House of Blues

goddamn town? You read the
paper? You notice how just about every day some relative of some
politician turns up on the payroll of some casino? Everybody's taking
kickbacks, everybody's got a scam, everybody's looking out for their
friends—it's got to the point where no one cares. One day you can
be a front-page scandal, the next day you get elected to high
office—or more likely appointed because you've got a buddy."
    " Why don't you just get him transferred out?"
She avoided saying Gresham's name.
    "You think he's the first one I ever had? Or the
only one now? What if I did get rid of him? There'd just be another.
Or a swarm of them, like cockroaches. Skip, I can't take this
anymore. I swear to God I'm getting out."
    Skip sat down, feeling as if the breath had been
knocked out of her. "Getting out? You mean quitting?"
    "I mean quitting and moving out of town and
probably out of the state." She paused. "Maybe I'll go to
law school."
    Skip was speechless.
    " You know what this casino means? It means
several billion dollars are up for grabs. That's billions. In permits
and hotels and restaurants and jobs and parking lots and every piece
of the pie you can think of. You think this city and this state were
crooked before, it was just a warm-up for the kind of scrambling
that's starting now. I don't want to raise my kids in a place like
this."
    Skip was vaguely aware that Cappello had kids, but it
was nothing they ever talked about. She never thought of Cappello as
someone with a personal life, just as a police sergeant—and about
the best cop Skip had ever worked with. If she quit, it would leave a
gaping hole in Homicide.
    But she could see what the sergeant meant. Skip knew
Gresham was dirty. She knew there was nothing Cappello could prove,
nothing she could do about it except try to keep him out of certain
cases.
    But since she didn't know who was paying him, and
what cases involved his employers, it was hard to do that.
    Then there was the problem of overhearing—Gresham
could know things and dole out tips with almost no effort.
    There was nothing the sergeant could do, and Gresham
was only a symptom. The dirt, the buying and selling, the scamming,
could wear on you; it wore on anyone who worked for the city and
tried to do a good job. It wore particularly on police officers.
    " Oh, hell, you're right," Cappello said.
"I'll get him transferred out."
    Skip decided to wait till later to talk to her about
the case. She was feeling a lot like one of Justin Arceneaux's
relatives—so stressed out she'd come unfocused. She didn't trust
herself to give a good accounting right now.
    But Cappello said, "How's the heater case? Every
lieutenant in the building's called." A heater case was one the
brass cared about—any case, said the more cynical, involving a
white person. Skip ran this one down for her.
    Then she ran unsuccessful records checks for
"Delavon," both as a first and a last name. Since it was
near lunchtime, she called Narcotics without much hope, but her pal
Lefty O'Meara answered with his mouth full. "Lefty. If I'd
thought you'd be there, I'd have come up to see you."
    " If you thought I wasn't here, why'd you call?"
    "Hope springs eternal. Who do you know named
Delavon?"
    "Nobody. Who's he supposed to be?"
    "Big-time dealer. Heroin, maybe."
    " Not much of that around."
    "I hear Delavon's got some."
    " Trust me. There ain't no Delavon."
    She trusted him, but she thought there was. It was
just that O'Meara probably knew him as something like George
Boudreaux, or "Tiny," maybe—no last name.
    She sat at her desk and stared at the phone. She
needed human contact, but not with Cappello right now—with someone
who wouldn't depress her.
    She called her friend Cindy Lou, hoping to snag her
for lunch. But there was no answer.
    She called Steve for impromptu cheering up—but her
own machine answered. She called her landlord and best friend, Jimmy
Dee Scoggin, but got his secretary; he was in court.
    Feeling disoriented, almost dizzy, she went out to
get a sandwich, which she consumed without tasting, thinking of the
way Justin Arceneaux's bones pushed at his skin.
 
 
    6
    Treme was a black neighborhood, poor but at least not
one of the ancient, pathetic, falling-down housing projects that
breed crime like roaches in New Orleans. Most murders these days were
in the projects. Many cases—Skip thought most, but maybe it just
seemed that way—involved juveniles who didn't care whether they
lived or died. She had