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"Invite her over and find out," Bootsie said.
"That's what I have office hours for."
"You want me to do it?"
I set down the stack of plastic cups I was unwrapping and walked across the grass to the spreading oak Megan stood under.
"I didn't know you were with anyone. I wanted to thank you for all you've done and say goodbye," she said.
"Where are you going?"
"Paris. Rivages, my French publisher, wants me to do a collection on the Spaniards who fled into the Midi after the Spanish Civil War. By the way, I thought you'd like to know Cisco walked out on the film. It's probably going to bankrupt him."
"Cisco's stand-up."
"Billy Holtzner doesn't have the talent to finish it by himself. His backers are going to be very upset."
"That composite I gave you of the Canadian hit man, you and Cisco have no idea who he is?"
"No, we'd tell you."
We looked at each other in the silence. Leaves gusted from around the trunks of the trees onto the drive. Her gaze shifted briefly to Bootsie, who sat at the picnic table with her back to us.
"I'm flying out tomorrow afternoon with some friends. I don't guess I'll see you for some time," she said, and extended her hand. It felt small and cool inside mine.
I watched her get in her car, drawing her long khaki-clad legs and sandaled feet in after her, her dull red hair thick on the back of her neck.
Is this the way it all ends? I thought. Megan goes back to Europe, Clete eats aspirins for his hangovers and labors through all the sweaty legal mechanisms of the court system to get his driver's license back, the parish buries Harpo Scruggs in a potter's field, and Archer Terrebonne fixes another drink and plays tennis at his club with his daughter.
I walked back to the tin shed and sat down next to Bootsie.
"She came to say goodbye," I said.
"That's why she didn't come over to the table," she replied.
THAT EVENING, WHICH WAS Friday, the sky was purple, the clouds in the west stippled with the sun's last orange light. I raked stream trash out of the coulee and carried it in a washtub to the compost pile, then fed Tripod, our three-legged coon, and put fresh water in his bowl. My neighbor's cane was thick and green and waving in the field, and flights of ducks trailed in long V formations across the sun.
The phone rang inside, and Bootsie carried the portable out into the yard.
"We've got the Canadian identified. His name is Jacques Poitier, a real piece of shit," Adrien Glazier said. "Interpol says he's a suspect in at least a dozen assassinations. He's worked the Middle East, Europe, both sides in Latin America. He's gotten away with killing Israelis."
"We're not up to dealing with guys like this. Send us some help," I said.
"I'll see what I can do Monday," she said.
"Contract killers don't keep regular hours."
"Why do you think I'm making this call?" she said. To feel better, I thought. But I didn't say it.
THAT EVENING I COULDN'T rest. But I didn't know what it was that bothered me.
Clete Purcel? His battered chartreuse convertible? Lila Terrebonne?
I called Clete's cottage.
"Where's your Caddy?" I asked.
"Lila's got it. I'm signing the title over to her Monday. Why?"
