82 Desire
Page 33
“What about your career?”
“This is Lousisiana, baby. If it’s bad enough, I might end up governor.”
Something had happened. “Uh, Bebe, what’s going on? You’re taking this way too lightly.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll beat you up later. I’m saving my best shots for face-to-face. I just sound calm because I already know about the Skinners. I had a courtesy call from Jane Storey—you know, the reporter. Somehow she found out about you, baby; the story’s running tomorrow.”
“Oh, shit.”
“That’s what I said.”
“I love you, Bebe.”
“I missed you,” she said. “I really did miss you.”
He wondered if she really could handle what was going to come down.
Later, Dina woke up and squeezed his hand. “You alive?”
“Uh-huh. You?”
“I must be,” she said. “I’m hungry.”
He did the burger trick with her, and found it worked a second time. After she’d eaten, she smiled and said, “Well, I can’t say it hasn’t been fun.”
“You sound like you’re going somewhere.”
“Not me. But you were, even before there were cops in your life. Now you really are.”
His throat felt all tight and scratchy. Just to prolong the connection, he said something he didn’t mean. “I’ll write you from the Big House.”
She touched his face on the pretext of brushing hair out of his eyes. “I don’t think so. I think this is the end of the line for Dean and Dina.”
“I’m going to miss you.”
“True. True. Who’ll go skinny-dipping with you?”
And he had the strangest notion. Maybe Bebe would. Maybe she was different, too. Or maybe she would be after everything that was about to happen. But maybe not. He’d made it this far with a wife who didn’t skinny-dip; one who’d stand by him while he went to jail was a lot better than he deserved.
***
“What do you think of this?” Talba had on fuchsia harem pants with a magenta leotard. She had draped a purple and gold sari over her head, and the thing was so long it dragged on the floor.
Her mama said, “You think Miz Clara goin’ out in public with somebody dress like that, you got another think comin’. I didn’t send my only daughter to college so she can dress like Whoopi Goldberg.”
Darryl Boucree, who happened to be waiting for both of them, asked, “What on earth’s wrong with Whoopi Goldberg?”
“That does it,” Talba countered, and changed into a long black dress.
“Even better,” said Darryl.
“Needs somethin’, though.” Talba draped the sari again and waited for the expected tirade from Miz Clara.
But her mother said, “Now that’s nice.”
“Well, I can’t wear it if you like it.”
She might have changed again, but Darryl hustled her butt out the door. “Come on, we got to get over there.”
On the heels of Jane Storey’s much-solicited article about her, which had finally materialized, Talba was presenting the program at Le Petit Theatre’s Sunday Salon. This was a fund-raiser held once a month and attended mostly by those in the neighborhood, which was the French Quarter. It wasn’t a paying gig—in fact, she well knew she was doing them a favor—but, still, it was her biggest, best-publicized, and by far most mainstream reading ever.
She’d gotten a couple of warm-up acts—an African dance troupe and a kid from NOCCA who played trumpet like Kermit Ruffins—but The Baroness was the main event, and she wondered if anyone would come.
When she walked in, the place was packed. Skip the cop was there, with three guys and the same two kids from last time, one of whom had a shaved head, and the other of whom had a boyfriend who’d look better with one. Cindy Lou the shrink was there, and Talba’s client, Ray, and his wife. Aha—even Bebe and Russell Fortier. The famous and the infamous, all in one family.
She started to get stage fright.
And then she was reading. She read her perennial crowd-pleaser, “I Am Like a Cat,” aware of Miz Clara’s discomfort, and Darryl’s pride, and the shock she always evoked from the white people, and quite a few guilty expressions as well.
When she had finished, she said, “Something happened to me since the last time I read that poem. My whole life changed, but I don’t quite know what it all means. So you know what I do when that happens? I write a poem about it. I did that this week and I’m about to read y’all my new poem. Listen now, y’all. I’m like more things than a cat.”
I am like an athlete.
One of those brilliant child gymnasts, twelve-year-old prodigy swimmers,
Gold medal already and no sign of breasts.
Nothing else to do now.
I lived my life for one thing only.
Get that man was so mean to my mama.
Kill him maybe. Maybe just torture him a couple of
decades.
Tell all his friends and all his family.
Put it in the paper and cry it from the rooftops.
Humiliate that namedropper, namestopper,
namekiller,
namethug, nameperv, nameperp, nameHOOLIGAN Just the way he did my mama.
And I wrote y’all a poem said how mad I was.
And I learned a whoooole new profession, just so I could find me that Pill Man name me Exit for Excreta.
I was a private dick.
And when you think about where that old Urethra is,
And how The Baroness Myself is a poet of some renown,
Doesn’t that just make you want to elbow fate right in the ribs?
Private dickhead’s more like it, but you knew I was gon’ say that. So I won’t.
I was gon’ use my educated, middle-class, cuttin’-edge electronic skills to catch me that elusive Pill Man.
To catch me that namedropper, namestopper, namekiller, namethug, nameperv, nameperp, nameHOOLIGAN.
And I was gon’ use plain old-fashioned deception right along with all that high technology.
