"He having his julep in the library with the other gentlemens," he said.

"I don't want to go back through that big crowd. Is there another way I can get to the library?"

"Yes suh. Go back through the kitchen. The girl tell you where it's at." I walked across the clipped lawn, went through a huge Colonial-style kitchen with brick in the walls, where three black maids were making hors d'oeuvres, and came out in a hallway. I could see the library door partly opened and two men with highball glasses in their hands talking to somebody who sat in a chair with his legs crossed. I recognized one of the standing men immediately. I pushed the door, sipped out of my champagne glass, and smiled at the three of them.

The general had gained weight since the newspaper photograph was taken, but his skin was still deeply tanned and glowing with health, the white hair was cut GI, and his acetylene-blue eyes looked at you with the unflinching clarity of a man who was never inhibited by complexity or moral doubt.

"How are you doing, General?" I said. "It's amazing who might drop in on a cocktail party these days. I'm speaking about myself, of course. But what are you doing with a character like Whiplash Wineburger? Most people call the Orkin Company if they see this guy anywhere near their neighborhoods I'll take care of it," Wineburger said, and moved his hand to the table phone.

"It's all right," the general said.

"I don't know about that," I said. "I think some of your cadre are starting to unravel. I've got a couple of Polaroids of Bobby Joe Starkweather lying out behind his fish camp. You can have them for postcards."

"You'll be treated as a guest in my home, even though you came here uninvited. You can go back to the bar, or you can leave."

"I'm comfortable here."

"You've had too much to drink, or perhaps you're simply obsessive," he said. "But there's no point in your being here."

"You should have stuck with regular army, General. These guys working for you wouldn't even measure up to Mafia standards. Wineburger here is a jewel. One time a naive cop down at the First District asked him to defend some indigent Haitians, and he said, 'I'm full up on food stamps.' It's the amateurs that kill the IPs."

"What do you know about IPs?"

"I was in Vietnam, too, except my outfit went out of its way to protect innocent people. I don't think you can say the same."

"How dare you!" he said.

"Cut the gentlemanly rancor. You've got Sam Fitzpatrick's blood painted all over you, and I'm going to nail you for it."

"Ignore him. He's a lush," Wineburger said.

"I'll give you something else to work on, too," I said. "I visited the father of that nineteen-year-old girl that Segura's people murdered. I wonder if you'd like to confront him and explain why she had to lose her life over some elephant game you and your cretins are playing."

"Get out."

"You lost a son in Vietnam. I think if he were alive he'd consider you a disgrace."

"You leave my home. Don't you ever enter it again."

"You'll get no rest from me, General. I'm going to be the worst thing in your life."

"No, you won't, Robicheaux," Wineburger said. "You're a motormouth and you smell bad. You're just a jitterbird that everybody is bored with."

"Whiplash, how do you think you got in here? Because you're a brilliant attorney? Most of these people don't like Jews. They're paying for your ass right now, but when they don't need you anymore, you might end up like Bobby Joe or Julio. Think about it. If you were the general, would you keep a lowlife like yourself around?"

"Turn around. Some of your colleagues want to talk with you," Wineburger said.

Two uniformed street cops stood behind me. They were young, and they had their hats off and were uncomfortable at their situation. One of them tried to smile at me.

"Bad night, huh, Lieutenant?" he said.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "I'm wearing my rock-'n'-roll cassette, though. Just unbutton my coat and pull it out."

His hand brushed across my stomach, almost like a caress, and eased the.45 out of my belt holster.

"Walk this way with us. We'll go out the side door," he said. "But we'll have to cuff you in the car."

"It's all right," I said.

"Hey, Robicheaux, call that colored bondsman on Rampart. He gives credit," Wineburger said.

I glanced back at the general, whose tanned brow was webbed with wrinkles as he stared intensely into space.

They booked me into the drunk tank downtown. I woke up with the first gray light on an iron bunk whose gray paint was covered with scratched and rusted names and obscenities. I sat up slowly, holding the bunk on each side of me, and smelled the rancid odor of stale sweat, cigarette smoke, alcohol, urine, vomit, and the seatless and caked toilet in the corner. The floor and all the bunks, which were suspended from wall chains, were filled with snoring drunks, demented street people, barroom brawlers still flecked with blood, a few genuine badasses, and anxiety-ridden, middle-class DUIs who later would expect to be treated with the courtesy due good Kiwanians.

I walked in my socks to the toilet and leaned over it. Names had been burned into the yellow paint of the ceiling with cigarette lighters. My eyes watered from the reek of the toilet, and my hangover had already started to tighten the veins in my head like a hatband. Ten minutes later a guard and a trusty in white fatigues opened the barred door and wheeled in a stainless-steel food cart loaded with powdered scrambled eggs, grits, and black coffee that tasted like iodine.

"Hors d'oeuvres time, gentlemen," the guard said. "Our accommodations are humble, but our hearts are warm. If you're planning to stay for lunch today, we're having spaghetti and meatballs. Please do not ask for doggy bags. Also, even though it's a temptation, don't try to take the food home in your pockets."

"Who the fuck is this guy?" asked a soldier sitting on the floor. His tie hung loose around his neck, and the buttons were torn off his shirt.

"He's a pretty good guy," I said.

"Some place for a fucking comedian," he said, and I flipped his cigarette butt off the wall above the toilet.

I waited until the trusty had passed out the paper plates of eggs and grits and he and the guard had gone back out the door, then I went to the bars and clicked my ring against the metal to get the guard's attention. He looked at me without expression, blinking his eyes to hide either recognition or his embarrassment.

"Is arraignment at eight?" I asked.

"They'll put you on the wrist-chain then. I don't know what time they'll get to you." He almost said "Lieutenant," but he clamped his lips tightly.

"Who's on the bench this morning?"

"Judge Flowers."

"Oh boy."

"You want a lawyer with you?"

"No, not just yet. Thanks, anyway, Phil."

"You bet. Hang tough. It's going to be all right. Everybody's got a right to a hard night sometimes."

An old man with a wild, tobacco-stained beard sat down beside me on the iron bunk. He wore plastic cowboy boots, jeans that fit him like balloons, and a denim shirt cut off at the armpits.

"You ain't gonna eat your food?" he said.

"No. Go ahead."

"Thanks," he said, and began putting the dry eggs in his mouth with a plastic spoon. "The spiders starting to crawl around in your head?"

"Yep."

"Look down in my boot," he said. "The hack missed it when they shook me down. Take a snort. It'll swat them spiders right back into their nest."

I looked down at the pint bottle of whiskey inside his boot. I breathed deeply and ran my tongue over my cracked lips. My own breath was stronger than the smell of the drunk tank. It wouldn't be long before I would start sweating and shaking, maybe even going into the dry heaves. I wondered what I would look like in front of Judge Flowers, a notorious morning-court jurist who could put the fear of God into a drunk with his gavel.