Clete picked up the bill off the desk and put it in his shirt pocket. “Those two guys I had trouble with have probably disappeared. But if they should come around while I’m not here, you know what to do.”

She looked at him, her expression impassive.

“Miss Alice?” he said.

“No, I do not know what to do. Would you please tell me?” she replied.

“You don’t do anything. You tell them to come back later. Got it?”

“I don’t think it wise for a person to make promises about situations that he or she cannot anticipate.”

“Don’t mess with these guys. Do you want me to say it again?”

“No, you’ve made yourself perfectly clear. Thank you very much.”

“You want cafe au lait?”

“I’ve made my own. Thank you for asking.”

“We’ve got a deal?”

“Mr. Purcel, you are upsetting me spiritually. Would you please stop this incessant questioning? I do not need to be badgered.”

“I apologize.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Clete walked down the street in the shade of the buildings, the scrolled-iron balconies sagging in the middle with the weight of potted roses and bougainvillea and chrysanthemums and geraniums, the wind smelling of night damp and bruised spearmint, the leaves of the philodendron and caladium in the courtyards threaded with humidity that looked like quicksilver in the shadows. He sat under the colonnade at Cafe du Monde and ate a dozen beignets that were white with powdered sugar, and drank three cups of coffee with hot milk, and gazed across Decatur at Jackson Square and the Pontalba Apartments that flanked either side of the square and the sidewalk artists who had set up their easels along the piked fence that separated the pedestrian mall from the park area.