Crescent City Connection

because she was proud of it, like men were when they said they worked for Shell Oil or something.
    Sure enough, Troy was so impressed he whistled. “Well, ain’t that just—you know—uptown.”
    “They nice people. I’m real lucky.”
    “You cook and everything?”
    “No, uh-uh, I’m a server.”
    “You serve the food?”
    She nodded. “Yeah, uh-huh, I supervise the jobs, really. Make sure everything’s there, then I serve—sometimes I tend bar if they want me to. And I wash dishes and pack up—do just about everything.”
    “You like it?”
    “Yeah. You know, I really do. I love it.”
    “What you like about it?”
    She had never had anyone ask her that. She told him, feeling as if she were giving him part of herself. Nobody else knew how she felt in those places, how comfortable and happy, as if she were Mistress of the Manor—but somehow, not at all grand. Simply as if she were in control for once.
    * * *
    In Skip’s life, Errol Jacomine was the one who got away. He was a con man and a murderer, but so were lots of scumballs. Jacomine was something else, someone who treated human life like gardeners treat bug life. He had run not one but many a con, and murdered as often as he felt the need—or possibly the desire. She’d messed up a very good thing he had, and she knew it was only a matter of time until he came for her—or for someone she loved.
    Every spare moment she had, she tried to reel him back in. The problem was, he’d come to prominence in a big way almost overnight. She’d been able to run down his early life in Savannah, Georgia, including a murder he’d once been accused of. Then he’d had a period as a minister with a minuscule denomination called the Christian Community, during which he made a big splash in Atlanta.
    That one ended when one of the ladies of the church complained of sexual favors required as part of pastoral counseling sessions, and other ladies came forward in something resembling a stampede.
    He was perfecting the art of healing in Atlanta—some said he could even raise the dead—and he continued that when the church took away his congregation and sent him to southwest Louisiana. Eventually, he started his own church, the Blood of the Lamb Evangelical Following, which was about the time Skip encountered him. As a minister with growing influence, he began to dabble in politics.
    The Christian Community had kept poor records. All Skip had was this: In Atlanta, he had a family—in Louisiana, none.
    After things blew up in her face, his wife, Tourmaline, had quite literally gotten out of Dodge. The Community had three missions, one in the backwoods of Honduras, and Tourmaline Jacomine had asked them to send her there. It was the least they could do to oblige. Mary Lou, the bossy secretary for the Community, swore there was not only not a phone, there wasn’t even a fax machine. Skip doubted that, but her efforts to find a number had failed.
    The good news, the Community said, was that Tourmaline had only another year to serve.
    After Atlanta, there was no record at all of the Jacomines’ grown son—not so much as a Social Security number.
    Despite the advice of her therapist to get on with her life, Skip had gone over and over the same old territory. But there was one thing she hadn’t done. The only person back in Savannah who really remembered mischievous young Earl (as he’d been called before he was Errol) was his talkative—if totally deaf—aunt Alice.
    “I’m going back to see her,” she told Steve.
    “When?”
    “Tomorrow.”
    “What about Layne’s healing?”
    “What?” But she knew what he meant—she was just astounded that he remembered, given the way he’d scoffed.
    Layne Bilderback was the lover of her neighbor, landlord, and best friend, Jimmy Dee Scoggin, who lived in the Big House along with Kenny, Sheila, and Angel.
    Jimmy Dee had had no one but Skip until his sister died and he literally inherited Kenny and Sheila. About the same time, after many years of solitude, he met Layne, necessitating much emergency education for the children on gay lifestyles. As it turned out, they were great fans of the relationship—two uncles were better than one, in their opinion. “Especially,” as Jimmy Dee put it, “when I’m one of them.”
    Then came Angel. Everybody loved her, Jimmy Dee included. In no time, he was fond of saying he’d fallen in love with three people and a dog.
    The problem was, Layne was allergic to the dog.
    No