Big Easy Bonanza

with Steve preinstructed to call it Lye-oosa’s, not Leeootza’s, like some Yankee from California. Still, he shook his head over the menu, grumbling that a place with such a name, however mispronounced, ought to have more pride than to list “wop salad” for your dining pleasure. They ordered it anyway, along with garlic bread, fried dill pickles, overstuffed eggplant, pasta full of shrimp and oysters, and giant schooners of beer. When she picked up the tab, she thought he was going to fall on the floor. “Skip, you can’t afford this.”
    He didn’t know the whole works had come to only eighteen dollars. “Of course I can, once in a blue moon. Anyway, I wanted to thank you for the last few days. For your kindness.” It was hard to say the word.
    “You’d have done the same for me.” He shrugged.
    But she wouldn’t have; she would never have gone so far out of her way for someone she hardly knew, would never have had the patience or imagination to dream up the elaborate “purification”—in a word, would never have been that kind.
    “Let’s check something, okay?”
    They checked LaBelle’s apartment, finding it dark as always, but Steve’s appetite was only whetted. “Let’s go look in the windows.”
    “I’ve already done that.”
    “But I haven’t. What harm can it do?”
    None. And I dedicated this evening to Steve, didn’t I? Even if he doesn’t know it.
    “Okay,” she said.
    Steve parked on Governor Nicholls Street around the corner from the building. Skip led him to the side of LaBelle’s building where she had peeked through the hole in the rice paper. She turned her flashlight on the hole so Steve could see, but took a peek herself first, to make sure the sweater was still lying on the bed as it had been before. The place had been trashed.
    “Oh, shit!”
    Obviously unable to be polite a second longer, Steve snatched the flashlight. He took one quick look, tried the window and moved on to the bathroom window, still holding the light. “Was this window open before?”
    He stood aside, letting her see that it was now. “No. Jesus.”
    “I’m going in.”
    “You can’t do that.”
    But he had hoisted himself up to the sill. Too late to call Calvin Hogue, to call police headquarters, to do anything except arrest him—or follow. Without wasting a second she followed, finding footing on the toilet, from which Steve was just stepping. They came out of the bathroom into a hall, Steve first, the light in his hand. A sudden, surprised movement caught Skip’s eye. Quickly, Steve turned the light toward it and a figure dressed in dark clothing turned, ran a few steps, paused to unlock the front door, and fled. Steve ran after it, getting in her way.
    “Halt!” she said firmly. “Police!” As she ran through the door, she paused to close it—ever the good citizen—and cost herself seconds.
    The running figure—man or woman, Skip couldn’t tell—was nearly a block away, Steve’s bearlike form trailing by a good half block. She made a poor third.
    “Halt!” she shouted again. The figure didn’t even consider halting. It rounded the corner of Governor Nicholls and turned right. Good. She would let Steve pursue on foot while she got the car and closed in. That way the figure couldn’t duck into the shadows while she was busy starting the car. She was getting comfortable with the idea when an unpleasant thought came to her.
    That won’t work. It’s Steve’s car
.
    But Steve, apparently of the same mind, stopped and began fumbling for his keys. As Skip passed, he said, “You continue on foot. I’ll catch up.” It was a good plan and she knew she ought to applaud his quick thinking and the fact that he hadn’t given her some crap about looking out, but she was furious. A civilian had just given her orders on what was undeniably police business, and it didn’t matter what civilian; she was furious. But she pounded after the intruder, beginning to reach for her gun. He rounded the corner of Tremé Street and by the time she had caught up, he had disappeared. Looking right and left, now holding her gun, she felt like a fool. Where the hell could he be?
    She heard a car behind her now, Steve’s almost certainly. Her eyes still swept the street as Steve’s car rounded the corner, and now she felt an almost unbearable embarrassment. She, the policewoman, had let the burglar get away in front of an amateur Dirty Harry.
    “Skip, get in.”
    She waved Steve away, not