Louisiana Hotshot

by Julie Smith

  The minister got on with the show. He said he had known Rhonda personally, but not well, and had interviewed all her family about her and that she, too, had loved music, almost as much as she loved Jesus and her family. Oh, yes, she loved music, and she loved animals, too, and had once had a dog named Grizzy. And she had graduated from Ben Franklin High School and had gone on to pursue a lifelong interest in fashion, taking a job at Millie the Milliner’s, though it took her far from home, deep into the dark heart of the French Quarter itself. And she had done well there, and she had thrived, and now this young woman had been taken from her family and her loving friends…”

  He went on like that for a while. He mentioned the way people loved her and she had made the customers feel at home, and she had been a faithful and loyal employee, but, in truth, the gist of it seemed to be that Rhonda hadn’t done very much with her life except work in a hat shop.

  But she had loved music and she had loved to hear her sister perform with the Gethsemane Baptist choir, and her favorite song had been “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” which the choir would now perform and would like to dedicate to her memory and to the Bergeron family.

  They hadn’t even gotten to “sweet” before Talba was sobbing again. Before, it had been as if she had contracted a sudden crying disease, a bug that simply came and controlled her body, pushing out of it tears and unwanted sounds. This was different. A flood of sadness had enveloped her and invaded her and was now flailing for expression. And the flood of sadness was an old friend.

  She knew it as well as she did her own skepticism, her dislike of sanctimonious ministers, be they Methodist or Baptist, black or white, and yet she could not imagine how she did.

  I’ve been here before, she thought, and suddenly she wasn’t Talba Wallis going out of control in one of the pews, but a tiny brown angel floating over the congregation, looking down at the people, staring down at Rhonda’s casket, and the salt-and-pepper choir, and seeing, quite distinctly, Urethra Tabitha Sandra Talba Wallis, the Baroness de Pontalba, keening like some Third World mourner for a woman she never knew.

  She must have truly been making a spectacle of herself, for once again, the woman to her right, so soundly rebuffed before, dared to touch her again, to put an arm around her. And with the touch, the vision dissolved.

  Chapter 7

  Eddie had awakened Monday with yet another headache, but he damn sure wasn’t going to give in to it. He downed three cups of black coffee, and pried himself into his office.

  Audrey kept nagging him to see a neurologist, and if the headaches kept up, he was going to have to. He felt like shit. They always left him feeling washed-out and without enthusiasm. Depressed, Audrey would say.

  This getting old most assuredly was not, as they said, for sissies. Sixty-five in a couple of weeks and he felt a hundred and five.

  He had a bad feeling Audrey and Angie were up to some damn thing, mostly because they hadn’t nagged him about having a party. Five or six of his old buddies from his cops-and-robber days were taking him to lunch at Galatoire’s, something they never did. Therefore, Audrey had probably put them up to it to make him think that was the party. But there had to be more. Audrey and Angie were going to try to cheer him up, he knew it.

  Damn, he felt bad. He thought the reason he was so depressed was the damn machine. The way his business had changed from active pursuit— the real deal— to sitting in his office hitting a keyboard.

  Well, now he had a Baroness to deal with that shit. So why did he have headaches? He couldn’t figure it, unless he had a brain tumor.

  “Hello, Eileen. Anything up?”

  “Talba’s at the funeral, like you said. Aziza Scott called. She’s coming over on her lunch hour.”

  Charming. As if he didn’t need a lunch hour.

  He went in his office and called his doctor. What the hell. His eye bags were turning into steamer trunks.

  At twelve-eighteen precisely, Aziza Scott arrived on the warpath. “Eddie Valentino, what the hell do you mean leaving messages at my office and all over my answering machine?”

  Eddie leaned back in his chair and gave her his Italian-Southerner act. “The best way to reach somebody is usually to leave ‘em a message. Seems like I heard that somewhere.”

  “It is nobody’s business at my office that I’ve hired a private detective.”

  “Ms. Scott, I didn’t tell ‘em I’m a private detective. I needed to tell you there was a chance your daughter might be in danger.”