I was gon’ bust my butt right into Charity, that misnamed old hole. I was gon’ deceive my way in.
I was gon’ pretend to be a simple blue-skirted worker, and private-dick my way to justice.
But then the fates Or God
Or that funny-boy Legba—Or maybe The Baroness Myself-—
Pasted my aristocratic ass right square on the wrong damn page.
The Baroness Pontalba,
She of the dependable high drama and the desperate hand-wringin’ foot-stompin’, somehow became a mere supporting player in some upstart parallel drama.
Just like white folks to steal the spotlight.
(Here Talba paused and was rewarded with light tittering.)
Oh, DESPAIR.
Oh, MISERY.
Oh, suffering, oh pain.
Ancient secrets slimed to the sun
And none of ’em mine or my mama’s.
Marriages died.
And so did a couple of men.
For more or less no reason except some crime-boy’s made-up, silly-ass idea about himself. And guess what?
A Jane named Storey wrote one about little old me. That’s right— Me Me Me Me.
(Talba sang the “me’s” to make sure no one was sleeping.)
Finally.
At last.
Me Me Me Me.
(Once again, she made music of the “me’s.”)
I finally got to strut and fret my hour.
And then the fates
Or God
Or that funny-boy Legba
Or maybe The Baroness Myself
Elicited thirteen separate confessions from
Thirteen separate Pill Men
Who all named some little girl Exit for Excreta.
(Or said they did.)
And twenty-seven wives, nurses, girlfriends, boyfriends, assorted orderlies, and liars
Tattled on another twenty-seven Pill Men who also committed that unspeaka
ble sin.
(It is alleged.) And eight other little Urethras called to express solidarity in piss.
And did The Baroness Myself get satisfaction?
Well, no, y’all.
Does anybody? Ever?
In case y’all haven’t heard, there ain’t no justice.
THE END
Acknowledgments
Writing a book affords a unique opportunity to see how successful people work. My research makes clear that the secret of success must surely be this: treat even a request for free advice as if it were a million-dollar job. Each time, I’m astonished anew at the time and effort big-deal experts are willing to put in just to help me write a book.
Skip Langdon simply couldn’t function without Captain Linda Buczek of the New Orleans Police Department, and I couldn’t without Greg Peterson, who never, ever laughs at my pitiful efforts to master these newfangled writing machines.
It took a trio of experts to teach me even the most rudimentary facts about oil, and though one must rmain a confidential informer, I owe him a huge debt and thank him all the same. The others are Joe Pecot and Ken Bramlett, a geologist whom even I can understand.
Jim Welsh and Walt Philbin brought me up to date on reporting at the end of the millennium, and others gave advice and answered niggling questions: Betsy and Jim Petersen, Chris Wiltz, Debbie Faust, and Ken White.
My heroic assistant, Kathy Perry, once again got through a book without slapping me silly, and my husband, Lee Pryor, helped in so many ways I can’t count them.
A thousand thanks to everyone who helped. Anything wrong is my fault, not theirs.
Next in the Skip Langdon series is MEAN WOMAN BLUES. Find out more at www.booksbnimble.com or www.juliesmithbooks.com.
The Skip Langdon Series
(in order of publication)
NEW ORLEANS MOURNING
THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ
JAZZ FUNERAL
DEATH BEFORE FACEBOOK (formerly NEW ORLEANS BEAT)
HOUSE OF BLUES
THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
CRESCENT CITY CONNECTION (formerly CRESCENT CITY KILL)
82 DESIRE
MEAN WOMAN BLUES
Also by Julie Smith:
The Rebecca Schwartz Series
DEATH TURNS A TRICK
THE SOURDOUGH WARS
TOURIST TRAP
DEAD IN THE WATER
OTHER PEOPLE’S SKELETONS
The Paul Macdonald Series
TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURE
HUCKLEBERRY FIEND
The Talba Wallis Series
LOUISIANA HOTSHOT
LOUISIANA BIGSHOT
LOUISIANA LAMENT
P.I. ON A HOT TIN ROOF
As Well As:
WRITING YOUR WAY: THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL TRACK
NEW ORLEANS NOIR (ed.)
And don’t miss ALWAYS OTHELLO, a Skip Langdon story, as well as the brand new short story, PRIVATE CHICK, which asks the question, is this country ready for a drag queen detective? More info at www.booksBnimble.com
If you enjoyed this book, let us keep you up-to-date on all our forthcoming mysteries. Sign up for our mailing list at www.booksbnimble.com
About the Author
Julie Smith is a New Orleans writer and former reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Times-Picayune. New Orleans Mourning, her first novel featuring New Orleans cop Skip Langdon, won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel, and she has since published eight more highly-acclaimed books in the series, plus spun off a second New Orleans series featuring PI and poet Talba Wallis.
She is also the author of the Rebecca Schwartz series and the Paul Mcdonald series, plus the YA novels CURSEBUSTERS! and EXPOSED. In addition to her novels, she’s written numerous essays and short stories and is the editor of NEW ORLEANS NOIR.