“About the same time as Helene.”

“See, that’s what I mean. They didn’t even know each other. This poor guy, he’s driving out Chef Menteur with a girl could be his sister-in-law, a friend of the family, you don’t know. But you start imagining things. I’m guilty because he’s guilty and you don’t even know if he is. But the thing is, Leo, even if the young lady in the car was his girlfriend, what’s it got to do with me?”

“I worry about you,” Leo said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I guess it’s your nature, your tendencies, make me a little nervous.”

“We’re two different people, Leo.”

“We sure are.”

“You like this work, I don’t. You like to lie in the hammock at the Bay, read your book, smell the gumbo Raejeanne’s fixing in the kitchen…”

“And what do you like to do, Jack?”

Jack didn’t answer, looking at the spearlike trocar poised above Buddy Jeannette’s belly, a few inches from his navel.

“See?” Leo said. “You don’t think of normal things that’d be on the tip of your tongue everybody enjoys, you have to try and think of something crazy, huh?”

“I wasn’t thinking anything at all. But if you don’t mind my saying, Leo, I think this business ages you before your time. It’s always serious. You know, there are very few light moments.” He watched, with a sense of relief, Leo relaxing his grip on the trocar.

“You’re right,” Leo said, “I tend to jump to conclusions. I hear you’re with that redheaded broad and right away I see you getting back in that hotel cocktail lounge routine.”

“I bought her a drink.”

“Yeah, well, even that. After what she did to you, you have to be out of your mind even to say hello to her.”

“She didn’t do anything to me, Leo. I did it to myself. The intellect presents it to the will, right? And the will says no way or let’s do it. We learned that in high school. It means don’t blame somebody else when you fuck up.”