"Bad place if it goes down, Tony. Everybody gets pissed when it goes down in a public place," Jess said.

"Hey, is it our fault? Now, turn in here. Let's have some fun with these guys."

Kim was looking backward out the window. Tony reached over the seat and touched her on the knee, then winked at her and grinned.

"Tony, I don't need this shit," she said.

"Will you guys mellow out? Why is everybody trying to drive me nuts today?" he said. Then he slapped open the glove box and took out a chrome-plated.45 automatic.

The white limo followed us into the park. We drove along the side of a grassy lake and stopped under a spreading oak tree. The dry leaves under it blew in the wind and clicked and tumbled across the grass. Jess reached under the seat and took out a double-barrel.410 shotgun pistol wrapped inside a paper bag. He rolled down his window and held the shotgun pistol below the level of the window jamb.

When the Plymouth turned in after us, Tony put the.45 in his right-hand coat pocket and stepped out on the cement, smiling across the top of the car as though he were welcoming guests.

"What a day," Kim said.

"Hey, give it a break," Jess said, without turning his head.

The Plymouth followed along the grassy lake, passed the limo, and stopped abreast of us. The man in the passenger's seat hung his badge out the window, then stepped out in the sunlight.

Nate Baxter had changed little since I had last seen him. He still wore two-tone shoes and sports clothes, but as his styled blond hair had receded he had grown a narrow line of reddish beard along his jawbones and chin. He had worked for CID in the army, and as an investigator for Internal Affairs in the New Orleans Police Department he had combined a love of military stupidity with a talent for dismembering the wounded and the vulnerable.

Jess looked straight ahead, lowered the shotgun pistol between his legs, and pushed it back under the seat.

"Put your hands on top of the car, Tony," Baxter said.

"You're kidding?" Tony said.

"You see me smiling?" Baxter said.

"I don't think this is cool, Lieutenant," Tony said, his hands now resting casually on the waxed maroon hood of the Lincoln. "We've been out for some golf. We're not looking to complicate anybody's day."

"Go tell that limo full of meatballs to get out of here," Baxter said to his partner, who was now standing behind him. Then he turned back toward Jess and said, "Get out of the car, Ornella."

"Why the roust, Lieutenant?" Tony said.

"Close your mouth, Tony. Did you hear what I said, Ornella?"

Jess got out of the car with his palms turned outward, his brow furrowed above his close-set eyes. He set his hands on the convertible roof.

The white limo made a U-turn behind us and drove slowly out of the park, its black-tinted windows hot with sunlight. Baxter's partner came back and stood next to him. He was a muscular, crew-cut man, with a grained, red complexion, who wore shades and a pale blond mustache. Like Baxter, he carried a revolver under his tweed sports jacket in a clip-on belt holster. But in his face, even with his shades on, I could see a question mark about what Baxter was doing.

"Shake them down," Baxter said.

"Come on, Lieutenant, give it a rest. This is bullshit," Tony said.

"I look like bullshit to you?" Baxter said.

"We don't make trouble for you guys. It's a chickenshit roust. You know it is."

Baxter nodded impatiently to his partner.

"I got a piece in my coat pocket. You want the sonofabitch, take it. What the fuck's with you, Baxter?" Tony said.

"Easy, Tony. We don't have a big problem here," Baxter's partner said, his hands gentle on Tony's back and sides. "No, no, look straight ahead. Come on, man, you're a pro."

Then, like a dentist who had just pulled a tooth, he held up Tony's chrome-plated automatic in the sunlight.

"I got a permit for it," Tony said.

"You want to produce it?" Baxter said.

"It's at home. But I got one. You know I got one."

"Good. Your lawyer can bring it down to your arraignment," Baxter said.

His partner pulled Tony's arms behind him, cuffed his wrists, and sat him down on the curb. Then he ran his hands down Jess's sides, back, stomach, and legs. He rose up and shook his head at Baxter.

"Under the seat," Baxter said.

His partner leaned into the car, worked his hand around under the seat, and pulled out the shotgun pistol. He snapped open the breech and removed the two slender.410 shells and dropped them in his pocket.

"You're under arrest for possession of an illegal firearm, Ornella," Baxter said.

"You got to have cause to get in the car, Lieutenant," Jess said.

"You took some law courses up at Angola?" Baxter said.

"You got to have cause," Jess said.

Baxter's partner cuffed him and led him over to the curb. Two squad cars, the backup that Baxter had probably called for, turned into the park. Baxter opened the back door of the convertible and told me to step out.

"It looks like you finally found your element," he said.

"It must be a dull day, Nate."

"How do you like working for the greaseballs?"

"You ought to brush up on your procedure. Probably talk a little bit with your partner. He seems to know what he's doing."

"No kidding?"

"Nobody here was serious. Otherwise you might have gotten your hash cooked, Nate."

"I'm probably just lucky you were along to cool things out," he said, put a filter-tipped cigarette between his teeth at an upward angle, and lit it with a Zippo lighter. He snapped the lighter shut and blew smoke out into the sunlight. Then he said, "I like your threads. They're elegant."

"Get to it, Nate. You're wasting a lot of people's time."

"No, I mean it. You're stylish. I remember you when you smelled like an unflushed toilet with booze poured in it." He rubbed his fingers up and down the edge of my coat lapel. Then he touched my tie, put one finger under it, drew it slowly out from my chest and let it drop.

I looked away at the grassy lake and the way the wind made the light break on the water. The golfers on the other side of the lake had stopped their game and were watching us.

"You like the pockets in that shirt?" And his two fingers slid down inside the cloth, so that I could feel them against the nipple.

"Don't do that, Nate."

"It's got a nice feel to it. It pays to buy a quality shirt."

I could see the peppery grain of his skin along the edge of his beard, a piece of yellow mucus in the corner of his eye, the pucker in his mouth that almost made a smile. His fingers felt as thick and obscene as sausages inside my pocket.

I raised my hand and pushed his arm slowly away from me.

"That's not smart," he said quietly, and reached his hand toward me again.

I put the flat of my hand against his forearm and moved it away from me as you would press back a slowly yielding spring. He smiled and took a puff off the filter tip of his cigarette, his lips making a soft popping sound.

"Bust him. Interference with an officer in the performance of his duty," he said to his partner. Then to me, "I'll ask them to process you right into the population so you can eat mainline tonight."

"Fuck you, Baxter. We'll make bail in two hours," Tony said as a uniformed cop raised him to his feet.

"It's Friday afternoon, Tony," Baxter said. "Next arraignment is Monday morning."

"What about the broad?" his partner said.

"Tell her to take a cab. Tow his car in and tear it apart."

"Nate, we might be on shaky ground here," the partner said.

"Not with this bunch," Baxter said.

A few minutes later I sat handcuffed next to Tony behind the wire-mesh screen of a squad car. Through the window I could see Kim walking hurriedly out of the park toward the avenue, her face as white as bone.