beside a door that said RESTROOMS. An industrial wash bucket was by the jukebox, and the back door was open for the breeze. The woman looked over at me and said, "Sorry, sugah. We closed."
"I'm supposed to meet a guy here. What time you open?"
"Bout five, give or take. Who you lookin' by?" She gave me a loose smile. She was maybe forty-five, but looked older, with rubbery skin pulled tight by all the smiling. The Hispanic guy stopped working to look at us.
"Oh, just a friend." Mr. Mysterious.
"You keepin' it a big secret or what, sug? I'm here all the time." When she said it she noticed the Hispanic guy and snapped at him. "Don't just stand there, goddammit! Put that stuff away! Endelay!"The Hispanic guy spun back to his work with a vengeance. I wasn't sure if he understood what had been said to him, but he understood that she was pissed. The Clairol Queen flipped her hand at him, disgusted. "These spics are somethin'. Gimme a good nigger any day."
I said, "A guy named LeRoy Bennett said I could find him here."
She went back to the smiling and folded herself against the bar. It was probably a pose that played well with the older guys after a dozen or so beers. "Oh, yeah. LeRoy's here all the time. I can take a message, you want."
"Nah. I'm on my way to Biloxi. I'll catch him on the way back."
I went back to the car and climbed in beside Pike. "They open at five. LeRoy's here all the time."
"Who could blame him?"
We drove up the road for a mile and a half, then turned around and went back. One hundred yards past the bait shop I eased onto the shoulder, and Pike got out with his duffel and moved into the trees. I drove on for maybe another four hundred yards until I found a gravel timber road running across a plank bridge, and pulled off. I locked the car, then trotted back to the bait shop. By the time I got back Pike was inside and set up, watching the bar through a clean spot he'd made on the dusty plate glass.
The Bayou Lounge might have opened at five, but no one showed up until six, and then it was mostly younger guys with deep tans and ball caps, looking like they had just gotten off work and wanted to have a couple of cold ones before heading home. Someone cranked up the Rockola at nine minutes before seven, and we could hear Doug Kershaw singing in French.
Pike and I made cold sandwiches and drank Diet Coke and watched the people come and go, but none of them were Milt Rossier or LeRoy Bennett or even René LaBorde. Crime might have been rampant, but if it was, we didn't see it.
The bait shop was an empty cinder-block shell containing the remnants of a counter and a couple of free standing shelves and a cement floor. We sat on the floor, surrounded by the odd-cut piece of plywood and about a million rat pellets. Everything was covered with a thick layer of heretofore undisturbed dust, and everything smelled of mildew. "Just think, Joe, some guys have to wear a tie and punch a time clock."
Pike didn't answer.
At 8:15 that night, seven cars were parked in the oyster shell lot and maybe a dozen people were inside the Bayou Lounge, but Milt Rossier and LeRoy Bennett were not among them. Pike rarely spoke, and there wasn't a great deal to do in our watching, and I found myself thinking of Lucy, wondering where she was and what she was doing, seeing her in her office, seeing her on the couch in her family room, seeing her snuggled with Ben watching Star Trek. After a while I got tired of all the thinking about it and tried to stop, but then I thought that maybe I could walk across to the Bayou and use the pay phone to call her. Of course, if I did, ol' Milt and LeRoy would probably amble in at exactly that time. It's one of those laws of nature. Pike said, "You deserve someone."
"What are you talking about?"
"Ms. Chenier."
I stared at him. Do you think he reads minds? "We enjoy each other's company."
He nodded.
"I like her and she likes me. It's nothing more or less than that."
He nodded again.
By 9:15 we were down to two cars, and by ten the lot was empty except for the