Big Easy Bonanza

himself that he had lost another round in his ongoing battle with the great drug alcohol, but he decided not to let this be his final encounter. Jamming his keys back into his pants pocket, Tubby began an unsteady march away from the river and in the general direction of home. Dogs barked through curtained windows at him, and stray cats peered around the tires of parked cars to watch his progress.
    What was it, maybe thirty-five blocks? Just a couple of miles. Maybe he would be sobered up by the time he got there. Maybe he’d try jogging it. Better save his energy in case he needed to run for real. He picked up the pace anyway, and his course straightened—a solitary lawyer bobbing along through dark neighborhoods, navigating by the moon.

ONE
    “Man, it’s hard to get up for work when it’s raining like this.” Freddie took a bite out of his bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit and stared morosely at the rain coming down in sheets outside the McDonald’s on Carrollton Avenue.
    “As little work as you do, Freddie, I wouldn’t complain,” the big man sitting across the plastic table said. He had broad, square shoulders, and his fingers wrapped entirely around the cup of coffee he was holding.
    “What job did you ever put me on that I didn’t do? I’m asking you.” Freddie looked offended.
    “Sure, you do everything right, but I have to keep my eyes on you the whole time.”
    “That ain’t fair, Casey.”
    Casey took a sip of coffee. He watched some telephone company workers run from their truck into the restaurant. They were slinging rainwater off their sleeves when they passed, and a couple of drops caught Casey on the cheek.
    “Christ!” he protested, but the men paid no attention to him. He contemplated Freddie, who was pushing the last of the biscuit into his mouth.
    “Okay. Here’s a job for you, Freddie. We’re going to take some money away from a drug runner.”
    Freddie gulped down what he was chewing. “Huh?” he said. He poked a finger in his mouth to search.
    “That’s a bad habit you have, making me repeat everything. It’s an important job I’m talking about. We can see what you’re capable of doing.”
    “What do you mean, drugs? Wouldn’t it, you know, look bad for us to be doing drug stuff?”
    “Listen up, Freddie.” Casey leaned across the table to get closer to Freddie’s face. “I don’t give a shit about drugs. We’re just going to take the criminals’ money. We’re the good guys.”
    “Oh,” Freddie nodded. “How much money?” he asked.
    “You’ll get enough. I’ll take care of you.”
    “What’s my job?”
    “Backup. Enforcement. Whatever the fuck I tell you to do.”
    “Could somebody get hurt?” Freddie asked, which was a dumb question.
    “Oh, yeah,” Casey said. “I think it’s a distinct possibility there could be some mayhem involved with this. Maybe a little blood on the streets, here and there. You’d be up for that, wouldn’t you?”
    Freddie thought for a second, but not very deeply.
    “Just tell me what to do, boss.” He put on a goofy grin and rolled his eyes back in his head, like a comedian he had seen on TV, trying to get a chuckle out of Casey.
    Casey wouldn’t give it to him.
    “Just finish your fucking McMuffin, Freddie, and let’s get out of here.”

TWO
    Tubby Dubonnet toyed with a silver salad fork, heavy as a sugar bowl. “This is the most complicated appetizer I’ve ever seen,” he told Dr. Feingold. The arrangement that the black-vested waiter had just placed in front of him involved three almost-round crawfish beignets flecked with tiny specks of pimento. They were accompanied by a second plate decorated with skinny fettuccine noodles, lettuce leaves, and curled ribbons of carrots. The waiter was explaining that the chef suggested taking each beignet, rolling it and the vegetables up in a lettuce leaf, and dipping it all into a little china bowl of orange sauce, which completed the dish. There were also mint leaves, but Tubby missed what he was supposed to do with those.
    “It is a little work,” Dr. Feingold said when the waiter departed, “but I think you’ll find it very refreshing. Don’t you love what they’ve done with this place?”
    “Very nice,” Tubby agreed. The air floated gently from the ceiling fans rotating lazily over the newly painted dining room with its rows of windows along St. Charles Avenue. A casual mix of coat-and-tie office workers and the homeless, civilization’s stragglers,