Crescent City Connection

for a while. Dahveed had seemed unduly upset about her being there. On the other hand, she was eager to look up the business license for Juicy’s.
    She stuck around about fifteen minutes. Nobody came in or went out.
    * * *
    Lovelace felt someone kick at the old tarp that covered her. “Come out, dammit.”
    “Okay, okay. That was a cop, wasn’t it?”
    “Oh yes, indeed, that was a cop. What exactly is going on with you and your newly bald uncle, who are about to put me out of business between the two of you?”
    “Listen, thanks for not ratting me out.”
    “I should have, you know that? I truly should have. But because your uncle is such a fine artist—”
    “Do you really think so?”
    “Oh, yes, I most certainly do. And because you are his model, and because I like The Monk, even though he’s completely crazy, I protect you.”
    “And my uncle?”
    “No, no, no! How many times must I tell you? How many times must I tell the damn cop? I have no fucking idea in the world where your uncle is. Why in hell do you think I would know?”
    “Because I don’t know where else he goes, or what else he does. This is his life, so far as I know.”
    “Yes, well, he usually is here this time of day. What’s happened, Miss … ?”
    “Lovelace. My name is Lovelace.”
    “Miss Lovelace—I am quite sure you are not, Miss Not-So-Loveless, my funny valentine. What’s happened to you, Miss Not-so? What’s going on? May I give you some tea?”
    “No thank you.”
    “Ah—a coffee drinker.”
    “No, I just…”
    “Well, then, tell me what’s the matter while both of us stand up in this hot courtyard with Revelas smirking in the background. He saved the day, you know. Revelas, have you met Miss Not-So-Loveless, niece of The White Monk?”
    Lovelace whirled toward the black man, “Revelas! You’re The Monk’s best friend.”
    “I’m his best friend, the man sho’ is hard up.”
    “That might be,” said Dahveed. “That might well be.”
    “He a very odd duck—more or less the Platonic ideal of a odd duck.”
    “Revelas,” said Dahveed. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—you talk funny.”
    Lovelace came close to doing a double take. How could he have such bad grammar and a classical background?
    “Prison school, Miss Lovelace.” He spoke as if he had read her mind. “Good prison library, too. I never did learn to talk too good, but I got a hell of a vocabulary.”
    “You aren’t my uncle’s best friend?”
    The man looked as if his nose had been pushed in, and it probably had, in one fight or another.
    “Oh, I reckon I am—I’m a little hard up myself.”
    “Can you help me? Do you know where he is?”
    “Well, you ain’t really stated the problem, but sounds to me like your uncle must be missin’—ain’t at home, ain’t here. Must be missin’.”
    “We talked for a while last night. Then I went into the kitchen; when I came out he was gone.”
    “Y’all fight?”
    “I’d rather not say.”
    “Course, y’all fought. Somethin’ to do with that cop, that be my guess.”
    “Excuse me,” said Dahveed. “I really have no time for this.”
    He went back into the store.
    “Revelas, please. Do you know where he is?”
    “Now, Miss Lovelace, you know I’d help you if I could.”
    “You know where he might be?”
    “Now that do be a mystery. ’Cause you right, darlin’, he go between the sto’ and the house. That’s about all he can handle, be my guess. Somethin’ eatin’ that man. Dahveed full o’ shit, but he right about that one, almost right anyway. The Monk pretty crazy, all right. First he wear white, then he go bald—just for openers. And we not even gon’ talk about kind of stuff he paint. ’Cept you, I mean. The angel pictures real pretty. But, hey— we outsiders here. Tha’s what they call this shit—you know about that? Outsider art.”
    She shook her head, impatient. “You don’t have any ideas?”
    “’Fraid not, darlin’. But I know The Monk be mighty pleased to know you so worried about him.”
    “Well, thanks anyway, Revelas.” What a nice man, she thought, though remembering full well what The Monk had told her about him.
    She found Dahveed again, doing the crossword puzzle in the Times-Picayune. Something seemed peculiar to her.
    “Dahveed, let me ask you something. Why didn’t you give the cop our address?”
    “Why, Miss Not-so, what could be simpler? Because I do not have your address, or the addresses of ninety