Big Easy Bonanza

thought and saw that she had plucked a fern from one of the wreaths, and torn it up as it flashed through her head. She released the green wreckage, letting it fall on the ground, letting herself realize how caught up in this thing she was—after only one day and no real action—how deeply she’d been drawn into the thrill of the chase, how deeply she wanted to work this case, and do it well. She could honestly say she was more excited than she’d ever been in her life and deeply, deeply afraid of blowing it—if she hadn’t already. God, what she wouldn’t give to see that film!
    “Hey, Skip, whereyat!” Steve Steinman was waving from the sidewalk.
    “Awright, cher.”
    “Cher? Like the actress?”
    “That’s Cajun talk. Didn’t you see
The Big Easy
?”
    “Yeah. I wondered what language it was in. Hey, you look good in a skirt.”
    Skip stared down at her plain gray suit and wondered what planet this guy was from. “Thanks.”
    “You didn’t have to meet me out here, though—I’d have found you.”
    “And where would you have found me?”
    “I don’t know. Wherever they told me at the door.”
    “To tell you the truth, they might not have known. Usually I work out of the V.C. District.”
    “Surely not Viet Cong.”
    “Vieux Carre. This week I’m detailed here. And thereon hangs a tale.” She looked him in the eye, hoping to get a sense of his trustworthiness; she couldn’t tell a thing. “Want to hear it?”
    “Sure.”
    “Let’s get some coffee, okay? I don’t want to talk in there.”
    Steve looked around, confused. “This looks like the middle of nowhere.”
    “Uh-huh. Tulane Avenue’s right up there. We could walk but—” She hesitated.
    “But what?”
    She looked down at her scruffy brown two-inch heels. “I’m not used to these.” She smiled sheepishly. “I’ve been to church and a wake. Have you got a car?”
    “Sure.”
    “Forget coffee. Let’s go to the Napoleon House.”
    “Na-poe-yun?”
    “Yeah, you right.”
    “I write?”
    She laughed. “How could I have forgotten that one? You gotta say, ‘Yeah, you right.’ It’s like in Mexico, you have to know
‘una cerveza, por favor’
—it’s the one essential phrase that’ll get you through anything.”
    “Hey, Professor Longhair. Who axed for this?” He took her hand as if they were sweethearts.
    They sat in the courtyard at the Napoleon House, depriving themselves of its famous peeling paint and ragtag collection of pictures of the little emperor, but gaining the late winter sun. Suddenly ravenous—she’d had only a cracker with cheese at the St. Amants’—she ordered half a muffuletta and a Dixie.
    Steve had his own Dixie and earned her gratitude by refraining from remarks about cops drinking on duty. They talked a little about Cookie and his coterie of grown-up brats while Skip worked on her sandwich. Finally, feeling fortified, she said, “Look, Steve, I feel really bad about what happened to you last night.”
    He shrugged and touched his lump. “It hardly hurts at all today. I don’t even think I got a concussion.”
    She gasped. “Concussion! You shouldn’t have been drinking last night.”
    “I’m fine. Really.”
    “But you might not have been, and I didn’t think of that. I should have.”
    “Are you a doctor or a cop?”
    She shook her head. “I’m stupid, that’s all.”
    “Hey, what is this? You’re not your normal arrogant self.”
    She laughed. She didn’t think she’d been arrogant last night, but she certainly could be, and Steve was smart to pick it up—or perhaps it was just very obvious.
    “I had a problem with another policeman. I’m a little shaky, I guess. It’s what I want to talk to you about, to tell you the truth. Listen, I really screwed up last night. I put you in danger and—face it—we lost the film.”
    He put on a benign expression and, behind his glasses, reminded her of her grandfather. “It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t know how many people knew I was bringing it to you.”
    She squirmed inside her wool suit.
I shouldn’t have told Marcelle he was coming
.
    She said, “Yeah, but none of them would have mugged you on the steps of the cop shop.”
    He laughed. “I don’t blame you. It happened and it’s too bad, but maybe something good’ll come out of it.”
    “Like what?”
    He looked embarrassed. “Like—we’ll get to know each other.”
    She looked at her plate, now harboring only a crust or two and a trickle of olive