“Oh, no. Duane knows where the lines are drawn. He came to look at you because the way things work here, he’s sort of the town-” She groped for a word.

“Dogcatcher,” I said.

She looked at me, no longer smiling. “Exactly,” she said. “I hear from the rumor mill that he’s had some trouble lately. Someone broke into his home.”

“Crime is everywhere these days,” I said distractedly, in my flattest voice.

“Yes, it is.” She looked at the painting on the easel, and the smile came back. “Very nice.”

“Not so good,” I said. “I’m just getting a feel for it. It’s a complicated subject. I’m not really painting the house, you know. I’m painting the light.”

“I understand from Chenille that Lucius Bell owns one of your works, bought it in N’Orleans.”

“That’s what he says.”

“He’s a nice boy, Lucius,” she said. “Grew up poor, put together a very nice farming business. Educated himself.”

“Poor but not trashy?”

“Definitely not trashy. Poor and trashy don’t have much to do with each other, do they?” she said.

“Not much,” I conceded. “Listen, Mrs. Trent, you want a Dos Equis? I got a couple of bottles in a cooler.”

“Well

” She looked around, as if spotting neighbors peering from behind curtains. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact, that would be nice on a hot day. But why don’t we sit on my porch?”

We had a nice talk, and then she went back to her air-conditioning, and I spent the rest of the afternoon working on the painting. LuEllen was in town, ostensibly shopping but also checking out the City Hall and the city attorney’s personal office. About four o’clock the dogcatcher’s van crossed the street a block down, slowly, and I could see Hill’s face in the driver’s side window, looking my way.

There’s a myth that bullies can’t handle a real fight, that if they get into a real fight, they fold. My experience is just the opposite: Bullies like to fight. They go far out of their way to fight. They are men who look for slights - imagined ones will do nicely - as an excuse. Hill, I thought, was probably one of them. He had that look, the narrow, scarred, righteous eyes of a sociopathic brawler. I hadn’t seen the last of him.

A little after five, when the light started to go red, I dumped the water, closed up the easel, and put the painting gear in the Chevy. On the way back to the marina I stopped downtown. Just a look, I thought.