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“Sometimes I want to believe certain things for reasons I don’t want to accept,” Alafair said.
“You’re talking about me, not you, right? Don’t start that twelve-step psychobabble with me.”
“If you want to have lunch with him, do it,” Alafair said.
Gretchen’s face was flushed, her eyes moving from the bayou to the diners in the courtyard to the drawbridge, without seeming to see any of it. “You’re supposed to be my friend. I came to you for advice, nobody else.”
“Some people have to work at being assholes. That’s not true of Pierre Dupree. He was born one.”
“Explain to me how he knew I’d see him with the crippled boy.”
“He’s afraid of you. He knows what happened to Jesse Leboeuf. He doesn’t want to end up in a bathtub with a bullet in his brisket.”
“You’re saying I killed Leboeuf? You know that for a fact?”
“No, I don’t know anything. I don’t want to, either.”
“That’s a chickenshit attitude.”
“What other attitude can I have? You ask me for advice, then you argue about it.”
“The 1940s revue is this weekend. I thought you’d be there with me.”
“I’m trying to make some headway on my new novel.”
“You and Clete are the only two people I ever thought of as friends.”
“I think Pierre Dupree will hurt you. You’re not being honest with yourself. You’re about to let a bad man use you. The worst thing we can do to ourselves is to help other people injure us. The feeling of shame never goes away.”
“Anything else you want to say?”
“Yeah, I think it’s going to rain.”
; Gretchen widened her eyes, her face hot and bright in the sunset. “I won’t call you again,” she said. “I’m really angry right now and having thoughts I don’t like to think.”
THAT SAME EVENING Clete had a caller he did not expect. When he opened the cottage door, he had to look down to see her face. She was holding a pot of soup with two hot pads. “I put too much in. It’s sloshing over the sides. Where can I put this down?” she said.
She went past him without waiting for him to answer. It was Julie Ardoin, the pilot who had flown him to the island southeast of the Chandeleurs. She set the pot heavily on the stove and turned around. “Dave said you were sick. So I took the liberty,” she said.
“Dave exaggerates. I had a nosebleed,” Clete said.
“Can I sit down?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m sorry,” he said, pulling a chair out from the breakfast table.
“I’m not a ‘ma’am,’” she said.
“You want a drink or a beer?”
She looked around at the general disarray that characterized his room. She wore makeup and jeans and a short-sleeve embroidered shirt spotted with rain. Her hair was damp and shiny under the light. “I had another reason for coming here.”
“Yeah?” he replied.
“I know you and Dave had words on the island. He thinks the world of you. He’d do anything for you. I figured you ought to know that.”
“You came out in the rain to tell me that?”
