Big Easy Bonanza

kidding, I never saw him look like that or anything close. He took the paper—”
    She leaned over, plucked a tissue from the box, and balled it up viciously, making a mean-looking fist.
    “—and did this. Then he threw it in the trash can, went back in his office, and slammed the door without saying a word.”
    Skip gave her a conspiratorial smile. “And you, of course, fished it out.”
    “Wouldn’t you have?”
    “Sure.”
    “Anyway, all it had on it was a name and phone number, and the name sure as hell wasn’t the same one she gave me.” She put her hand over her face again. “Listen, it wasn’t Lynn. I just remembered something. I told Chauncey it was and he said, ‘I don’t know any Lynn,’ and then he came out to see her and she told him her name herself. It was something-Lynn—like Ann Lynn or Faye Lynn, or maybe Ti-Lynn. And when he heard it, he got real serious and asked her to come into his office.”
    “He didn’t know her?”
    “He seemed to, once she refreshed his memory. Yeah. She said, ‘Remember me?’ after she said her name. And then she said, ‘From a long time ago?’ in this real seductive, sexy kind of way. Anyway, it turned out her name was really LaBelle Doucette—or that’s what it said on the paper. That one I can remember perfectly. Because of Patti LaBelle the singer and my next-door neighbor when I lived in Arabi. Benny Doucette.”
    Skip said, “Any theories about what was going on?”
    “Sure. What I thought was that all he originally knew was her first name. Maybe it was her professional name—she could be a stripper or even a singer or something. I thought maybe he met her somewhere, had a one-night stand with her, and later, when she found out who he was, she tried to blackmail him.” She looked pleased with herself. “What do you think?”
    Skip shrugged. “I hate to say it, but I can’t do any better than that. That could have been it. But let’s see if you can add to the description I’ve got. Height and weight?”
    “Medium tall I guess, but she had on heels. No, on second thought, I think she was pretty average—five-five, maybe. But she looked tall because she was so skinny—a hundred pounds, maybe a hundred and five. Real skinny.”
    “Hair and eye color? I’m not sure what ‘copper’ really means.”
    “Her hair really did look like copper—metallic. Very metallic. But not so much red as a kind of gold—reddish gold. Copper that’s beginning to go a little green. Real pretty. Probably expensive to get it that way too. She had it in some crazy Hollywood kind of style—kind of flyaway, like she just woke up. Like Tina Turner, but toned down. And brown eyes.”
    “Skin color?”
    “I remember you said copper hair and skin, and that’s how I knew who you meant. Her hair matched her skin. And her skin looked kind of more red—for skin—than her hair did for hair. I mean, you can have hair that’s flaming, but skin doesn’t get all that red.”
    “And she was good-looking?”
    Sheree nodded resignedly. “She was really something. You couldn’t take your eyes off her. Except that her clothes and makeup were awful. Cheap.” Her lip curled slightly. “She had nails like those old Chinese guys. Painted K&B purple. Same color lipstick.”
    “And you’re sure she was black?”
    Sheree shrugged. “Sure.”
    “You know, I’m missing something here. How could you tell?”
    “How could I tell?” She looked at Skip as if she’d lost her marbles. “I don’t know. She just was, that’s all. The way she talked, first of all. And her hair texture. Skin color, I guess—not many white people have that kind of reddish skin. I don’t know—something about the features, maybe. How do you tell anybody’s black?”
    “Sometimes it’s hard. You could be black, maybe. I mean, you’re darker than the woman we’re talking about, and you’ve got Caucasian features, but you could be black.”
    “Well, I’m not. But this LaBelle was. You could see it from a hundred paces.”
    “I believe you—I was just curious. You didn’t look up her phone number, did you?”
    Sheree smiled, apparently having accepted Skip as a fellow female, badge or no. “Are you kidding? I looked her up in the phone book to see where she lived, saw she wasn’t listed, realized that meant Chauncey couldn’t reach her unless he had the scrap, and ate it.”
    Skip was taken back. “Ate it?”
    Sheree laughed outright. She seemed to be cheering up.
    “No,