  “She was fine. She was with her grandmother.”

  She seemed to be calming down a bit, and Eddie patted the air to set the mood. “Well, that’s fine. Yeah, you right, that’s just fine.” Behind her, he saw Talba walk past on the way to her office. “Ms. Wallis. Ya got a minute?”

  “Sure, Eddie.” She stepped in, and he noticed she was wearing a dark suit, looking fairly civilized despite her wild hair. “Hello, Ms. Scott.”

  Eddie said, “Sit down. Sit down. How was the funeral?”

  “Sad. I saw Cassandra there.”

  Scott looked bewildered. “You went to the funeral? Why?”

  Eddie spoke quickly before Talba could. “As a gesture of respect.” He hoped she’d catch the subtle put-down. Damn this woman. Try to tell her her child was in danger, and she reamed you out. “Look, Ms. Scott, I don’t know if you actually got the gist of the messages or not, but it’s this: there could be a connection between your daughter’s rape and this girl’s death.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She stood. “You people live in a world of paranoia, you know that? I’d hate to live like you.”

  Eddie patted air again. “Well, I’m sure you’re right. We felt we had a duty to apprise you of the possibility, that’s all.”

  She was tall to begin with, and she wore high heels; she looked down at Eddie as if he were a nest of vermin. “I need you to attend to the matter for which I hired you.”

  She left like a runway model, grand and dramatic.

  Talba said, “What was that about?”

  Eddie sighed. “The thing the shrinks call denial. She came over here because she’s scared shitless (excuse my French), but she’s not about to interrupt her big important life to do anything more than throw money at the problem.” He spread his open hands. “What the hell. We tried, huh?”

  Ms. Wallis had the look of a KO’ed fighter coming to, kind of dazed and disoriented. “She’s batshit. Uh… excuse my French.”

  Eddie didn’t want to excuse it at all— it was one thing for him, another for a young lady employee, even a black one. But under the circumstances, there was nothing to do but let it go. He rubbed his head. The fool headache was coming back. “You get anything at the funeral?”

  “Well, the killer wasn’t there unless he’s really a master of disguise. I picked a few names off the guest registry.” She shrugged. “I could call them about her, see if she’s got any black friends they know of— there sure weren’t many at her funeral. But the obvious thing’s to ask Pamela.”

  “What ya sayin’?”

  She looked at him as if he were speaking Chinese. “Ask Pamela. If anybody’d know who Toes is, she would.”

  “Not that— the other thing you said. Everybody in the whole case is black— whatcha mean she doesn’t have black friends?”

  “Oh. I forgot you didn’t know. The Bergerons are white. Pamela’s one of a handful of whites in that choir the girls sing in.”

  “She must have some voice,” Eddie muttered. He was a little embarrassed, though exactly why he couldn’t have said. “Give me the names from the registry. We can’t talk to the poor kid the same day they buried her sister. We’ll wait a coupla days on the Bergerons. Ya understand me?”

  “Sure. But why don’t I call the people at the funeral?” Something mischievous played in her eyes. “I mean, I’m the right demographic and everything.”

  He sighed, once again feeling a lack of enthusi
asm. “I better do it.”

  “You sure?” She smiled, and waved a letter. “My license came.” She looked full of beans and ready to face the world, like a kid who’s just graduated. Eddie envied her.

  “Well, that’s a damn relief. Yeah, you do it.”

  “Also, she used to work in a hat shop. I’m going there first.”

  He put his head in his hands. “Good idea. Just be sure ya leave Eileen a list of places you’re goin’ to. And leave the Bergerons alone. Ya understand?”

  “Eddie?” she said. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Get outta here, all right? Don’t mess with those people. I mean it.”

  Hell. All he wanted to do was go home and sit in a dark room for a couple of hours. Take a few aspirin, see if it got any better.

  ***

  When she saw him, Audrey’s face froze in a mask of fear under its pound of makeup. “Eddie. What are you doin’ home?”

