West was unbuttoning her blouse. She threw herself on top of him, devouring his mouth, and desperate. Raines put down his pizza.

"Hormones again?" He had never seen her this frustrated.

"I don't know." She worked on more buttons and hooks.

tw They seriously made out on the couch while Niles remained in his sanctuary above the sink. He was not a fan of Tire Man, as Niles called Raines, after noticing some radial ad in the newspaper lining his litter box. Tire Man was offensively loud and never warm and appreciative of Niles. Several times. Tire Man had launched Niles off the couch, and this would have been one of those times, should Niles have tested his luck, which he did not.

He looked adoringly at his distant, sad King. I'll help you. Fear not.

My owner knows about laundry money. She is very powerful and will protect you and all Usbeeceeans. Niles twitched an ear, detecting another engine sound, this one a pleasant, deep purring that he recognized. It was Piano Man, the nice one who played his fingers over Niles's spine and ribs, and right behind his ears, until Niles fell over from sheer pleasure, rattling window panes. Niles got up and stretched, excited that Piano Man seemed to be slowing behind the house, where he had parked in the past, on the few times he had stopped by for one reason or another.

West and Raines were not in a good space when the doorbell rang. By now, Raines was completely focused on what he was doing, and was within minutes, at most, of victory. It was most inconvenient and inconsiderate for someone to dare and drop by, unannounced. Raines experienced an intense wave of homicidal rage as he withdrew to his end of the couch, sweating and out of breath.

"Goddamn son of a bitch," he furiously blurted.

"I'll get it," West said.

She got up, pulling, zipping, and buttoning, as she walked and combed her fingers through her hair. She was a mess, and as the bell rang again, she hoped it wasn't Mrs. Grabman from two doors down. Mrs. Grabman was a nice enough old woman, but she tended to drop by every weekend West was home, usually offering vegetables from her garden as an excuse to meddle and complain about someone suspicious in the neighborhood. West already had a long row of ripening tomatoes on the counter, and two drawers full of okra, green beans, squash, and zucchini in the refrigerator.

Safety-conscious West, who had never gotten around to installing a burglar alarm, yelled through the door, "Who is it?"

"It's me," Brazil said.

From the bottom of the steps, where he waited with wine, he was excited, and clueless. He assumed the old black Corvette on the street belonged to a neighborhood kid. It had never occurred to him that Denny Raines might drive anything besides an ambulance. West opened the door, and Brazil lit up at the sight of her. He offered her} the bottle of wine in its brown paper bag.

"I thought we should at least drink a toast…" he started to say.

West awkwardly took the wine from him, acutely conscious of his reaction to her tousled hair, to the red marks on her neck, and her blouse buttoned crooked. Brazil's smile faded as his eyes wandered around her crime scene. Raines appeared behind his woman, and looked down the steps at Brazil.

"Hey, what'cha know, sport?" Raines grinned at him.

"Like your stories."

Brazil ran back to his car as if someone were chasing him.

"Andy!" West yelled after him.

"Andy!"

She hurried down the steps as his BMW roared off into the setting sun.

Raines followed her back into her living room as she buttoned her blouse properly, and nervously smoothed her hair. She set the wine on a table, where she did not have to look at it, and be reminded of who had brought it.

"What the hell's his problem?" Raines wanted to know.

"Temperamental writer," she muttered.

Raines wasn't interested. He and West had several downs yet to go, and he tackled her from behind, grabbing, fondling, and working his tongue into her ear. The play was incomplete as she broke free, leaving him yards behind, and taking the ball with her.

"I'm tired," she snapped.

Raines rolled his eyes. He'd had enough of her poor sportsmanship and penalty flags.

"Fine," he told her as he ejected his bloopers tape from the VCR.

"Let me just ask you one thing, Virginia." He furiously strutted to the door, pausing long enough to fix smoldering eyes on hers.

"When you're eating and the phone rings, what happens after you hang up? Do you go back to your meal, or do you forget that, too? Do you just quit because you had a tiny interruption?"

"Depends on what I'm eating," West told him.

Brazil's dinner was late and spent at Shark Finn's, on Old Pineville Road, at Bourbon Street. After roaring away from West's house, he had driven around, getting angrier by the moment. It had not been one of his wiser moves, perhaps, to stop by Tommy Axel's Fourth Ward condominium with its blush rose front door. Brazil noticed a number of men noticing him during his approach from the parking lot.

Brazil wasn't especially friendly to them, or even to Axel.

