Big Easy Bonanza

back if it was too small or pin it up if you were.”
    O’Rourke looked at her through narrowed eyes. She noticed with surprise that they were brown. “What size do you wear, Langdon?”
    “Huge.” She declined to be ruffled. “What about the gloves?”
    Tarantino shrugged again. “Men’s medium.”
    O’Rourke said, “How did the outfit fit her? Loose? Tight? Or what?”
    He had asked the same question yesterday, but that was before she’d known about the film. If they had that, they could get a better idea, they could blow it up and maybe pick out something useful. She was angry at herself, and she answered sullenly, making a point of using his first name, letting him know she didn’t like the way he kept calling her “Langdon” as if he were her supervisor: “I don’t know, Frank.” Hostility hung in the air.
    To cover it, Tarantino said, “The guns were something else, though. Old Colt 44.40s with the date stamped cm the bands—1912. No serial numbers. Reasonably rare. Like they were in somebody’s attic for a long time and then they decided to get ’em out. We’re checking gun stores, but I don’t think that’s gonna get us anywhere. Did you say you were at the St. Amants’?”
    “Why do you ask, Joe?” She smiled. At least she could establish rapport with this one.
    “Just wonderin’ how the other half lives.”
    “I went to the wake. And I took an unauthorized walk around the first floor.” She tried to keep her voice neutral. “And I did find out something interesting. Chauncey had a real nice gun collection in his study.”
    O’Rourke leaned across his desk. “Anything missing?”
    “I couldn’t tell. I thought I’d ask Mrs. St. Amant later. She wasn’t in very good shape—either today or yesterday.”
    “Shit!” said O’Rourke.
    Tarantino said, “Hear she drinks.”
    “She’s a human siphon.”
    Tarantino gave the requisite appreciative chuckle, O’Rourke let one corner of his mouth go up a quarter of an inch.
    “So listen,” said O’Rourke, “you think the guy was killed with his own gun or what? Why the hell would you think that?”
    “I think he was killed by someone who was at the Boston Club yesterday. Let’s face it, Frank—either somebody took Mrs. St. Amant’s key or she killed him herself, right?”
    “Somebody outside could have had a key. Maybe they took her key some other time—like when she left her purse at some other party.”
    “It still had to be someone she knew—and someone she knew might have paid her husband a visit and put the guns in his own briefcase while Chauncey was getting him a drink.”
    O’Rourke snorted.
    Once again, Tarantino played the peacemaker. “We had a funny call from Tolliver Albert.”
    Skip felt a twinge. Why hadn’t he called her? He
knew
her, dammit. “Oh?” she said.
    “We put a police seal on his house, so he spent the night with the St. Amants. But first he went home for some clothes and stuff.”
    “Uh-huh?”
    “Says there was something weird about the deal. You know that Mardi Gras stuff on the balcony? That purple and green and gold stuff?”
    “The bunting?”
    “Yeah. He says he didn’t put it there.”
    “So Dolly must have. Anybody see her?”
    Tarantino leaned back in his chair, hands crossed over his heroic breadbasket. “Nobody’s called yet, but we gave it to the
Picayune
. Maybe somebody will when they read about it.”
    “So, Langdon,” said O’Rourke, “what else have you been doing?”
    “Hanging out with the swells, like the chief said I should.” She hoped she didn’t sound too smug, but she didn’t much care. O’Rourke was starting to get on her nerves. She stretched. “I even went to church this morning.”
    “And what are you planning on doing now?”
    It was a good question. One possibility was to spend the next few minutes confessing her stupidity about the film. But she didn’t feel safe enough, not with O’Rourke’s belligerence. She didn’t know what it was about—maybe he was that way with everyone—but she wasn’t about to make herself vulnerable until she had a better idea.
    She looked at her watch. “I’ve got someone coming at three for an interview, and then I think I’m going to go home and make some phone calls. I’d like to see what kind of gossip I can pick up.”
    “Shee-it!” said O’Rourke.
    She ignored him. “Okay with you guys?”
    “It’s up to the chief, not us,” said O’Rourke. “You’re teacher’s pet, aren’t