Big Easy Bonanza

he is of losing a customer.”
    “Sounds un-American.”
    “Big Brother is here, Tubby.” Tubby said he might drop by to discuss this further and hung up. What to do, what to do? The problem was not paying taxes on the money. It was that he could not think how he could explain to the IRS, or anybody else who might ask him, where he got $950,000.
    It suddenly struck Tubby that a great many desirable things cost less than $10,000. If he wandered through downtown, where he had frequented the same shops for years, dropping wads of cash, his visits would definitely be long remembered. He had a reputation for being tight with a dollar. There were all sorts of shopping malls in the suburbs, however, and today would be just ideal to visit them.
    Driving west on the Interstate he checked in with Cherrylynn on the car phone. All of his messages were routine but one. His ex-wife had called, but he would deal with her later. He told Cherrylynn he was feeling a little down in the dumps and thought he might spend the rest of the day at the track. She could take the afternoon off, he said. She was too stunned to object. After he hung up, he realized how out of character he was acting. Well, that’s what financial freedom is all about. Destination Esplanade Mall. That was someplace he had never been.
    Several hectic hours later he was sitting in a bistro on Veterans Boulevard called Hooters, being waited on by Hooter Girls. He was on his fourth margarita, letting the good feelings build. In the trunk of his car, besides a bag full of money, were wrapped packages containing three diamond bracelets, which Tubby planned to give to his daughters, some incredible lingerie, for a person unknown but coincidentally of a size he imagined would fit Jynx Margolis, four sports jackets for himself, some nice shoes, a pile of hardcovers he wanted to read, and a pair of tickets for a Caribbean cruise.
    He had even popped into Andrea’s on impulse and had a wonderful plate of crawfish ravioli and a glass of red Beneventum that cost almost as much as the food. Reinvigorated, he cruised Veterans, looking for just the right thing. And there it was. The Harley-Davidson he ordered would take about a month to come in, but it was more bike than any man could tame. He had managed to get rid of only about $48,000, which was a little disappointing, but he felt great.
    It was exhilarating, not so much spending the money, but suspending the moral judgment he had carried with him since his North Louisiana Sunday School teachers, not to mention his parents, got through with him. It had followed him through law school and was at the guilty heart of the majestic law he had bound himself to. Now, on a pretty day, it had lifted off his shoulders like a helium balloon lost at the fair. His judgment was out there somewhere, he was sure, circling around like an angry crow, but he felt as free as the last man on Earth. He leered at the Hooter Girls with their copious bosoms and cantilevered asses, breasts pointed eagerly outward like the outstretched arms of a revival preacher, welcoming, warming. They wanted him to think they liked him, and by God they were succeeding.
    Rolling toward home on the Interstate, Tubby dialed his ex-wife on the car phone.
    “Is that you, Tubby?”
    “Yeah, can’t you hear me?”
    “There’s a little static. Are you calling me from your damn car phone?”
    “Yeah. You called me?”
    “We need to talk, and not on the phone. Has Christine spoken to you about her trip to Europe?”
    “First I heard of it.”
    “What did you say? You’re breaking up.”
    “I just went under a bridge. I said, first I heard of it.”
    “It’s going to cost four thousand dollars, Tubby.”
    “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
    “What, Tubby? Are you doing something to that phone deliberately?”
    Tubby was holding it out the window. He pulled his arm back in. “Mattie, I’ll drop by.”
    “Did you say you’re coming over?”
    “Yes.”
    “When?”
    “Right now.”
    “That’s a surprise.”
    He hung up. One of life’s unpleasantnesses was about to go away. Tubby hummed to the rock ’n’ roll oldies on the radio. As he exited on Carrollton he was singing and thumping the steering wheel in time to the music.
    He rang the doorbell of the house on State Street, the house he and Mattie had shared for seventeen years and in which he had not lived for four years. She kept it up nice, he thought, but it could use a coat of