Big Easy Bonanza

in the crosswalk.
    “Sorry,” the kid shouted, laughing, and kept on pedaling, a carefree two-wheeled traveler through a land of over-heated cars stuck waiting for the light and burning plenty of gas.
    One of the gardeners straightened up to wipe the sweat from her forehead with the loose sleeve of her jacket. She looked at the line of cars, and in a red one not far away she saw a man that she knew. Quickly, she put her head down and buried her hands deeply in the soft dirt.
    Casey pressed the horn and held it.
    “What’s the problem?” he yelled out the window to nobody in particular.
    Freddie leaned out his side to look.
    “I think they’re letting cars out of the garage. I don’t see no accident.”
    “What do women expect you to think when they go around exposed like that?” Casey muttered, looking over a pair of sharply dressed secretaries strolling along the sidewalk on their lunch break. He spied the gardener and chuckled when she ducked.
    “It’s indecent,” Freddie agreed.
    “You see that skinny gook over there? The one squatting by that bush?”
    “Yeah, sure.”
    “They call her Panda. Her brother got locked up, breaking and entering, car theft, something like that. Her family makes the right connections, and it comes around to me that they wanted him treated okay in jail. You know, where nobody bothers him, and he gets to have his cigarettes and his little personal items without any hassle. No big thing. I’m dealing with Bin Minny on this, you know who I mean?”
    “I seen him around. I think I seen him talking to you.”
    “Yeah, well he’s the king gook out in New Orleans East, where they all live. You know, you don’t see no dogs running loose out there.”
    Freddie laughed.
    Casey gunned the motor, keeping an eye on the temperature gauge. The traffic seemed permanently stalled.
    “This little girl, Panda, comes to see me at the office,” Casey continued. By “office” Freddie understood him to mean BB Bail Bonds—across from the Criminal Courts building, where Casey had a desk and phone and generally hung out most of the time—not Casey’s official office at the jail. He rarely went there, but he allowed Freddie to use it if he needed a private place to take a nap or eat a pizza that he didn’t want to share.
    “I don’t know how she knew who I was, but she comes in, ‘Missa Casey,’ she says. She can hardly talk English. But she tells me that Bin Minny is raising the price for looking after her brother and she can’t pay it. So he offers to let her work it out as one of his girls, and she can make lots of money that way. She don’t like that, so she comes to see me.”
    “What’d you tell her?” Freddie asked.
    “I told her to get the hell out of my office. Like I’m gonna mess up my friendly relations with Bin Minny ‘cause this little girl, who has an asshole for a brother, can’t get along. She leaves like she don’t understand how ‘Big Missa Sheriff Casey’ can say that, but she gets the message. Right away I call Bin Minny to tell him one of his people is off the reservation and, real cool, he asks me, as a favor, to wise up the brother. I pass the word, and two of the guys at the jail work the brother over a little bit. That was right before you got here, Freddie. If you’d been on my team then, it would have been a good job for you.”
    “I wouldn’t have minded,” Freddie said.
    “And what do you know, the next week the payments are being made again, the brother gets over his scrapes and bruises, and Bin Minny owes me a favor. My only regret is I probably should have poked her while I had the chance, but I don’t like gooks.”
    “It’s all pink on the inside,” Freddie offered.
    “That’s a very humorous observation, Freddie,” Casey said. “Speaking of which, I just remembered we’re supposed to pass by the Starburst Lounge today and pick up our present.”
    “I could do that this afternoon, if you’re busy,” Freddie suggested.
    “You’d like to go by yourself, wouldn’t you, Freddie? That way you collect a little extra, right?”
    “No, nothing like that, Casey. I was just saying I’d go. Then I’d bring it over to your office—if you got something else to do.”
    “I appreciate your volunteer spirit. Some initiative is a good thing. But not too much.”
    Sitting around in traffic was putting Casey in a dangerous mood, and Freddie wanted to change the subject.
    “When are we going to do that job you were talking