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there weren’t as many fish, fur animals, or gators in the area as there had once been. The crawfish were as plentiful as ever, perhaps more so, but they throve on any kind of sludge. Many of the remaining animals were sick or small. To an untrained eye, the swamp still teemed with rich life. But the people who lived there could see it dying.
    Then they began dying too. A citizens’ group alleged that people within a fifty-mile radius of Byrne Metals and Chemicals got cancer at fifty times the usual rate. There was a rash of babies born with gaping craniums, half-formed faces, stunted brains or no brains. There was a nasty incident involving a Cajun who’d been laid off from his job in the solvents division after eighteen years’ service. Diagnosed with intestinal cancer a month later, the man had rammed the factory gate with his pickup truck, then parked in the yard, pulledout an ancient double-barreled shotgun, and started blasting away. A security guard had most of his left leg blown off before he was able to put a slug in the Cajun’s brain.
    Mignon’s older brother Daniel Devore had stepped in to help. He had a gifted tongue with the politicians and reporters, and a talent for juggling facts. He also had a proclivity for the young male hustlers who haunted Burgundy Street past midnight in the lower Quarter. Eventually he set up his favorite in a slave quarters apartment and spent three or four nights a week down there. When Jay moved to the Quarter years later, the ex-hustler was still around, having been generously remembered in Daniel’s will. A faded pastel blond, schooled in the ways of the Quarter but no longer able to make the grade, he managed to lure an occasional boy back to his apartment by flashing a bankroll. Jay observed him from afar, fascinated by the knowledge that that bankroll was steeped in the blood of the swamp his father had poisoned.
    A calliope was shrieking “Dixie,” insanely loud, very near. He realized he had walked all the way up the wooden riverwalk to the steamboat landing. The brightly colored boats towered over the dock, all wooden scrollwork and glittering brass, the
Natchez,
the
Cajun Queen,
the
Robert E. Lee,
big gaudy wedding-cake boats. He imagined one of them tipping over, spilling its human cargo into the toxic soup of the river.
    He reached inside his jacket and touched the manila envelope. The feel of it against his heart was reassuring.
Nuke,
Tran had told him. One hundred doses of top-grade LSD. He’d take four or five, put the rest in the freezer. He had all sorts of treats in there.
    Jay walked back to Café du Monde for the cup of au lait he’d been wanting. The very air beneath the old green awnings was luscious with fried dough and powdered sugar, a sweet miasma that always lingered here. The aromas of the café intertwined with engine exhaust from Decatur Street and the grassy smell of dung from the mule-drawn carriagesthat parked in front of the square collecting cartloads of tourists.
    The afternoon was beginning to shade into evening. Thousands of birds circled over Jackson Square in the clear twilight, preparing to roost. Their erratic song, the saxophone player on the sidewalk, the crowd’s chatter, the rumble and blare of passing traffic on Decatur Street: all were part of the French Quarter’s festive eventide. Jay chose a table by the iron railing, where he could watch the circus. The chicory coffee tasted rich and strong, the milk frothy and sweet.
    He became aware of a presence near his elbow. A boy stood on the other side of the railing, puppy-dog gaze melting over Jay like warm butter. He wore the costume of young drifters everywhere: bandanna wrapped around a close-cropped head, ears and nose studded with metal, army jacket a work of art done in safety pins and black marker, Doc Martens that had seen serious street time. His face was strong-boned, unwittingly angelic. He was perhaps eighteen.