Two knives found in the roots of a drowned cypress in Blackwater, wrapped in oilcloth. One was the knife. The other was lagniappe. Now they come when Archie Plume calls, and he has his suspicions about where they wait.

It looks like a pocket watch, and strangers ask it the time. Archie Plume on the instrument behind the pressings in his files, the seconds it costs, and the things that show up in them uninvited.