Martina had taken a pocket dictionary from her purse. She read aloud from it: '"Credence-belief, mental acceptance or credit." That's an interesting word. It's related to "credibility," isn't it?'

Clete widened his eyes and looked at her as though he were awakening from sleep. Then somebody on the opposite side of the dance floor caught his attention.

'Dave, a guy's coming over to our table,' he said. 'He just wants to talk a minute. Okay? I told him you wouldn't mind. He's not a bad guy. Maybe you might even be interested in what he's got to say. It doesn't hurt to listen to a guy, right?'

Through the layers of drifting cigarette smoke my eyes focused on a man with two women at a table. His solid physique reminded me of an upended hogshead; even at a distance his other features-his florid, potato face, his eyes that were as blue as ice, his meringue hair-were unmistakable.

'You shouldn't have done this, partner,' I said to Clete.

'I provide security at two of his clubs. What am I supposed to say to him, "Drop dead, Tommy. My buddy Dave thinks you're spit on the sidewalk, get off the planet, sonofabitch"?'

'He's not just an eccentric local character. He was up on a murder beef. What's the matter with you?'

'The guy he did with the fire hose was beating up old people in the Irish Channel with an iron pipe. Yeah, big loss. Everybody was real upset when they heard he'd finally caught the bus.'

'Fire hose?' Martina said, and made a puzzled face.

There was nothing for it, though. The man with the red face and the eyes that were like flawless blue marbles was walking toward our table.

Clete mashed out his cigarette in a paper plate.

'Play it like you want, Dave,' he said. 'You think Tommy Bobalouba's any more a geek than Hippo Bimstine, tell him to ship out.'

'What about Hippo?' I said.

'Nothing. What do I know? I thought I might bring you a little extra gelt. You're too much, Streak.'

Tommy Lonighan hooked two fingers under an empty chair at an adjacent table without asking permission of the people sitting there, swung it in front of him, and sat down. He wore a long-sleeve pink shirt with French cuffs and red stone cuff links, but the lapels were ironed back to expose the mat of white hair on his chest, and the hair on his stubby, muscular forearms grew out on his wrists like wire. He had the small mouth of the Irish, with downturned corners, and a hard, round chin with a cleft in it.

'What d'you say, Lieutenant?' he said, and extended his hand. When I took it, it was as square and rough-edged as a piece of lumber.

'Not much, Mr. Lonighan. How are you this evening?' I said.

'"Mr. Lonighan," he says. I look like a "mister" to you these days?' he said. The accent was Irish Channel blue-collar, which is often mistaken for a Brooklyn accent, primarily because large sections of New Orleans were settled by Irish and Italian immigrants in the 1890s. He smiled, but the clear light in his eyes never changed, never revealed what he might or might not be thinking.

'What's up?' I said.

'Boy, you fucking cut straight to it, don't you?'

'How about it on the language, Tommy?' Clete said.

'Sorry, I spend all day with prizefighters down at my gym,' he said, glancing sideways at Martina. 'So how much is Blimp-stine offering you to find this sub?'

'Who?' I said.

'Hippo Bimstine, the beached whale of south Louisiana. Who you think I'm talking about?'

'How do you know Hippo's offering me anything?'

'It's a small town. Times are hard. Somebody's always willing to pass on a little information,' he said, and put a long French fry between his lips, sucking it deep into his mouth with a smile in his eyes.

'You're right, there's a Nazi sub out there someplace. But I don't know where. Not now, anyway. For all I know, it's drifted all the way to the Yucatan. The alluvial fan of the Mississippi probably works it in a wide circle.'

He set his palm on my forearm and looked me steadily in the eyes. There were thin gray scars in his eyebrows, a nest of pulsating veins in one temple that had not been there a moment ago.

'Why is it I don't believe you?' he said.

'What's your implication, Tommy?' I said.

'It's "Tommy" now. I like it, Dave. I don't "imply" anything. That's not my way.' But his hand did not leave my forearm.

Martina read from her pocket dictionary: '"Alluvial fan-the deposit of a stream where it issues from a gorge upon an open plain." The Mississippi isn't a stream, is it?'

Lonighan stared at her.

'I'm not sure why either you or Hippo are interested in some World War II junk, but my interest is fading fast, Tommy,' I said.

'That's too bad. Because both Hippo and me are going into the casino business. I'm talking about riverboats here, legalized gambling that can make this city rich, and I'm not about to let that glutinous sheeny set up a tourist exhibit on the river that takes maybe half my business.'

'Then tell it to Hippo,' I said, and pulled my arm out from under his hand.

'What?' he said. 'You got your nose up in the air about something? I come to your table, you act like somebody's flushing a crapper in your face? You don't like me touching your skin?'

'Take it easy, Tommy. Dave didn't mean anything,' Clete said.

'The fuck he didn't.' Then he said it again: 'The fuck he didn't.'

'I'd appreciate your leaving our table,' I said.

He started to speak, but Martina beat him to it.

'I happen to be part Jewish, Mr. Lonighan,' she said, her face serene and cool, her gaze focused benignly on him as though she were addressing an abstraction rather than an enraged man at her elbow. 'You're a dumb mick who's embarrassing everybody at the table. It's not your fault, though. You probably come from a dysfunctional home full of ignorant people like yourself. But you should join a therapy group so you can understand the origin of your rude manners.'

The crow's-feet around Lonighan's eyes were white with anger and disbelief. I looked at Martina in amazement and admiration.

chapter five

I slept on Clete's couch that night, and in the morning I called Nate Baxter at his office and asked about the other homicides that involved mutilation.

Nate had never been a good liar.

'Mutilation? How do you think most homicides are committed? By beating the person to death with dandelions?'

'You know what I'm talking about.'

'Yeah, I do. You got to somebody under my supervision.'

'Your office is a sieve, Nate.'

'No, there's only one broad I smell in this. Nothing racial meant. Stay out of the investigation, Robicheaux. You blew your career in New Orleans because you were a lush. You won't change that by sticking your nose up that broad's cheeks.'

He hung up.

I got back home just before lunch. The air was already hot and breathless and dense with humidity, and I put on my tennis shoes and running shorts, jogged three miles along the dirt road by the bayou, then did three sets of arm curls, dead lifts, and military presses with my barbells in the backyard. My chest was singing with blood when I turned on the cold water in the shower.

I didn't hear Bootsie open the bathroom door.

'Do you have a second?'

'Sure,' I said, and twisted the shower handle off.

'I acted badly. I'm sorry,' she said.

'About what?'

'About Batist. About the money. I worry about it sometimes. Too much, I guess.'

'What if I had a wife who didn't?'

I eased the water back on, then through the frosted glass I saw her undressing in muted silhouette. She opened the door, stepped inside with me, and slipped her arms around my neck, her face uplifted, her eyes closed against the spray of the shower over my shoulders.