I went in the front door and climbed the stairs to a hallway that was littered with garbage and broken plaster. Only one room was lighted. The door was open and a video camera on a tripod was propped up by a bed with a red satin sheet on it.

I went up another stairwell to the roof. I stepped out on the gravel and tar surface and saw Clete grab a black man by his belt and the back of his collar and run him toward the wall, then fling him, arms churning, into a treetop down below.

"What are you doing?" I said incredulously.

"They were gang-banging a pair of sixteen-year-old girls down there and filming it. Zipper and his pals have gone into the movie business," Clete said. He wore a blue-black.38 in a nylon and leather shoulder holster. A flat-sided sap stuck out of his back pocket. "Right, Zip?"

He kicked the sole of a mulatto who was handcuffed by one wrist to a fire-escape rung. The mulatto's eyes were turquoise, the irises ringed with a frosted discoloration. A puckered, concentric gray scar was burned into one cheek. His hair was almost white, straight, like a Caucasian's, cut short, his body as taut and shiny as wrapped plastic, his arms scrolled with jailhouse art.

"Robicheaux?" he said, focusing on my face.

"Why's Little Face Dautrieve collecting news articles on Letty Labiche?" I asked.

"Her brains are in her ass. That's where they suppose to be. Say, your man here kind of out of control. How 'bout a little intervention?"

"I don't have much influence with him," I said.

"It's your flight time, Zipper. I'm not sure I can hit that tree again, though," Clete said. He pulled his revolver from his shoulder holster and threw it to me, then leaned down and unlocked the cuff on Zipper's wrist and jerked him to his feet.

"Look over the side, Zipper. It's going to break all your sticks, guaranteed. Last chance, my man," Clete said.

Zipper took a breath and raised both hands in front of him, as though placating an unteachable adversary.