Big Easy Bonanza

about—with the drug runner?” he asked.
    “It isn’t something you need to worry about yet. The money is out there as we speak. I haven’t quite got a fix on it yet, but I will. Then I’ll let you know it’s time to answer the bell.”
    “I’ll be ready, whenever.”
    “Let’s move it,” Casey shouted out the window. The block-long line of cars didn’t budge.
    “Let’s try out the light and see if we can get through this,” Casey said.
    Freddie put the blue flasher on top of the dashboard and flipped the switch. Casey blew the horn, bounced two wheels up on the curb, and started squeezing through. This was one of the times he wished he was a city cop. He would love to have a loudspeaker he could use to make these fools get out of the way. Only thing, there wasn’t any money in being a cop.

THREE
    People often asked Tubby what his day was like—how it was being a lawyer in a city like New Orleans. He knew there was no way to describe it, all the sad and comic touches. He just knew he wasn’t often bored.
    He parked his red Thunderbird convertible by the abandoned, boarded-up Falstaff brewery off Broad Street and scrambled across four busy lanes to the plaza in front of Traffic Court. Inside the masses were gathering for afternoon services, reduced to the common denominator of having to explain away yellow lights that turned red, school-zone signs hidden behind crepe myrtle trees, and Breathalyzer machines that gave out faulty readings.
    Courtroom C was filled with at least a hundred people, each waiting for his name to be called by the clerk up front, a balding man with a lumpy nose and a wrinkled tie named Moses Seamster, who had mastered an attitude of total indifference to everything. His foghorn voice summoned a few more offenders every few minutes to come forward and plead with him about their cases. He disposed of the vast majority in ten seconds and fewer words, accepting their plea, fixing their fine, and sending them off to pay. The judge was nowhere to be seen. A handful of bored-looking lawyers hung out on the front row and around a door leading to the back room where an assistant city attorney considered more grievous offenses and dealt with citizens who refused to plead guilty. Tubby was acquainted with a bunch of the regulars, and he walked up to join them.
    “Hiya, Walter, whatcha got today?” he asked an older attorney he knew, a tall gentleman wearing a shiny gray suit and holding his briefcase across his narrow chest like it might stop a bullet.
    “Hey, Tubby. DWI. Drove into the bushes off Wisner into City Park. My issue is no one saw him actually driving the vehicle, and he wasn’t on a public thoroughfare when the cops pulled him out of the shrubbery. So where’s the crime? It’s bullshit, maybe, but we’ll see. What’s yours?”
    “My client is Monster Mudbug,” Tubby said.
    “What, the guy you see at Mardi Gras?”
    “That’s him. Oh no, here he is.”
    Monster Mudbug drove a tow truck by trade. He had spotted Tubby and was walking up the aisle dressed in dusty blue jeans, a spray-painted surfer shirt, and blue sunglasses. He paused at the swinging wooden gate and waved, and Tubby went over to collect him.
    “Jesus, I told you to clean up, Adrian.”
    “Couldn’t, Mr. Tubby. I was working.”
    “You must have been working under a car.”
    “Yeah, there was a three-car wreck up on the high rise. Two other guys beat me there, so I had to scoop the worst car, which had both its front tires completely mangled. First I had to wait for the ambulance and the rescue guys to get the people out.”
    “Were they hurt?”
    “Yeah, pretty bad. The guy was some kind of preacher, and these leaflets about a revival or something were blowing out of his car and all over the highway. This pretty lady that was in the car with him got banged on the head. She was walking around in circles saying, ‘Reverend James, Reverend James.’” Adrian tried to imitate her. “She had blood just dripping off her.”
    Tubby shook his head in sympathy. “Listen, Adrian…” he began.
    “Yeah, I was kind of worried that the old man might be dead. The ambulance driver said he’d pull through, though. But I guess if he’d of died he would have gone straight to heaven. Don’t you think? Baptists believe in heaven, don’t they?”
    “Sure they do, Adrian. Did you think it was just a Catholic thing? But now that you’re here, did you bring proof of insurance?”
    “Yeah, sixty