'Hey, Boots, I'm going to Lafayette to talk to a lawyer, then I have to pick up some ice for the coolers,' I said. 'By the way, that man in the blue shirt you saw… I think he was just in the shop. He's a fundamentalist radio preacher. I guess he's trying to do a good deed of some kind.'

'Why was he staring up at the house?'

'You've got me. He's probably just one of those guys who left his grits on the stove too long. Anyway, he seems harmless enough.'

If I had only mentioned his name or the fact that he was with his wife, or that he was elderly, or that he was a southern mountain transplant. Any one of those things would have made all the difference.

chapter six

She had just changed into a pair of shorts and sandals to work in the garden when he knocked on the front screen door. He wore a blue cotton short-sleeve shirt and a Panama hat with a flowered band around the crown. His physique was massive, without a teaspoon of fat on it, his neck like a tree stump with thick roots at the base that wedged into his wide shoulders. His neatly creased slacks hung loosely on his tapered waist and flat stomach.

But his green eyes were shy, and they crinkled when he smiled. He carried a paper sack under his right arm.

'I wasn't able to give this to your husband, but perhaps I can give it to you,' he said.

'He'll be home a little later, if you want to come back.'

'I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name's Will Buchalter. Actually this is for you and the little girl.'

'I'm not quite sure I understand.'

'It's a gift. Some candy.' He slipped the box, which was wrapped in ribbon and satin paper, partially out of the sack.

'That's very nice of you, I'm sure, but it might be better if you drop back by when Dave's here.'

'I didn't mean to cause an inconvenience. I'm a little bit inept sometimes.'

'No, I didn't mean that you were-'

'Could I have a glass of water, please?' He took off his hat. His fine blond hair was damp in the heat.

Her eyes went past his shoulder to the dock, where she could see Batist washing fish fillets in a bloody pan.

'Or I can just walk down to the bait shop,' he said.

'No, no, come in. I'll get you one,' she said, and opened the screen for him. 'Dave said he was talking to you earlier about something?'

He nodded, his eyes crinkling again, filling with light, focusing on nothing. When she returned from the kitchen, he was sitting on the couch, examining two seventy-eight rpm records that he had removed from the metal racks where I kept my historical jazz collection.

'Oh,' she said. 'Those are quite rare. They have to be handled very carefully.'

'Yes, I know,' he said. 'This is Benny Goodman's nineteen thirty-three band. But there's dust along the rim. You see, the open end of the jacket should always be turned toward the back of the shelf.' He slipped his large hand inside one of the paper jackets and slid out the record.

'Please, you shouldn't do that.'

'Don't worry. I have a big collection of my own,' he said. 'Watch my hands. See, I don't touch the grooves. Fingerprints can mar a record in the same way they cause rust on gun blueing.'

He rubbed the record's rim softly with a piece of Kleenex, then carefully inserted it back in the paper jacket. He looked up into Bootsie's face.

'I'm sorry. I shouldn't have handled them,' he said, twisting sideways and replacing both records on the rack. 'But a shudder goes through me when I see dust on a beautiful old record. You have some wonderful ones in your collection. I'd give anything to have those Bix Beiderbeckes and Bunk Johnsons in mine.'

'Dave's collected them since he was in high school. That's why I'm a little nervous if somebody picks them up.' She handed him the glass of water and remained standing.

'Well, I won't take any more of your time. I just wanted to leave this little gift and introduce myself.' He took a small sip from the water glass and placed the box of candy on the arm of the couch. 'Before I go, could I show you something? It'd mean a lot to me.'

The hair on his forearms looked golden and soft, like down, in the shaft of sunlight that fell through the side window. He removed a silver leather-bound scrapbook from the paper bag and rested it in his lap.

'It'll only take a minute,' he said.

'I'm a little behind in my work today.'

'Please. Then I won't bother y'all any more.'

'Well, for just a minute,' she said.

She sat down next to him, her legs crossed, her hands folded on her knee.

'I know that Mr. Bimstine has talked to Dave, but unfortunately he's sometimes not a truthful man,' he said.

'Bimstine?'

'Yes, Hippo Bimstine. Sometimes he has a way of concealing what he's really up to. I'm afraid it might just be another racial characteristic with him and some of his friends.'

'I'm not making the connection. I'm not sure of what you're doing here, either.'

He patted his palms lightly on the silver leather of the scrapbook.

'I don't want to say something that's offensive to anyone,' he said. 'But Mr. Bimstine lies about the causes he serves. I doubt that he's told your husband he raises money for Israel.'

'You had better come back later and talk to Dave about this.'

'You're misunderstanding me. I didn't come here to criticize Mr. Bimstine. I just wanted to show you how a hoax can be created.' His thumb peeled back several stiff pages of the scrapbook to one that contained two clipped-out newspaper photographs of men in striped prison uniforms and caps, staring out at the camera from behind barbed wire. Their faces were gaunt and unshaved, their eyes luminous with hunger and fear. 'These are supposed to be Jews in a German extermination camp in nineteen forty-four. But look, Mrs. Robicheaux.' He flipped to the next page. 'Here are the same photographs as they appeared in a Polish newspaper in nineteen thirty-one. These were Polish convicts, not German political prisoners. This is all part of a hoax that was perpetrated by British Intelligence… I'm sorry. Have I upset you about something?'

'I mistook you for someone else,' she said rising to her feet. 'I have to go somewhere now.'

'Where?'

'That's not your… Please go now.'

He rose to his feet. His face looked down into hers, only inches away. For the first time she noticed that there were blackheads, like a spray of pepper,- at the corners of his eyes.

'I only wanted to help,' he said. 'To bring you and your husband some information that you didn't have before. You invited me in.'

'I thought you were someone else,' she repeated. 'It's not your fault. But I want you to leave.'

'I'd like to help you, if you'd let me.'

'I'm going out the door now. If you don't leave, I'll call-'

'Who? That black man washing fish? I think you're very tense. You don't need to stay that way, Mrs. Robicheaux. Believe me.'

'Please get out of my way.'

He rested both of his hands on her shoulders and searched in her eyes as a lover might. 'How does this feel?' he asked, then tightened his fingers on her muscles and inched them down her back and sides, widening his knees slightly, flexing his loins.

'You get away from me. You disgusting-' she said, his breath, the astringent reek of his deodorant washing over her.

'I wouldn't hurt you in any way. You're a lovely woman, but your husband is working for Jews. Hush, hush, now, I just want to give you something to remember our little moment by.'

His arms encircled her waist, locking hand-on-wrist in the small of her back, tightening until she thought her rib cage would snap. He bent her backwards, smothering her body with his, then pushed his tongue deep inside her mouth. He held her a long moment, and as he did, he clenched her left kidney with one hand, like a machinist's vise fastening on a green walnut, and squeezed until yellow and red patterns danced behind her eyes and she felt urine running from her shorts.