Big Easy Bonanza

neutral to amused. Oh, hell, this wasn’t going according to plan.
    “I bet I know where you got those shoes,” she said. “I have to order mine too.”
    “Shall we sit down?” This goddamn blasé attitude of hers put a whole new light on the scene. He wasn’t sure how to play it.
    He minced to one of his two director’s chairs. He also had a rattan sofa, but he left that for Tubs. Settling her bulk, she said, “So. You doing
Cabaret
—old chum?”
    Jeez, she was brittle. Well, hell, at least the Liza look was working. “I’m going to a funeral.”
    “Are you?” She looked utterly charmed.’ “Tout Nouvelles Orleans will be whispering with delight.” As she spoke she clasped her hands, turned her head slightly sideways, chin down, and frankly mugged.
    Who the fuck was the actor here? Had she no respect? His father was being buried today, for Christ’s sake. Okay, one more shot. “I thought I’d take a date. Black for mourning, of course. Do you know Jackson Robicheaux?”
    “Bartender at Lafitte in Exile, or bellman at the Richelieu? Both well known around the department. Personally, I think the bellman’s more your type. He’s short.”
    “Bitch! What the hell do you want, anyway?”
    “For openers, how about an apology. For our little encounter yesterday?” Lots of southern girls had that weird interrogatory way of speaking. There was usually something submissive about it, but when Tubs did it there was an edge of sarcasm instead. He lapsed into Tallulah Bankhead. “So sorry, dahling, but ectually, I have no recollection of it. I was a bit under the weather, they tell me.” He’d gone British. Glenda Jackson, say, doing Tallulah. “It was my father who died, you understand.”
    The corners of Tubs’s mouth turned up in a goddamn superior way. “Apology accepted,” she said. “I really came about something else. Do you know a woman named LaBelle Doucette?”
    “Why do you want to know?”
    “She may have killed your father.”
    Jesus, she certainly went for the jugular. He wished like hell he had a drink. He said, “I see. And what’s that to you?”
    “God, you’re a heartless brat. Don’t you care who killed your father?” She mimicked him. “‘It was my father who died, you understand.’” She swished a limp wrist around as she spoke, which he took as an insult, knowing perfectly well that a man doing Tallulah in makeup, heels, and taffeta cocktail dress in broad daylight had a hell of a nerve.
    Furious, he nonetheless contained himself, staying in character. “Since you ask, no, dahling, I most assuredly do not care who killed my father, as I myself had the best of motives for doing so. Perhaps you are unaware that I am a homotheckthual.” He spat the last word like a viper.
    Ah … what was this? A laugh out of old Tubs. Well, he had done the lisp rather well. “I wath, ecthually.”
    Oh, shit, she wanted to play games. He dumped Tallulah, stood up, and went big-voiced, Orson Welles. “Are you also aware that I am an actor?”
    “Henry, I’m not even going to touch that one.” Laughing again.
    Bitch!
“To say that my father did not support me in either endeavor would be understatement in the extreme.” Damn! The role really called for pacing, but he couldn’t see it in three-inch heels. “He promised to ‘disinherit’ me, whatever that may mean, if I did not abandon my sinful and, far worse—embarrassing—ways. Chauncey St. Amant, as you know, was a famous patron of the arts. But did he support his son in his own artistic endeavor? He did not! He was a famous advocate of civil rights, but did he respect the right of his only son to the sexual preference of his—ah—choosing? He did not!”
    Dear God, he had slipped into what’s-his-name, the actor who died of lung cancer, doing Hamilton Burger, district attorney. Oh, hell, who cared? He liked it. “Instead, he insisted upon a made-to-order son, a son of his own invention, a banker, family man, and civic leader, exactly like himself. A clone of Chauncey St. Amant—a shorter, blonder and swishier clone, perhaps, but a clone nonetheless”—he almost said “ladies and gentlemen of the jury”—“was the son Chauncey St. Amant demanded. Nothing less did Chauncey St. Amant demand than a thoroughgoing personality transplant, to be accomplished by that most drastic of all means, the taking of a master’s of business administration.” (Appropriate laughter from the audience.) “To be followed by