Big Easy Bonanza

have power at last, in her own hometown. She would be someone other than Dr. Langdon’s daughter.
    She forgot the unfortunate fact that she wasn’t going to fit in anywhere—certainly not with the old crowd and decidedly not with her fellow cops either. If she’d felt like an alien before, that was just practice for some of the deepest, truest loneliness she could ever have imagined.
    In some ways she did have power. She truly loved her job, and liked—more than anyone could have told her—the sensation of being good at it. For the first time ever, she was accomplishing something, learning something, finding her existence worthwhile and exhilarating. Yet in her personal life she was utterly powerless.
    Tricia Lattimore, who also hadn’t fit in, was now a social worker in New York. Skip’s only friend was Jimmy Dee Scoggin, her gay, fifty-year-old, hopelessly criminal lawyer landlord. (Unless you counted Tennessee Williams. Lately she’d been reading no one else, and Tennessee was helping her get through.) So was Jimmy Dee—partly with controlled substances and partly with outrageous anecdotes. At the moment Jimmy Dee was out with his usual coterie of young studs and amusingly aging drag queens. Which left Skip on her balcony, crying into her gin and tonic.
    She was thinking of finding some nice, juicy worms to eat, when the phone rang. “Skippy? It’s Marcelle.”
    “Marcelle!” Of all people.
    “Skippy, I’m so miserable. I know you haven’t been with the police department very long, but I was just wondering—is there a Chinaman’s chance you might work on Daddy’s case?”
    “Actually, I think there is. Is there something I can help you with?” She hoped she didn’t sound too eager.
    “I don’t know.” Marcelle started to cry. “It all seems so hopeless.”
    “You know I’ll do everything I can for you.”
    “Skippy, can you tell me something? You saw Dolly, didn’t you? What did she look like?”
    “Look like? I’m not sure what you mean?”
    “I mean, I know she was dressed like Dolly Parton, but what did she look like?”
    It was the same kind of question O’Rourke and Tarantino had asked her
ad infinitum
and
ad nauseam
. How tall was Dolly? Could she have been a man? Was she black or white?
    Thin or fat? Skip had no idea in hell. She thought Dolly had looked fairly tall and could possibly have been a man and she was pretty sure she wasn’t fat, but with the balloon boobs, she couldn’t be positive.
    She didn’t know the answer, but she also didn’t quite understand why Marcelle was asking the question. “I really couldn’t tell, Marcelle, but why do you ask? Did someone make a threat on your father’s life?”
    Marcelle gasped. Skip had had a few drinks, but there was no mistaking it. “No, of course not. I’m just so mad at the bastard, that’s all. I want to do somethin’ to him.”
    “Of course. That’s only natural.”
    “Oh, Skippy, didn’t you see anything? I just feel so helpless.” She started sobbing in earnest.
    “Oh, Marcelle! Don’t cry. Don’t cry and I’ll tell you something good. Somebody got her on film. He’s bringing the film over in half an hour. Maybe it’ll help jog my memory. Maybe there was something I noticed but I just forgot.”
    “Do you think so? Do you really think so?”
    She sounded so hopeful Skip was glad she had told her. Later, back on the balcony, she wondered if it had been wise. The film was police business after all, or soon would be. She made herself another drink.
    She got bored on the balcony and went inside. Something perverse in her made her put on a Dolly Parton record. Forty-five minutes later she began to think Steinman wasn’t coming. Another fifteen minutes and she was starting to get mad. She phoned Cookie Lamoreaux. Someone answered but couldn’t hear her above the din. She wanted to go to bed.
    Finally, when it was nearly midnight, her doorbell rang. She stepped onto the balcony. “Yes?”
    “It’s Steve Steinman.”
    He didn’t sound like he had on the phone. Normally Skip would simply have buzzed him in, but something about his voice made her nervous. She went down for him, revolver in hand. The outside door was windowed and she could see that the young man outside was the same one she’d encountered at the parade. No one seemed to be with him.
    She opened the door, gun at the ready. If possible, Steinman turned paler than he already was. “Oh, no.” He sounded as if he’d lost his last