  “What’s the matter? Got the mailman in the bedroom?” It was an automatic line, stupid and trite, but now he really looked at her. Her habitual heavy makeup wasn’t quite immaculate, indeed seemed streaky and tatty. Her hair was a bit unkempt, as if she’d been lying down, but she was dressed up. “Hey. Where ya goin’?”

  “I just got back.” She stood tall and planted her feet. “I’ve been to my shrink’s, Eddie.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been seeing a therapist.”

  “Are you nuts or something?” He was too panicked to say anything else.

  “I’ve been so worried about you I had to talk to somebody. I can’t go through this alone; I swear to God I can’t.”

  He covered the room between them in three steps and put his arms around her, held her tight to him, something he never did. Was everything in the world coming apart? “Go through what, baby? What’cha talkin’ about? I’m here with ya. You don’t have to go through anything alone.”

  “I have to watch you fall apart. All by myself, except for Angie. You’re just letting it happen, and you won’t do nothin’ about it, and I can’t. I’m going crazy, Eddie. I’m going crazy.” She wasn’t crying the way he’d expect her to be; just talking, sounding sad, like she was already all cried out— like some pathetic client of his, someone with problems. Not like Audrey, his wife.

  “He thinks it’s because of Anthony, Eddie.”

  He was suddenly livid. “You talk to some asshole about me? Ya talk about me? You can’t do that— what the hell ya think ya doing?”

  She shook her head, as if he were some kind of hopeless case, and got herself a drink of water. He waited for her to answer, but she just stood there drinking her water, looking at him.

  ***

  Talba was starting to wonder what the hell she’d signed up for. Eddie wasn’t well. She’d have to speak to Eileen about it— maybe he had a drug problem or something. But his money was good and the work was pretty fascinating.

  She’d been to her first Methodist church and her first funeral, and now she was about to visit Millie the Milliner, always a treat. Millie, whose name had probably once been Thelma or Elsie, made exquisite nineteenth-century-style hats, perfect to wear with vintage clothing of the type Rhonda had been buried in. They were huge veiled bonnets piled high with flowers and fruit and foliage, each flower, each grape, each leaf lovingly handmade. They could easily have been parodies of themselves, but Millie managed by a millimeter to keep from crossing the line.

  Her own work cost hundreds of dollars, but she also sold hats by lesser artists, smaller, more contemporary items more to Talba’s taste, if the truth be told. But though Talba’d probably never wear one of Millie’s masterpieces, she’d once spent a delicious two hours minutely examining every item in the store and finally walked away with a purple sequin fantasy that had a kind of Garden of Eden scene worked into it— entwined snakes and apples and branches— a thing entirely befitting a Baroness. The shape of the hat was African— a kind of pillbox more often worn by men than women— and the decorative work was like Haitian sequin art. She often wore it for performances.

  The day she’d shopped there Millie herself had been absent, but today, she recognized the woman in charge as someone she’d seen earlier. She’d have to be blind not to have seen her.

  The other woman spoke first. “I saw you at the funeral, didn’t I?” She was dressed in a taffeta teal suit with a fitted jacket and calf-length full skirt, the jacket cut for maximum decolletage and trimmed with lace and black buttons. The suit was clearly contemporary, perhaps something the woman had whipped up herself, but the style was kind of a Gay Nineties variation, happily absent the bustle. With it, she wore a close-fitting hat of exquisite feathers in rusts and browns and gold, plucked from pheasants, probably.

  The outfit was nothing you could miss, but on this woman, once you saw it, it was a picture you’d never forget. She had masses of tumbling flame-colored curls trailing halfway down her back, a prominent hawky nose, and about a hundred and fifty pounds over the limit. She was one of those fat women who had perfect, tint-tipped hands and moved like a wood nymph. But she wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t only the nose that kept her from it. She had slightly scarred skin and a perennially wary look; her eyes moved too fast, scanned too much. Already, Talba felt like a shoplifter.

  The thing to do was disarm her.

  She stuck out her hand. “Millie? Talba Wallis. I’m such a fan of yours. One day I’m gonna get my mama one of your hats. I know she’d just love one.”

  “Your mama?” The woman turned her eyebrow into an arch that could have held up a bridge.

