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wheelhouse that read SOMALI COAST GUARD .
    She began to realize these guys were doing their own style of piracy, nothing like the old-time cutthroats. The Somalis were having a good time getting rich. She thought of Xavier who lived around the corner on St. Philip, and phoned him.
    Xavier’s voice came on asking Dara, “What you up to this hour?”
    She said, “You’ve been through the Gulf of Aden, haven’t you?”
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    X AVIER L E B O, SIX-SIX STRAIGHT up in his bare feet, seventy-two years old, a black man with a gold ring in his ear, some gray in his hair and white teeth he showed smiling at Dara. Xavier had gone to sea when he was sixteen. He told Dara he’d been through the Gulf of Aden thirty, forty times counting both ways. He said, “You know how many ships pass through?”
    â€œAll I’m sure of,” Dara said, “it’s on the east coast of Africa.”
    â€œTwenty thousand merchant ships and oil tankers a year,” Xavier said. “The ones headin west go up through the Red Sea to Suez, where the Egyptians try to shake you down. The other way you go all the way to China. You interested in the pirates, huh, rippin off all the ships go by.”
    â€œI wouldn’t mind talking to some of them.”
    â€œThey gone after a hundred ships and caught maybe forty of ’em. Take money from the safe and what they want from the galley. Or they run the ship down to Eyl and hold it there for ransom. Ask a couple million for a Greek cargo ship and get it. You know what they want for the Sirius Star, the Saudi oil tanker? Twenty-five million. The Saudis say they won’t give ’emshit. All right, they’ll take seventeen million. They’ll get some- thin and buy new cars. You know what their favorite is? Black Toyota SUV with black windows. I hear some of the pirates are dressin up. They put on a suit and tie, drive up to Djibouti to get laid and marry a fine-lookin woman. Be his Djibouti wife.”
    Dara heard him flick his Ronson to light a cigarette.
    â€œYou know where to find the best-lookin girls in Africa? Eritrea, on the Red Sea, above Ethiopia. But now I think about it, they some fine-lookin Ethiopian women I’ve seen. Smart-lookin thin ladies with the cheekbones, some black as coal, their race not tampered with much through the ages.” He said, “Hang on a minute, I got to take a leak, relieve my worn-out bladder.”
    He came back on and Dara said, “I’m thinking about doing one on the pirates. Interview some of them…Does that make sense?”
    Xavier said, “Yeah, but they take one look at you, gonna hold you for ransom.”
    â€œReally?” Dara said. “What do you think I’d be worth?”
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    T HEY MET THE FIRST time two days before Katrina, knowing it was coming, Dara waiting for a table at Felix’s, the manager telling her, “Just a few minutes, Dara.”
    Xavier got up from his table and waved her over.
    â€œCome on sit here. They lyin to you, ‘just a few minutes.’” He pulled out a chair at his table, a dozen oysters and a bottle of beer waiting. “You don’t mind, I like to ask you about a movie you made.” He started to smile a little. “The one you called Whites Only ? You surprise me. Nice-lookin woman associatin with those freaks. They try and mess with you?”
    â€œAt first,” Dara said, seated now with Xavier. “I told them I’mtoo busy to fall in love, okay? I asked what they’ve got against African Americans. Got them saying nasty things and started shooting.”
    â€œShoulda used a shotgun.”
    Dara had a dozen oysters, then another while Xavier was on his third plate, Xavier telling her he’d been going to sea on and off most of fifty years. “Me and three hundred thousand Filipinos. I don’t know where they go. I always come back to New Orleans.”
    They had a couple of cognacs and