Big Easy Bonanza

baby yourself. You were jealous.
    Marcelle hadn’t a single memory of the baby, had only those waves of hatred she could feel even now.

4
    “What’s up?”
    Skip had hoped to slip out before Steve woke up, to avoid what was beginning to seem an eternal argument between them—the one in which he tried yet again to be her partner and she explained to him one more time that the fantasies of a lifetime of TV and movies didn’t make him a law enforcement officer.
    She said: “I have to go out for a while.”
    “This isn’t Saturday? I thought it was Saturday.”
    “I have to do something I should have done yesterday. Or Thursday maybe. Several things, to tell you the truth.”
    “And I can’t go with you, right?”
    The long and short of it was, she was so bowled over that he was finally getting the idea, she’d gone out to breakfast with him and made a date for that night. So it was midmorning by the time she got to the Desire Project, a nightmare of a neighborhood that most assuredly evoked desire—the desire to stay away from it; or to get away, she supposed, if you were someone like LaBelle Doucette.
    It was built of red brick, and that was a good thing, Skip thought, or it would have fallen down from neglect. The place was a mess. Garbage was strewn everywhere, windows were out, steps broken, glass from newly smashed light bulbs crunched underfoot. Here and there someone nodded out or slept, and young men gathered in tight knots around dealers, probably. Or maybe, she thought, I’ve just acquired the famous cop’s cynicism. At any rate, the project made Tremé look upscale—which, from here, it was.
    The reputation of the place was so rancid shed been tempted to wear her uniform, but, not wanting to frighten Mrs. Doucette, she contented herself with keeping her badge displayed and a bored look on her face as she ran the usual gamut of “Hey-Big-Mamas.”
    “Yes, ma’am?” Philomena Doucette looked about a hundred, but she was probably closer to eighty. She was so thin and small, brown skin taut over tiny bones, that every wrinkle looked deep as a ditch. She was slightly hunched and wore a blue cotton dress with a large white collar that was not only unmistakably homemade but made from a pattern that seemed to have been bought twenty or thirty years ago. It hadn’t ever been in style, really—it was simply generic dress.
Like my skirts and blazers
, Skip thought.
I’ll look like this someday—a giant version of her, though.
    She introduced herself and said she’d come about LaBelle.
    “Oh, LaBelle. She ain’ been roun’ in three-fo’ year.”
    “She might be in trouble,” Skip said.
    Mrs. Doucette’s hair had been straightened and pinned back in a kind of bun. Her face jumped out at you, every emotion naked to the casual viewer. There was fear on it now, fear and some kind of deep, cosmic pain—something that had to do with more than LaBelle, Skip thought, something about the human condition as Mrs. Doucette knew it.
    A male voice said, “Lookin’ good” and Skip jumped as its owner grabbed a chunk of her behind. She wanted to rage at the man, maybe arrest him, but this wasn’t the time for it. Her own face must have been fairly transparent as well. Mrs. Doucette said, “Come in, child.”
    Skip was touched by that and felt silly about her internal debate regarding her uniform. She knew that with or without it, Mrs. Doucette would see her as a child to be protected.
    The apartment she entered was like an inn in the Himalayas—a warm spot in a vast and inhospitable wilderness. If Mrs. Doucette could make dresses, she could also make slipcovers. The light-green flowered ones on the sofa and two chairs were worn, clean, and covered with crocheted anmacassars. Antimacassars had also been pinned to both arms and the back of an old blue overstuffed rocking chair that was probably horsehair. Tables stood by each of the chairs and a coffee table sat in the middle, the surface of each covered with dime-store vases and china knickknacks, some so old they were probably now kitsch collectors’ items. The tables were cheap and twice as old as Skip, probably, but gleamed and smelled of lemon polish. A stripe of sun streamed through ruffled curtains, coming to rest on the coffee table, revealing not a speck of dust. Skip was sure one couldn’t be found in the place.
    “Iced tea?”
    “Thank you.” If you accepted a beverage, people didn’t really expect you to leave until you’d