Big Easy Bonanza

onto St. Philip. She fumbled in her purse for her key, her eyes down, and so it was Steve who first saw her door.
    “Oh, shit,” he said, and her stomach turned over.
    “What?” But now she saw it. Blood had been splashed against the door at knee level, and a chicken foot left on her threshold. Above the main splash someone, using the blood for ink, had made a number of X’s. “Gris-gris.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “A gris-gris’s something in voodoo—like a spell or a charm. I guess that’s what this is. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    “The chicken foot! It does smack of voodoo.”
    “And those must be hex marks or something. They’re all over the tomb of Marie Laveau.” She pointed to the Xs.
    “Well, hell. Let’s scrub it down.” He picked up the chicken foot.
    She was grateful for his matter-of-factness; without it she was pretty sure she’d have fallen apart at this point, run screaming down Bourbon Street, and probably ended up being taken to DePaul’s by a couple of brother officers. A tidal wave of hysteria was starting to overwhelm her; she didn’t seem to be able to make a move without being persecuted. Steve’s voice, his touch as he put an arm around her, were keeping the wave at bay.
    She threw herself into the homely business of washing off the chicken blood (surely it was only chicken blood). “Could this be the work of the same person?” She was thinking out loud.
    “The person who slugged you and broke in? We don’t even know if the same person did those two things. But I think he did—or she did. I don’t know about this weird stuff, though. Do you know anybody in a cult or anything?”
    “No. I don’t know a thing about this stuff. But I think mostly black people practice voodoo.”
    “There aren’t any black people involved, are there?”
    “There may be.” She snapped her fingers. “You know what I need to do? Check something out. Would you mind taking a ride with me?”
    They went to LaBelle’s, where Skip pounded on the door, to no avail. She tried Calvin Hogue; he said LaBelle hadn’t been home.
    Later, in bed with Steve, the cognac coursing cozily through her veins, she felt safe. She wondered idly if LaBelle was really out of town at all; maybe she had taken refuge with her mother.

Daughters
1
    HOW COULD YOU run an antique shop feeling so anxious and tired and out of control?
You couldn’t,
Tolliver thought,
and yet, why not? You’ve done it before
.
    This was worse, though. This was far and away the worst it had ever been. His hands were jerky, his shoulders twitchy; it was like having St. Vitus’s Dance.
    “How much is this?”
    How much was what? What in hell was the customer pointing to? “That—uh—little table? Three-fifty, I think.”
    Was the damn thing three-fifty or not? And where was his sales spiel? At this point he was supposed to explain what a fine table it was, and why. But he couldn’t remember. It was on the tip of his tongue, he just somehow couldn’t seem to wrap his brains around the relevant facts.
    “Is it American or European?”
    “American. Federal.”
    It wasn’t Federal, didn’t even resemble Federal; it probably wasn’t even American. He hoped this joker didn’t know antiques. The customer gave him a puzzled look and left. Tolliver couldn’t find it in himself to care. He wasn’t himself, and he knew it… he really must call that doctor on Monday.
    He had a lot on his mind today, including the fact that that organ wasn’t functioning very well. It was Marcelle who had done this to him. Her crazy, pathetic visit had brought on the attack and now she was haunting him, like a tiny saucer-eyed ghost.
    She may have been the most beautiful child he had ever seen—more beautiful than Henry, and Tolliver adored Henry like his own son. Marcelle had those amazing eyes, and she tried so hard to please. She did please—she succeeded in her little-girl ambition; she did something sweet or cute and you appreciated it, and that was that.
    He had heard Chauncey say to her, “Dollin’, you know why I wanted a daughter? Because I knew she’d always be there for me. No matter what happens, you’ll be Daddy’s girl, won’t you? You’ll never leave Daddy, will you?”
    Marcelle, sitting on his lap, had said, “‘Course I’ll be Daddy’s girl. I wouldn’t leave you, Daddy.” She spoke seriously, obviously wanting very much to be believed.
    “You’ll take care of me in my old