along the bayou, most of his body concealed below the surface, with nostrils and orbital ridges protruding up out of the water and cutting small wakes.
After a time, he entered a place where the trees seemed to grow upside down, their gnarled roots twisting in dense wooden knots above the water. Above him, the canopy of interlaced branches blocked most of the sun. Shadows increasingly dappled his back as he slid along.
Sounds came to him, amplified by the water. He recognized the patterns-food, though food that sometimes could injure him if he were incautious. He homed in on the vibrations.
Around the curve of a deeper channel, beyond an almostimpenetrable copse of cypress, he saw the pirogue. The two men in it did not see him, busy as they were, poking long poles into the plaited jumble of wood at water-level.
More sounds came. The man wearing a cap said, "She got' be in dere someplace, Jake."
The other man shouted so loud, the alligator had to contract its hearing openings. "Bitch, you come outta dere! This your grand-uncle speakin', Delia."
"You tell her, Snake Jake," said the first man.
"I tell you, girl-I don' wan' hurt you." He chuckled. "Leastways, nothin' you won' like."
The alligator swept remorselessly toward the pirogue. There was no debate, nothing but intent. He did what he did because of what he was and who they were.
He slid deeper and came up beneath the boat, lifting the prow high into the bayou shadows. The two men yelled and plunged into the water. The alligator did not care who was first. He would have them both.
His jaws stretched wide, teeth ready to rend-and he was back in the dark tunnel below the city. The alligator mindlessly placed one foot in front of the other, continuing his imponderable, slow-motion odyssey. The dream stayed as vivid as reality in his mind. So much as he could consider the issue, he didn't know whether the dream was something that had happened once, or was something that would happen.
Either way was fine. It didn't matter.
Using the set of keys Jack had given her years before, Bagabond opened yet another gray metal door, revealing a set of steps descending into darkness. She reached down to pick up the soft bundle she had laid at her feet.
"How much farther?" Those were the only words Rosemary had spoken since they had entered the subway system at Chambers Street.
"Down these stairs and a few hundred yards along a tunnel-I think." Bagabond closed and locked the door behind them. The metal clinked dully. "What's bothering you?"
"Nothing."
"Don't give me that," said Bagabond. "It must be pretty heavy to keep you from talking."
Rosemary took an audible breath. "Ever since my father . . died, and C.C.- I hate subways, tunnels, all of this. It's fifteen years ago, but that night is still a blur and I... don't want... to remember." The words ran down like clockwork exhausting a mainspring.
"But you want the books," Bagabond said practically, grasping Rosemary by the shoulder and pulling her around to face her. In the dim yellow light, the attorney's eyes were black shadows. Bagabond probed Rosemary for weakness.
The attorney took another deep breath. "I'm here. I'm going on. But you can't stop me from thinking what this place did to C. C." Rosemary shrugged away from Bagabond. "Don't worry about it, all right?"
"I don't think I'm the one who's worried."
Rosemary's foot was on the first step when the two women heard the muffled chuffing sounds of the alligator, followed by a growl. Rosemary's lips paled as she set her mouth tightly. Bagabond nodded to herself with satisfaction. "That's Jack."
Rosemary lagged Bagabond perceptibly as they approached the alligator. At their approach, the reptile stopped and swung his heavy head toward them, eyes glittering in the cold light of the tunnel. He roared a challenge that made both women wince as the sound crashed and reverberated against the stone walls.
"Stay here. I'll call you when it's finished." Bagabond sloshed toward Sewer Jack, gently moving inside his head now. Heedless of her clothing, she knelt in the tunnel muck and stroked the alligator's lower jaw as she mentally reached further inside for the key to Jack Robicheaux. Finding the spark of humanity deep within the reptile brain, she cradled it, fanning it, drawing it out, calming both the proto-human synapses and the distinctly reptile brain. As the alligator mind receded, Bagabond withdrew and watched as the long armored tail grew smaller and the snout diminished. The short legs of