Both victims tried to rise from their knees, their bodies convulsing simultaneously from the impact of the rounds.

The witness said, "Their guns just kept popping. It looked like somebody was blowing chunks out of a watermelon."

After it was over, smoke drifted out over the water and the shooter in the Panama hat took close-up flash pictures with a Polaroid camera.

"THE WITNESS USED A pair of binoculars. He says the guy in the green uniform had our department patch on his sleeve," the sheriff said.

"White rogue cops avenging the rape of a black girl?"

"Look, get that FBI agent out of here, will you?"

He looked at the question in my face.

"She's got a broom up her ass." He rubbed his fingers across his mouth. "Did I say that? I'm going to go back to the laundry business. A bad day used to be washing somebody's golf socks," he said.

I LOOKED THROUGH MY office window at the FBI agent named Adrien Glazier. She sat with her legs crossed, her back to me, in a powder-blue suit and white blouse, writing on a legal pad. Her handwriting was filled with severe slants and slashes, with points in the letters that reminded me of incisor teeth.

When I opened the door she looked at me with ice-blue eyes that could have been taken out of a Viking's face.

"I visited William Broussard last night. He seems to think you're going to get him out of the parish prison," she said.

"Cool Breeze? He knows better than that."

"Does he?"

I waited. Her hair was ash-blond, wispy and broken on the ends, her face big-boned and adversarial. She was one of those you instinctively know have a carefully nursed reservoir of anger they draw upon as needed, in the same way others make use of daily prayer. My stare broke.

"Sorry. Is that a question?" I said.

"You don't have any business indicating to this man you can make deals for him," she said.