tight line, and she pulled me as far from the others as she could. She said, "Do you really have to be out there?"

"I've done things like this before. Trust me."

Her nostrils flared, and she stared across the room, frowning. "Well, isn't that just great. And what do I get to do, wait here with the womenfolk?"

"If you ask him nice, Pike might loan you a rifle."

She said, "Oh, right," and stalked away to Comeaux.

Pike looked at me from across the room and cocked his head toward the door. I met him there. He said, "You okay with these guys?"

"They're what we have."

He glanced at Willets. "I don't like the dip with the attitude."

"See you on the other side, Joe."

Pike nodded, and I went out to my car and left for the Bayou Lounge.

Years ago, a friend and I booked a package cruise from Tahiti to Hawaii, sailing north. The passage took five days, crossing waters so remote that we were beyond all radio contact with land. As we sailed, the sea grew deeper until, three days out of Papeete, the crew told us that the sonar could no longer the bottom. The charts said that the bottom was seventeen thousand feet beneath the hull, but, for all purposes, the ocean was bottomless. No way to know what's down there, they said. No way to call home for help, they said. Here there be monsters.

Great dense clouds grew on the western horizon, towering anvil thunderheads that rolled steadily toward me, filling the sky with the slate-steel color of deep ocean water, water with no bottom.

CHAPTER 36

A light rain fell as I parked on the oyster shell lot next to the Bayou Lounge. The heavy cloud layer brought an early twilight that filled the air with an expectancy of wind and lightning. Four or five American sedans were lined up on the oyster shells and, inside, half a dozen guys hawked the bar, scarfing poboys and Dixie beer. The woman with the hair smiled when she saw me and said, "Sugah, I didn't think you'd pass this way again."

"Small world, isn't it?"

"Oh," she said. "It's a lot bigger than we think." A guy with a grease-stained Evinrude cap laughed when she said it.

I ordered a club soda and took it to one of the little tables by the door. The door was wedged open and it was cooler there, but it was a damp cool that made my skin clammy. The Dan Wesson would be picking up a lot of moisture, and I would have to clean it before it began to pit. Of course, if things didn't go well tonight, I wouldn't have to worry about it.

A couple of minutes later LeRoy Bennett's Polara pulled past the door and LeRoy Bennett came in, shaking his hat to get rid of the rain. He was wearing an Australian drover's coat, and he looked not unlike the Marlboro man. Cancer on the hoof. The woman with the hair squealed, "Hey, LeRoy," and leaned across the bar to plant one on his cheek. His face split with a smile and he pawed at her breasts, but she pushed him away like she didn't really mean it. A couple of the good ol' boys at the bar nodded at him, and he shook one man's hand. Old home week with the barfly regulars. He got a long-necked Dixie for himself, then came over and dropped into the chair across from me. His eye was still dark from where Joe Pike had hit him. He said, "Where're your spics?"

I said, "I'm here early."

He had some of the Okie, shooting a wink at the woman with the hair. "Yeah? Well, your spics better show or you in deep do-do."

I said, "LeRoy?"

He was sucking at his teeth.

"Do yourself a favor and don't call them spics."

LeRoy frowned like I was a turd. "That's what they are, ain't they?"

I shook my head. Some people never learn. Some people you just can't talk to.

I said, "Where's Milt?"

"He'll be here."

"I thought he might come with you."

LeRoy pulled on the Dixie. "You jus' worry about your spics." He lipped a Tarryton 100 and lit it with a big steel Zippo. The first two fingers on his right hand were yellow with smoke stains. His fingernails were grimed. He grinned at me and let the smoke leak out between his teeth. Probably hadn't brushed in a year.

LeRoy got up and put money in the jukebox. He finished the first Dixie and got himself a second. While he was at the bar the woman with the hair whispered something in his ear, and he whispered something back. She laughed. It's odd what appeals to people, isn't it? The guy with the Evinrude cap and a heavier guy who walked with a limp went home. I wished I could go with them. The rain came harder, filling ruts and depressions in the shell lot and hammering on the bar's roof, and little by little the remains of day were lost to the night. The parking lot filled with white light two quick times, followed almost instantly by twin booms of thunder, and the guys at the bar applauded. The thunder was so loud and so near that the little building shook, rattling glasses and making the jukebox skip. And they talk about earthquakes.