That evening I ate supper from the tray on my bed and watched the light fade above the trees and roofs of houses. Then it was dark, and when people turned on their porch lights I could see the black outlines of the palms and philodendron and stands of bamboo in their front yards, and then the iron streetcar clattering by on the St. Charles esplanade, the closed windows filled with the purple and green neon glow from the Katz and Betzhof drugstore on the corner.

I fell asleep and dreamed that I was sliding down a wave into a great slate-green trough; the horizon was tilted, the sky a dirty veil of gray like incinerator smoke. My ears were filled with the hiss of water and wind humming in a seashell. My legs were atrophied, bloodless with cold, but I knew there were makos and hammerheads turning below me in the depths, and they could find feeling and extract a torrent of color from skin that had puckered as white as a fish's belly.

I felt him at the side of my bed and opened my eyes on the pillow as though someone had clapped his hands close to my face.

"Hey, it's just me," Tony Cardo said, smiling. "I don't want to give you a coronary, too."

I pushed myself up on my arms and licked the dry welt of stitches on my lip.

"You must have some mean dreams," he said.

He wore a striped brown suit, a pale yellow shirt with French cuffs and a dark brown knit necktie, a fedora tilted on his head, wing-tip shoes that were spit-shined to the soft gleam of melted plastic. The man with jailhouse tattoos I had seen waxing Tony's Oldsmobile stood behind Tony, his hands folded patiently in front of him, his expressionless eyes never quite meeting mine, his bristle-flecked cannonball head motionless as though he were listening for something.

"I feel bad about what happened to you out there, Dave," Tony said. "You saw it coming, didn't you, and I didn't listen to you. You're a smart man."

"Not smart enough, Tony. I walked into it. I lost my boat out there, too."

"I know all about it."

"How?"

"The people on the other end. They had to dump a lot of inventory overboard. Your money with it. It was a bad night for business."

"It was a bad night in a lot of ways, Tony."

"You mean Lionel and Ray buying it? I never thought those two would try to rip me off. But you have to deal with a lot of untrustworthy types in this business, Dave."

"You know all about the rip-off, then? You know about Jimmie Lee Boggs?"

"A guy like Boggs has one talent. You probably met one or two like him in ' Nam. He'd take out a water buffalo or spook a farmer out of a rice field so he could drop him. Anything to stay busy. But he's not too bright about anything else. The word's already out, he wants to lay off fifty keys of pure product."

"Where is he?"

"Here, Miami, Houston. It's all Motel Eight to a guy like that."

"Do you know why they tried to take you off?" I said.

He sucked in his cheeks, and his mouth became small and button-shaped. The man behind him flexed his shoulders as though he had a neck ache.

"You're telling me something?" Tony said. His eyes were bright, amused.

"Like you said, you didn't think Lionel or Fontenot had it in them."

"I didn't put it that way, but all right…"

"Boggs is a psychopath, but he's a pro. He doesn't make moves without somebody's permission," I said.

Tony's eyes were dark and friendly, his lashes as long as a girl's.

"Go on, Dave," he said.

"I'm saying these guys are piranhas. They don't attack until they smell blood in the water."

"I look like I'm bleeding?" he said, and smiled with the corner of his mouth.

"I'd watch my back."

"Listen to this guy. He gets beat up, he almost drowns, he loses his boat and money, and he worries about somebody else."

"Take it for what it's worth, Tony. I think they've got a whack out on you."

"What do you think, Jess?" he said to the man with the cannonball head.

"I think they'd better not fucking try," the man said.

"See," Tony said. "This is New Orleans. We don't worry about some gumballs in Miami or Houston. They want to get ugly, we take it into their backyard."

"Lionel used the shortwave on the shrimper to call Boggs. Did they tell you that?"

I saw the pause come into his eyes.

"No, I didn't know that," he said.

"Maybe they didn't speak English. Or maybe they didn't have any way of knowing he was setting up a rip-off."

"What you're saying, Dave, is they probably didn't care."

"Maybe."

"You're a good guy, Dave, but you're still a newbie. There's two ways to run the business-you don't get greedy, you piece off the action, you treat people fair. Then your conscience is clear, you got respect in your community, people trust you. Then when somebody else breaks the rules, gets greedy, tries to put a lock on your action, you blow up their shit. You don't fuck around when you do it, either. It's like a free-fire zone. Nobody likes it, but the only thing that counts is who walks out of the smoke."

I got up to go to the bathroom. The floor felt as though it were receding under my feet.

"You still got the deck pitching under you, huh?" Tony said.

"Yeah."

"Well, you're coming home with us, anyway. You'll sleep better there. I got a good cook, too, fix you some gumbo and dirty rice. How's that, podna?"

"What?"

"You're staying at my place. I already signed you out and paid your bill."

"You can't sign me out."

"You know how much I donate to this place each year? What's the matter, you like the smell of bedpans?"

Just then one of his gatemen came through the door with two ambulance attendants pushing a gurney.

"Now wait a minute, Tony," I said.

"I got a nice room waiting for you. With cable TV, books, magazines, you want a broad to turn the pages for you, you got that, too. Like I told you before, I'm a sensitive man about friendship. Don't be hurting my feelings."

Then the two attendants and his hired hoods went about packaging me up as though I were a piece of damaged china. I started to protest again as they placed their hands gently on my arms, and gray worms danced before my eyes. But Tony put a finger to his pursed lips and said, almost in a private whisper, "Hey, guys like us already got our tickets punched. It's all a free lunch now. You're in the magic kingdom, Dave."

So that's how to the dark tower I came.

Early the next morning Tony, his little boy, and I had breakfast in the glass-enclosed breakfast room, which had a wonderful view of Tony's myrtle-lined tennis court, oak and lemon and lime trees, and blue lawn wet with mist. The back door gave onto a wheelchair ramp that led down to the driveway.

"The bus picks up Paul right here at the door," Tony said. "They're going on a field trip today, to an ice factory, to learn how ice is made."

"It's the gifted class. We get to go on a field trip every Friday," Paul said. He smiled when he talked. He wore a purple sweater and gray corduroy pants and sat on top of cushions in his wheelchair so he could reach the table adequately. His brown hair had been cut recently, and it was combed with a part that was as exact as a ruler's edge. "My daddy says you were in the war, too."

"That's right."

"You think a war's ever going to come here?" he said.

"No, this is a good place, Paul," I said. "We don't worry about things like that. I bet you're going to have a good time at the ice factory."

"Do you have any little boys or girls?" Paul said.

"A little girl, about your age. Her name's Alafair."

"What's she like to do?"

"She has a horse. She likes to feed him apples and ride him when she comes home from school."

"A horse?" he said.

"Yeah, we call him Tex because we bought him over in Texas."