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said.

    “I guess the reporters thought this was funny.”

    The headline read “ CURIOSITY KILLED THE BEAR .” The dateline was Poison, Montana, and the lead paragraph described how a duffel bag containing forty packages of cocaine had been dropped by parachute into a heavily wooded area east of Flathead Lake and was then found by a black bear who strung powder and wrappers all over a hillside before he OD’d.

    “That parachute came down on national forestland. But guess who has a hunting lease right next door?”

    “I don’t know.”

    “Sally Dio and his old man. Guess who acted as their leasing agent?”

    “Dixie Lee.”

    “But maybe he’s just a sick guy.”

    I looked away at the softness of the light on the bayou. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the knuckles on his hand as he clenched the soda can.

    “Come on, what do you think?” he said.

    “I think you’re in overdrive.”

    “You’re right. I don’t like these cocksuckers”

    “Nobody does. But I’m out of the business. You’re tilting with the wrong windmill.”

    “I don’t think killing bears is funny, either. I don’t like to see these guys bring their dirt and greed into a beautiful country. Your friend Pugh is standing up to his bottom lip in a lake of shit and the motorboat is just about to pass.”

    “Then tell him that,” I said, and looked at my watch. The breeze dented the leaves in the pecan trees.

    “Believe me, I will. But right now I’m frig mo here.”

    “What?”

    “It means “Fuck it, I got my orders.” In three days I go back to Great Falls.” He drained his soda can, crushed it in his palm, and set it gently on the porch step. He stood up and handed me his card.

    “My motel number in Lafayette is on the back. Or later you can call me collect in Montana if you ever want to share any of your thoughts.”

    “I’ve got nothing worth sharing.”

    “It sounds depressing.” His mouth made that peculiar jerking motion again.

    “Tell me, do you find something strange about my face?”

    “No, I wouldn’t say that.”

    “Come on, I’m not sensitive.”

    “I meant you no offense,” I said.

    “Boy, you’re a careful one. A woman once told me my face looked like soil erosion. I think it was my wife. Watch out for Dixie Pugh, Robicheaux. He’ll sell you a bowl of rat turds and call it chocolate chip.”

    “I changed my mind. I’ll share one thought with you, Mr. Nygurski. You didn’t come all the way down here to follow a guy like Dixie Lee around. No matter how you cut it, he’s not a long-ball hitter.”

    “Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t.”

    “What’s really going on up there?”

    “Everything that’s going on in the rest of the country, except accelerated. It’s a real zoo story. All the big players are there, nosing up to the trough. Keep fooling around with that rock ‘n’ roller and you’ll meet some of them.”

    He walked off through the trees, his feet loud on the dead leaves and dried pecan husks. si The moon was down that night, the sky black, and trees of lightning trembled on the southern horizon. At four in the morning I was awakened by the rumble of dry thunder and the flickering patterns of light on the wall. A tuning fork was vibrating in my chest, but I couldn’t explain why, and my skin was hot and dry to the touch even though the breeze was cool through the window. I heard sounds that were not there: a car engine dying on the road, the footsteps of two men coming through the trees, a board squeaking on the porch, the scrape of a prizing bar being inserted between the front door and the jamb. They were the sounds of ghosts, because one man had been electrocuted in his bathtub with his radio in his lap and the other had died in an attic off St. Charles when five hollow-point rounds from my .45 had exploded up through the floor into the middle of his life.

    But fear is an irrational emotion that floats from object to object like a helium balloon that