"It's your first time out. I'm trying to be helpful."

"What's it going to be, Fontenot?"

"Much ado about nothing," he said from his chair. "Let him have his lights, Lionel."

I hit the starter and pushed the throttle open again. We hit a cresting wave in a shower of foam and then flattened out in a long trough. The water was black and rolling and hammered with raindrops. Then the fog-bank slipped over the bow and the pilothouse, as cold and damp on the skin as a gray, wet glove.

"What's Tony going to get out of the score?" I asked Ray Fontenot.

"What do you mean?"

"It's my buy, my stash. What's the profit for him?"

"He gets a cut from the Colombians. The action gets pieced off all the way back to Bogota."

"Where's your piece come in?"

"We're doing it as a favor."

"No kidding?" I said.

"We like you." He smiled from under his yellow rain hood.

Lionel rubbed the moisture off the window glass with his palm.

"There it is," he said.

A shrimp boat with its wheelhouse lighted rose in the swell, then slipped down below a long, sliding wave.

"How do we make the exchange?" I said.

"I'll take the money on board and come back with the stash," Lionel said.

"They're shy?" I said.

"You don't want to meet them," Fontenot said. "They're not a nice group, our garlic-scented friends. They seem to like Lionel, though. The colored woman who cooks for them likes him very much. Lionel had a big change of luck at the track after he met her."

"You ought to get laid more, Ray. You wouldn't have all these cute things to say," Lionel said.

I saw the shrimp boat drift to the top of the swell again. Its white paint was peeling, its scuppers dripping with rust. Lionel had taken off his raincoat and was putting on a life jacket.

"You should appreciate Lionel's efforts on your behalf," Fontenot said.

"Forget the appreciation. Just put it hard against the tires and keep it there till I'm on the ladder," Lionel said.

He laced the life jacket under his chin, then slipped a rope through the aluminum suitcase that contained the money and tied it crossways on his chest.

"I go between the hulls and you're out a half mil," he said.

"We can make the exchange without you getting on their boat," I said. "There's a thirty-foot coil of rope in that forward gear box. Tie it onto the suitcase, throw the other end on the shrimper, and we'll get the stash back the same way."

"I gotta check it."

"We'll check it when it's on board."

"You don't inspect the goods after the fact when you deal with spies," he said.

"Let's not have discord on the Melody Ranch, boys and girls," Fontenot said. "Lionel's an old pro at this, Mr. Robicheaux. He's not going to drop your money."

"I'm going in on the swell," I said. "Get ready."

Two deckhands came out of the wheelhouse and stood by the gunwales in the rain and wind. They were unshaved, and their black hair and beards dripped with water. I came in on the lee side of the shrimper, gunning the engine in the trough, and bumped against the row of tires that were hung along the hull. Lionel grabbed the rope ladder, pushed himself with one foot off the handrail of the jugboat, and scampered on board the shrimper, the aluminum suitcase banging across the gunwale with him.

"What are you going to do with all your money, Mr. Robicheaux?" Fontenot said. He had a lit cigarette cupped on his knee, and he was looking out indifferently at the glaze of light from the shrimp boat on the water.

"Why is it I get the feeling you're not interested in the questions you ask other people?" I said.

"Oh, forgive me, good sir, if I ever convey that impression. That would be a terrible sense to give someone, wouldn't it?"

"I'm going back through Atchafalaya Bay, not to Cocodrie. I can put you guys ashore at several places. You tell me where."

"Not to Cocodrie? But our car is there," he said. And he said it in a whimsical manner, his eyes still fascinated with the patches of yellow light on the waves.

"I think it's smart to off-load in a different spot. I told Tony I've got the access he needs, a couple of bayous nobody uses except in a pirogue."

"I'm sure he'll be intrigued."

I looked at the side of his face in the glow of the instrument lights. Then I saw the color in his eyes brighten and the corner of his mouth twitch in a grin when he realized that I was staring at him.

"Excuse me if I don't bubble up at the perfection of it all," he said. "I'm afraid it's my fate to simply be an old mule. But Tony will love a tour through the bayous. You two can talk about 'nape.'"

I continued to stare at him.

"What are you wondering, kind sir?" he said.

"Why he keeps you guys around."

"We don't measure up, do we? Listen, you lovely boy, we take the risks but Tony gets the big end of the candy cane. Some might think he's done very well by us. Would you like to jump between boats like Lionel just did? I don't think Tony would."

"My impression is the guy can handle the action."

"Oh, you must tell him that. He loves that kind of big-dick talk."

"I don't know what's bugging you, Fontenot, but I think this is our last run together," I said.

"You can never tell," he said, and grinned again and puffed on his cigarette in the luminescence of the instrument panel.

Ten minutes passed, and I kept the jugboat steady in the trough so it wouldn't slam up against the hull of the shrimper. Through the rain I could see the silhouettes of several people in the wheelhouse. Then I saw Lionel talking, but his face was turned toward the front glass, not toward the people around him. I squinted hard through the rain.

"He's talking on the shortwave," I said.

"Who?"

"Lionel. What's going on, Fontenot?"

"Nothing."

"Don't tell me that. Why's the man on the radio?"

"I don't know. You think he's calling the Coast Guard? Use your judgment, sir."

"Fontenot, if you guys-"

"I'm not up to any more words of assurance tonight, Mr. Robicheaux. I don't believe you belong in our business, to tell you the truth. It isn't the Rotary Club. It isn't made up of nice people. I've grown a bit weary of you wrinkling your nose at us."

The two deckhands carried two wooden crates out of the forward hatch and set them inside a cargo net that was slung from a boom. Lionel stepped out of the wheelhouse and waved for me to bring the jugboat alongside again. I waited until the shrimper dipped into the trough, then bumped up against the row of tires. When both boats rose with the swell, Lionel sprang from the shrimper onto my deck. His jeans and denim shirt and canvas life preserver were dark with rain.

One of the deckhands operated the motor on the boom and swung the cargo net out over the jugboat, letting the net collapse in a tangle, with the two crates inside, on the deck. Lionel pulled the crates free, and I put the engine in reverse and backed away from the side of the shrimper. The empty cargo net swung out in open space and cut through the tops of the waves.

I shifted the engine forward again and turned the bow toward the southern horizon.

"I'm going to help him stow it," I said. "Hold the wheel and keep it pointed into the waves. The throttle's set, so you don't need to touch it."

"Really, now?" Fontenot said.

Outside, the rain was cold and stung my face and hands, and the waves broke hard on the bow and blew back across the deck in a salty spray. I unlocked the forward gear box and lifted one of the wooden crates inside. It was heavy, and the sides were stamped with the name of a South American cannery. Lionel swung the second crate up on the edge of the gear box.

"What were you doing on the radio?" I said.

"What?" He wore long underwear buttoned at the throat under his denim shirt, but he was shivering with the cold.