Big Easy Bonanza

had thinned down. The former moon face, nicely made-up, peeked out from under a sleek hairdo.
    “I’m afraid so.”
    Her eyes flashed fury. “What, then?” She glanced ostentatiously at her watch. “I have to pick up my daughter in ten minutes and then I have exactly an hour to make groceries before I have to get my son from the gym, drop him off, get to the beauty parlor, and get ready for out-of-town guests at three-thirty.”
    “I’ll get out of your hair in thirty seconds.” The other woman visibly relaxed. “I just want to know if you’re in touch with LaBelle.”
    “We haven’t spoken in two years. Would you mind moving your car now?”
    Flustered, Skip said “Of course. Sorry to bother you,” and trotted quickly to her car, caught up in Campeau’s urgency.
    Feeling snubbed (and also ravenous), Skip went home, changed to jeans, picked up an oyster po’ boy to go and strolled to the Moon walk, impressed at how peaceful the river had been the night before, wanting to watch it as she mulled her case and munched her sandwich.
    Who in the hell was LaBelle Doucette (besides the daughter of Jaree and the great-granddaughter of Philomena), and why wouldn’t she turn up? She was almost certainly still a prostitute and probably something of a loner. If Jeweldean Sanders’s experience was any indication, she wasn’t the sort who had a lot of friends.
    It wasn’t fair!
Skip thought childishly. She knew she had been put on the case because of her Uptown sources, but the answer obviously wasn’t Uptown. She didn’t see how her famous sources could possibly cover this material. Irritated, she threw a bit of her sandwich to a hovering gull. And as the gull caught the crust, her mind came free of its rut and she realized her best source was a member of her own family. Her egregious brother, Conrad, to her disgust, had once been terribly fond of mentioning self-importantly the visits his fraternity brothers paid to ladies of the night.
    Swallowing her pride, she phoned. He said, “Hello, Black Sheep.”
    “Hi, Pride of the Langdons. I need some help.”
    “On Saturday?”
    “I’m trying to find a woman—an upscale prostitute, black, probably specializing in white tricks.”
    “Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place. I happen to be in bed with her, but she can’t talk right now, her mouth being otherwise engaged.”
    “You are so disgusting!” She hated the sound of her voice, twelve years old and whiny; they had played out this scene dozens of times.
    “Hey. Did you call or what? Who asked the question?”
    “Not me, big brother. In case you didn’t notice, I did not say, ‘Do you, in your great world wisdom, happen to know her?’ I was going to say, have you heard anything?”
    “Uh-uh. Who was that guy you were with at Chauncey’s funeral?”
    “None of your business.” Jesus. She had almost said “beeswax.” “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It was a filmmaker from California named Steve Steinman. Extremely nice man.”
    “But Jewish.”
    “Conrad, you fucking bastard—”
    But he was laughing. “You fall for it every time, stupido.”
    He was right. Skip was famous for stomping out of rooms when their father made racist or anti-Semitic remarks. Conrad was also heartless, but too sophisticated to admit to similar views. However, now and then he’d pretend to be a bigot just to make her mad.
    “Dammit, Conrad, why don’t you grow up?”
    “Why don’t you?”
    Hell. It was a standoff, as usual. “Conrad, I really need help. It could mean my whole career, no kidding.”
    “No shit. Gosh, your whole career. Now there’s a valuable commodity.”
    “I guess I shouldn’t have called.” She was feeling humiliated and hooked into all the old games that he always won.
    “Wait a minute. Maybe we can make a deal. I’ve gotten quite a few tickets lately.”
    “Parking tickets?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “How many?”
    “About a dozen.”
    “God!”
    “If you can’t help, say so.”
    “Well, maybe I could help the least little bit—”
    It ended up with her agreeing to fix five of the tickets and Conrad signing on to call around about LaBelle. She’d fix the tickets all right—by paying them herself; if he kept getting tickets, Conrad might even turn into a nice little source. She wondered if she could get snitch money to cover the fines.
    Truth to tell, she didn’t have much hope for the deal, but Conrad called back in two hours with a name. One thing she’d