Big Easy Bonanza

saw the figure in the half-light: LaBelle’s burglar, the Toyota driver. It was still dark and the person was still only a shape wearing a stocking mask.
    The shape was standing over her, holding something, as if he planned to hit her with it. She rolled quickly to the other side of the bed, feeling for her gun, but unable, in her fog, to remember where she had put it. The figure ran out the front door.
    Skip felt groggy and her head hurt, probably from the brandy. It took every ounce of her strength to get out of bed, locate the gun, and run down the stairs, but this asshole had broken into her home twice, this time obviously meaning to harm her. It was not something she could let go.
    She turned onto Bourbon heading Uptown, not sure what else to do; a block ahead she saw a running figure. “Halt!” she yelled, knowing he couldn’t possibly hear her. The last of the Saturday night carousers were beginning to stagger their way home. He would blend easily into the crowd. But what about herf? A six-foot wild-haired, barefoot woman in a nightgown and brandishing a gun? Common sense told her to go back home immediately, but she could not. The feeling of violation was too great. Her head was clear now; she was furious.
    “Halt, Goddammit!” she yelled as she passed a knot of revelers in their early twenties.
    “Help! Herbie, help!” squeaked one of the girls.
    Someone answered, “Careful! She’s got a gun!”
    What if they called the police?
    The notion of being handcuffed by officers who didn’t know her and were under the impression she was a madwoman was too much. The burglar would get away—there was no question of that—and Skip would end up in a nightmare if she didn’t go home now. She stopped running and crossed the street so as not to pass Herbie and his friends again. She looked straight ahead, trying to look sane, but knew in her heart it was hopeless. Herbie’s group, shrinking against the buildings, was going quietly into one of the still-open bars, to call the police, she knew. Well, then, the hell with looking sane—the thing to do was to get off the street before they got there. She jogged home, rather enjoying the sensation of running barefoot in the cold.
    The burglar had come through the already-broken window—damn Jimmy Dee for not having it fixed before he left for the weekend. On closer inspection she could see that not only had he used the same window, he had once again used Jimmy Dee’s ladder, which Jimmy Dee had simply returned to his still-unlocked storeroom. Damn him again!
    Pulling on a sweatshirt and jeans and pinning up her hair, to look as different as possible from the lunatic the cops would be stalking, Skip went around to the back and dragged the ladder into her own building, leaving it downstairs in the entryway. As she worked, she heard a siren and was shocked to find herself frightened by it. If she had been spooked before, that was nothing.
    The break in the window was small—just large enough for someone to ram a hand through and unlock the window. She had taped the paper on it at Jimmy Dee’s request rather than board it up and leave nasty nail holes. Should she board it up now?
    No. She couldn’t handle spending that much time here. She would call a glazier as soon as it was late enough and send the bill to Dee-Dee, damn him again.
    For now, she had to get out. Even as she locked her door and headed to her car, she wasn’t sure where she would go.

Genealogy
1
    “ANDRÉ, CAN YOU play in your room, darlin’? Mustn’t wake Skip, baby.”
    “Will you come with me, Mommy?”
    Marcelle definitely didn’t want to play four-year-old games before she had had her coffee, but it wasn’t fair to André to shut him up alone while Skip was sleeping on the sofa. And she couldn’t wake Skip after what she’d been through. What to do?
    Make a deal, as usual: “Honey, Mommy needs her coffee right now. Could you play alone for a while? And we’ll go to the park later.”
    “Okay.”
    He padded off like the little gentleman he was, and Marcelle marveled at her good luck. It had to be that—dumb luck—because much better mothers than she had perfectly awful children.
    She made coffee for herself and Skip, not knowing if Skip would even wake up before it cooled but wanting compulsively to do something for her. After the initial fear attached to having her doorbell rung by a police officer at dawn, she was childishly grateful to Skip for coming to her. This must truly