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"The raghead who brought your kilos…"
"Yes?"
"He and Lionel did a guy with a piece of piano wire. Stop up there at the filling station. I have to pee."
I parked under a dripping oak tree while she went inside. She came back out and got in the truck, and I drove back onto the blacktop. It had stopped raining completely now; the moon was bright in the sky, and when the wind blew through the flooded saw grass and cypress, the light clicked on the water like silvery dimes.
"Why does everything down here smell like mold and leaking sewage?"
"Maybe because there's a lot of mold and leaking sewage here."
For the first time she smiled.
"Who'd they do?" I said.
"Did I say that? I talk funny when my bladder's full."
She tied up her hair with a bandanna and looked out the window.
"You know Jimmie Lee Boggs?" I asked.
"The television minister in Baton Rouge?"
"A guy like Lionel doesn't bother me, but Boggs is special."
"What's it to me?"
"Nothing. I gave you a ride."
"Expensive ride."
"You're a tough lady."
"You look like a nice guy. I don't know what the fuck you're doing dealing dope, but you're an amateur. Do you know where South Carrollton runs into the levee?"
"Yes."
"That's where I live. If that's out of your way, I can take the streetcar."
"I'll drive you home. Do you live with someone?"
"You mean do I live with a guy. Sure, Tony C. is interested in broads who live with guys. You're something else."
She closed her eyes and went to sleep with the nape of her neck against the back of the seat, her calves resting across the box of cocaine. Her nose had a bump on the bridge like a Roman's. Her face shone with the luminescence of bone in the moon glow.
Later, I drove down South Carrollton to the river and woke her up at the end of the street.
"You're home," I said.
She rubbed her face with her hand and opened and closed her mouth.
"I'd invite you in for a drink, but I have to be at the club at seven in the morning. The liquor man comes tomorrow. He screws Tony on the bottle count if I'm not there."
"It's all right."
She popped open the door and put one leg out on the street. She was poised against the streetlight, her bandanna tied across the crown of her head as in a photograph of a 1940s aircraft worker.
"Watch your buns, hotshot. Or go back on the bayou where you belong," she said.