  Talba could have bitten her tongue. “Well, she’s a church lady. Before today, I would have said I don’t go anywhere good enough for them, but then I didn’t know I was going to be going to a funeral, did you? That was a shocker, wasn’t it? Rhonda, I mean.”

  Millie’s wariness crystallized into action. Evidently, the thing she feared had come to pass, and it was Talba herself. She was probably about five-seven and wore three-inch heels, so that, with the hair and hat, she was a good six feet, and she drew herself to full advantage. The suit, as if not already wide enough just to go around her, was equipped with shoulder pads. She thrust her arm out to full length and brandished a needle-sharp, blood-red nail. “If you’re a friend of T and T’s, you can just get out of here.”

  Talba wasn’t sure what she was hearing. “TNT? The explosive?” She was too baffled even to get out of the way.

  Millie stepped forward, the point of the nail a hair from slicing Talba’s nose. Her voice was low and commanding. “I said get out of here.”

  Talba felt her face start to lose composure. Bafflement was starting to give way to alarm. She stepped backward, stumbling in the process, and said, more or less to the floor, “I don’t think I’m who you think I am. I’m an investigator looking into Rhonda’s death.”

  “You’re what?” Now she seemed as bewildered as Talba. “You’re a cop?”

  “Not exactly.” Not at all, actually. “I work for a man named Eddie Valentino. To tell you the truth, I never even heard of Rhonda Bergeron until three days ago. I wouldn’t know she worked here if it hadn’t been for that smarmy preacher.”

  Unexpectedly, Millie barked out a laugh. “Oh, God. Didn’t he make you feel like taking a bath?”

  Talba rolled her eyes. “I suppose that’s one way of saying good-bye.” She looked full into Millie’s face and saw that her eyes were some kind of blue-green mixture made up to match her outfit. The liner was smeared in the heat. “Who did you think I was?” she asked.

  Millie’s cheeks flushed. “Nobody. I just got mixed up for a minute.”

  Talba was starting to get the hang of this, and she liked where it was heading: Millie had evidently come to a conclusion based on color. She said, “Look. Let me be honest with you. I’m looking for a black man in his twenties who may have committed a crime. I know he knew Rhonda, but I don’t know his name. Is TNT black, by any chance?”
/>   Millie gasped. “You really don’t know them, do you?”

  Talba was silent, allowed her head to move only slightly.

  Millie said, “What crime?”

  Again, Talba was silent, though now she was buying time, trying to figure out what to say. She wasn’t sure what the detectives’ code was.

  Again, Millie leaped to conclusions. “Murder, right? You think he killed Rhonda. The family hired you, right? Oh, shit, I knew it! I told Danielle, ‘this is no accident. You don’t mess with those kind of people.’”

  Bingo, Talba thought. Drugs. Isn’t it always?

  The woman kept on talking. “Goddam, I felt guilty when that asshole was talking today, knowing all the while it happened right in my shop. She’d never have gotten mixed up with that asshole if it hadn’t been for me.” Her face crumpled and tears rolled. She pulled a tissue out of her all-too-evident bosom.

  Talba saw an opportunity to inject humor: “She was mixed up with the preacher?”

  Millie barked her laugh again. “No, a different asshole. I’m going to tell you about it. I’m going to tell you all about it. I swear to God, I hope that asshole gets the chair.”

  Talba thought, You just do that thing, but Millie said abruptly, “You got any I.D.?”

  “Sure.” She brought out the letter that constituted her apprentice license, trying not to show how embarrassed she was at being not merely a novice but a newborn.

  But Millie didn’t seem to notice, just nodded, satisfied. “You ever heard of Baron Tujague?”

  “Well… sure. Everybody’s heard of Baron Tujague. I think he owns half the city by now.”

  “Yeah, and he’s got about ten Grammys.”

  Tujague was a rapper, and that wasn’t the half of it. He also had his own label, which employed a good number of people; he’d been responsible for discovering three other musicians who’d had gold records, and he had a new crop of protégés coming up. Plus, he was an extremely prominent speaker-at-schools and maker of public-service commercials.