Sunset Limited

"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 Terrebo

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 Terrebo

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?"

"Geraldine Holtzner's been driving it all over the area."

"Streak, the Terrebo

"The Canadian shooter is a guy named Jacques Poitier. Ever hear of him?"

"No. And if he gives me any grief, I'm going to stick a.38 down his pants and blow his Jolly Roger off. Now, let me get some sleep."

"Megan told you she's going to France?"

The line was so quiet I thought it had gone dead. Then he said, "She must have called while I was out. When's she going?"

Way to go, Robicheaux, I thought.

THE SET THAT HAD been constructed on the levee at Henderson Swamp was lighted with the haloed brilliance of a phosphorus flare when Lila Terrebo

When she left, she asked a grip to help her fasten down the top on her car. He was the only one to notice the blue Ford that pulled out of a fish camp down the levee and followed her toward the highway. He did not think it significant and did not mention the fact to anyone until later.

THE MAN IN THE blue Ford followed her through St. Martinville and down the Loreauville road to Cisco Fly

On the patio, behind the house, Lila Terrebo

But on the front lawn a jazz combo played atop an elevated platform, and the guests wandered among the citrus and oak trees and the drink tables and the music that seemed to charm the pink softness of the evening into their lives. Megan wore her fu

She stood between two myrtle bushes, on the edge of the swale, and waited until he seemed to feel her eyes on his back. He straightened up and smiled, but the smile came and went erratically, as though the man thought it into place.

He wore a form-fitting long-sleeve gold shirt and blue jeans that were so tight they looked painted on his skin. A short-brim fedora with a red feather in the band rested on the fender. His hair was the color of his shirt, waved, and cut long and parted on the side so it combed down over one ear.

"It's a battery cable. I'll have it started in a minute," he said in a French accent.

She stared at him without speaking, a champagne glass resting in the fingers of both hands, her chest rising and falling.

"I am a big fan of American movies. I saw a lady turn in here. Isn't she the daughter of a famous Hollywood director?" he said.

"I'm not sure who you mean," Megan said.

"She was driving a Cadillac, a convertible," he said, and waited. Then he smiled, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. "Ah, I'm right, aren't I? Her father is William Holtzner. I love all his films. He is wonderful," the man said.

She stepped backward, once, twice, three times, the myrtle bushes brushing against her bare arms, then stood silently among her friends. She looked back at the man with gold hair only after he had restarted his car and driven down the road. Five minutes later Lila Terrebo

THE MAN NAMED JACQUES Poitier caught up with her on the two-lane road that paralleled Bayou Teche, only one mile from her home. Witnesses said she tried to outrun him, swerving back and forth across the highway, blowing her horn, waving desperately at a group of blacks on the side of the road. Others said he passed her and they heard a gunshot. But we found no evidence of the latter, only a thread-worn tire that had exploded on the rim before the Cadillac skidded sideways, showering sparks off the pavement, into an oncoming dump truck loaded with condemned asbestos.