What Axel considered a first date and Brazil considered revenge began in Shark Finn's Jaws Raw Bar, where a mounted sailfish caught in a net protested with an open mouth and startled glass eyes. Wooden tables were uncovered, the plank floor unvarnished. There were faces carved on coconuts, and curled starfish and stained glass. Brazil nursed a Red Stripe beer and wondered if he might be going insane as he considered the senseless and impulsive behavior that had landed him here in this place at this moment.

Axel was burning holes in him, living a fantasy, and fearful the vision would vanish if he looked away for even a second. Brazil was certain that other people slipping down raw oysters and getting drunk had figured out Axel's intentions and were miscalculating Brazil's.

This was unfortunate since most of the men drove pickup trucks and believed it was their higher calling to get women pregnant, own guns, and kill queers.

"You come here a lot?" Brazil swirled beer in its dark brown bottle.

"Whenever. You hungry?" Axel grinned, displaying his very nice white teeth.

"Sort of," Brazil said.

They got up and moved into the crab shack, which was no different than the raw bar, except there were captain's chairs at the tables, and the ceiling fans were working so hard they looked like they might take off. Jimmy Buffet was playing over intercoms. A candle and Tabasco sauce were on their table, which rocked, requiring Brazil to fix it with several packets of Sweet amp; Low. Axel started by ordering a Shark Attack with lots of Myers's rum, and he convinced Brazil to try a Rum Runner, which had enough liquor in it to turn the lights out in half of Brazil's brain.

As if Brazil were not in enough trouble already, Axel ordered a tin bucket filled with iced-down bottles of Rolling Rock beer. This was going to work just fine, the music critic was sure of it. Brazil was a puppy and could be trained. Axel was stunned to suspect that the guy might never have been drunk in his life. Incredible. What did he grow up in, a monastery, the Mormon church? Brazil was wearing another pair of slightly too-small jeans left over from high school days, and a tennis team T-shirt. Axel tried not to think about what it might be like to get those clothes off.

"Everything here's good," Axel said without looking at the menu, as he leaned into candlelight.

"Conch fritters, crab cakes, Po-Boy sandwiches. I like the baskets, and usually get fried scallops."

"Okay," Brazil said to both Axels sitting across from him.

"I think you're trying to get me drunk."

"No way," Axel said, signaling for the waitress.

"You've hardly had a thing."

"I don't usually. And I ran eight miles this morning," Brazil pointed out.

"Man," Axel said.

"You're sheltered. Looks like I'm gonna have to educate you a little, pull you along."

"I don't think so." Brazil wanted to go home and hide in bed. Alone.

"I don't feel too good. Tommy."

Axel was insistent that food would prove the cure, and what he said was true to a point. Brazil felt better after he threw up in the men's room. He switched to iced tea, waiting for his internal weather to clear.

"I need to go," he said to an increasingly sullen Axel.

"Not yet," Axel said, as if the decision was his to make.

"Oh yes. I'm out of here." Brazil was politely insistent.

"We haven't had a chance to talk," Axel told him.

"About what?"

"You know."

"Do I have to guess?" Brazil was getting annoyed, his mind still in Dilworth, really.

"You know," Axel said again, his eyes intense.

"I just want to be friends," Brazil let him know.

"That's all I want." Axel couldn't have agreed more.

"I want us to get to know each other real well so we can be great friends."

Brazil knew a line when he heard one.

"You want to be better friends than I want to be. And you want to start right now. No matter what you say, I know how it works. Tommy. What you're saying is insincere. If I told you this minute that I'd go home with you, you'd go for it like that." He snapped his fingers.

"What's so wrong about it?" Axel liked the idea quite a lot, and wondered if it were remotely possible.

"See. A contradiction. That's not called being friends. That's called being laid," Brazil enlightened him.

"I'm not a piece of meat, nor do I care to be a one-night stand."

"Who said anything about one night? I'm a long-term kind of guy," Axel assured him.

Brazil could not help but notice the two guys with bulging muscles and tattoos, in greasy coveralls, drinking long-neck Budweisers, glaring at them as they eavesdropped. This didn't bode well, and Axel was so obsessed, he wasn't picking up on the stubby fingers drumming the table and toothpicks agitating in mean mouths, and eyes cutting, as plans were being made for the dark parking lot when the fags returned to their vehicle.

"My feelings for you are very deep, Andy," Axel went on.

"Frankly, I'm in love with you." He slumped back in his chair, and dramatically threw his hands up in despair.

"There. I've said it. Hate me if you want. Shun me."