"I know something you want, you need, man. And I'm the cat can give it to you," he said.

"What's that?"

"That guy Mapes. Dixie said he can send you up the road. How'd you like it Mapes wasn't around to worry you anymore?" He took a drink from his Manhattan. His eyes were level and intent over the glass.

"I don't even know where he is," I said.

"You say the word, you end this bullshit between you and me, you deliver up that cocksucker Charlie Dodds, Mapes is dead meat. You'll get Polaroids, then you burn them. You don't have any connection with it. Nobody'll ever see the guy again. It'll be like he never existed."

"I'll think about it."

"You'll think about it?"

"That's what I said, Sal. Call me tomorrow afternoon."

I walked out of the restaurant into the coolness of the night. The streets were full of college kids, and I could smell pine woodsmoke from people's chimneys and the heavy, cold smell of the river in the air.

When I got home Dixie showed me the business card a Missoula city detective had left in the mailbox. The detective had penciled a note on the back to the effect that he wanted me to call him, since he had missed me twice at the house. I suspected this had to do with Dan Nygurski's calling the local police about Charlie Dodds's visit to my house. I dropped the card on top of the icebox, put Alafair to bed, and watched the late show with Dixie Lee.

I slept through until morning without dreaming or once getting up in the night. When I woke and stepped out on the porch with a cup of coffee, the river was green and running fast in the shadows of the bridge, riffling over the boulders in the deepest part of the current, and the sunlight through the maples in the yard looked like spun glass.

CHAPTER 11

It was Sunday morning. I took Alafair to nine o'clock mass, then we fixed cush-cush and ate breakfast with Dixie Lee. He had shaved, pressed his slacks, and put on a white shirt.

"Where are you going?" I said.

"Some Holy Rollers asked me to play piano at their church. I hope the plaster don't fall out of the ceiling when I walk in."

"That's good."

He looked down at his coffee cup, then played with the big synthetic diamond ring on his finger.

"I got something bothering me," he said.

"What is it?"

He looked at Alafair.

"Alafair, why don't you start on the dishes while Dixie helps me with something outside?" I said.

We went out to the truck, and I took the small whisk broom from behind the seat and began sweeping out the floor.

"I'm afraid I'm going to drink. I woke up scared about it this morning," he said.

"Just do it a day at a time. Do it five minutes at a time if you have to."

"Why the fuck am I scared, man?"

"Because it's fear that makes us drink."

"I don't understand. It don't make sense. I felt real good yesterday. Today I'm shaking inside. Look at my hands. I feel like I just got off a jag."

"Dixie, I'm not a psychologist, but you're going into a church today that's like the one you grew up in. Maybe you're dealing with some memories that bring back some bad moments. Who knows?

Just let it go, partner. You're sober this morning. That's all that counts."

"Maybe some people ain't supposed to make it."

"You're not one of them."

"You'd really throw me out if I went back on the juice?"

"Yep."

"Somehow that just made a cold wind blow through my soul."

"You work the steps, and I promise all that fear, all those weird mechanisms in your head, will go away."

"What mechanisms?"

"Strange thoughts and images, things that don't make any sense, stuff that you won't talk about with anybody. If you work the program, all those things will gradually disappear."

The morning was cool, and there was a breeze off the river, but there were drops of perspiration on his forehead and in his eyebrows.

"Dave, I just feel downright sick inside. I can't explain it."

"It's going to pass," I said.

"Just don't drink today."

But his eyes were forlorn, and I well understood the peculiar chemical misery he was experiencing at the moment; I also knew that my words would mean more to him later than they did now.

"While we're out here, let me tell you about something else," I said.

"I'm going to receive a phone call this afternoon. I don't want you to answer it."

"All right."

"It'll be from Sally Dee. I don't want him to know you're living here."

"You're putting me on?"

I continued sweeping the floor mat with the whisk broom.

"Dave, that ain't true?"

"It's complicated."

"So is shit. This is some kind of nightmare. What are you doing, man?"

"Just don't answer the phone."

"I wouldn't touch the sonofabitch at gunpoint."

An hour later the phone rang. But it was Tess Regan, not Sally Dio.

"Jason, the eighth-grader I told you about, the one who talked with the man in the yellow car, he just came over on his bicycle," she said.

"Last night he went to the Heidelhaus for dinner with some of his relatives. He saw the yellow car behind the restaurant. He's sure it's the same one. He remembered that the back window was cracked and there was a University of Wyoming sticker on it."

"What kind of car?"

"A Mercury."

"Did he get the license number?"

"No, I asked him. He said he didn't have a piece of paper or a pencil. Kids don't quite pull it all off sometimes, Dave."

"He did just fine," I said.

"It was at dinnertime, you say?"

"Yes. He said the Mercury was there when he went into the restaurant, and it was still there when he left. He tried to tell his uncle about it, but it was a birthday party and adults tend not to hear children sometimes."

"Thanks very much, Tess. Tell Jason I appreciate what he's done."

Alafair and I drove over to the Heidelhaus, a large Bavarian-style restaurant on the south side of town. The lunch crowd had started to come in, and the parking lot was half filled with cars, but none of them was a yellow Mercury. I drove behind the building and around the sides but had no luck there, either. I took Alafair for an ice cream cone, returned in a half hour, and still came up empty.

When we got home Dixie Lee was reading the newspaper on the front steps.

"It ain't rung. At least not while I was here," he said.

"How was church?"

"It went okay. They asked me to play again Wednesday night. They ain't a bad bunch for people that probably left their toast in the oven too long."

Alafair went inside just as the phone rang.

"Damn, there it is," Dixie Lee said.

"Go easy, boy. Let's stay on the sunny side for a while."

Alafair had picked up the receiver, but I eased it out of her hand before she could speak. I stepped into the bathroom and closed the door on the cord.

"You had time to think, Robicheaux?" Sally Dee said.

"I still believe you have things mixed up."

"I'm not interested in opinions. You want to do some business, or you want to keep fucking around?"

"You've got it backwards, Sal. You hired Charlie Dodds to take me out."

"That's past history. You come up to the lake uninvited, you provoked my father, you started that beef out on the road. I mark it off even. That's the way I see it."

"What's the offer?"

"What d'you mean, what's the offer? I spelled it out to you yesterday."

"No, you didn't. You said three or four grand a week. Are you going to pay that kind of money for house security?"

"We'll set you up with your own action. You manage a club in Vegas. All you got to do is count the receipts. You know what the skim is on a half-dozen lobby slots?"

"I'm about to go on trial."

"You're breaking my knob off."