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driveway, the tires clicking on the gravel, a solitary yellow-spotted leaf from a water oak drifting down on the hood. When he got out of the car, he removed the keys from the ignition and dropped them in the pocket of his slacks, something he never did when he parked his beloved Caddy on our property. He also looked back over his shoulder at the one-way traffic coming up East Main, fingering the pink scar that ran through one eyebrow to the bridge of his nose.
    “You run a red light?” I asked.
    He sat down heavily next to me, a gray fog of weed and beer and testosterone puffing out of his clothes. The back of his neck was oily, his face dilated. “Remember a guy name of Waylon Grimes?”
    “He did some button work for the Giacanos?”
    “Button work, torture, extortion, you name it. He came to my place with Bix Golightly. Then he came back with a property appraiser. That’s after he was warned.”
    “What happened?”
    “He said some stuff about Vietnam and killing women and kids. I don’t remember, exactly. I lost it.”
    “What did you do, Clete?”
    “Tried to kill him. Alice Werenhaus saved his life.” He took abreath and lifted one arm and placed his hand on top of his shoulder, his face flinching. “I think I tore something loose inside me.”
    “Have you been to a doctor?”
    “What can a doctor do besides open me up again?”
    “Has Grimes filed charges?”
    “That’s the problem. He told the ambulance attendants that he fell from my balcony. I think he plans to square it on his own. I think Golightly has given him the addresses of my sister and niece.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Because Golightly told me he was going to do it unless I paid him for the marker. You know the word about Bix. He’s a nutjob, and he’d gut and stuff his own mother and use her for a doorstop, but he’s straight up when it comes to a debt, either collecting or paying it. What do you think I ought to do?”
    “Talk to Dana Magelli at NOPD.”
    “What should I tell him? I tried to beat a guy to death, but I’m the victim, and now I need a couple of cruisers to follow my family around?”
    “Find something else to use against Grimes,” I said.
    “Like what?”
    “The death of the child he ran over.”
    “The parents are scared shitless. They’re also both junkies. I think Grimes was delivering their skag when he killed their kid.”
    “I don’t know what else to offer.”
    “I can’t let my sister and niece take the fall for what I did. This is eating my lunch.”
    “You stop having the thoughts you’re having.”
    “What else am I going to do? Grimes should have been cycled through a septic tank a long time ago.”
    I heard the front door open behind me. “I thought I heard your voice, Clete. You’re just in time for dinner,” Molly said. “Is everything okay out here?”
    C LETE TURNED DOWN the invitation, claiming he was meeting someone for supper down the street at Clementine’s, which meant hewould close the bar there and probably sleep in the back of his car that night or in his office on Main or perhaps at the motor court down the bayou, where he rented a cottage. Regardless of how the evening ended, it was obvious Clete had returned to his old ways, mortgaging tomorrow for today, holding mortality at bay with vodka and weed and a case of beer he kept iced down in the backseat of the Caddy, and in this instance maybe toying with the idea of premeditated murder.
    After we ate supper, I tried to read the paper and put Clete’s problems with Waylon Grimes and Bix Golightly out of my mind. I couldn’t. Clete would always remain the best friend I’d ever had, a man who once carried me down a fire escape with two bullets in his back, a man who would give up his life for me or Molly or Alafair.
    “I’m going to take a walk,” I said to Molly. “You want to go?”
    She was baking a pie in the kitchen, and there was a smear of flour on her cheek. Her hair was red and cut short, her skin