House of Blues

need. Turan a mean dude, you ain'
gon' like him a-tall. But he the only dude in town got any smack
right now. Your boy Dennis, tha's what he into—and I know he is—he
gon' find Turan."
    Oh, sure. One guy in town's got heroin. Tell me
about it.
    She said, "Where am I gon' find Turan?"
    "You use yo' famous skills as a white po-lice
detective."
    " Come on, Delavon. I didn't come all this way
for nothing"
    For some reason, that struck Delavon as funny. When
he was finished laughing, he said, "Smart girl like you. You
find him, all right."
    "Shall I tell him Delavon sent me?"
    Delavon laughed, emitting a kind of high-pitched
giggle Skip found inappropriate to royalty. "Yeah. You tell him
that thing."
    "I'll do that." She glanced behind her. Her
escorts were standing on either side of a brown-painted door, the
only surface in the room that wasn't decorated.
    Delavon said, "I hear Turan work for Gus
Lozano." Some said the mob was more or less dead in New Orleans;
but Lozano was still operating, as close as the city got to a crime
boss.
    " That so?"
    "Some funny rumors goin, 'round about Gus. What
you white po-lice know about it?"
    It occurred to Skip that maybe she'd been taken to
Delavon so he could ask this question; he had the ridiculous idea she
could tell him something useful—and would.
    Though she hadn't heard the funny rumors, she looked
Delavon straight in the eye. "He's on his way out."
    Delavon nodded. "Yeah. That what we hear too."
    He made some kind of tiny hand signal—Skip was
barely aware of movement—and once again she felt her elbows
grabbed. The blindfold was slipped in place.
    When it came off, she was back in Treme, at the exact
spot where she'd been snatched. One of her guides returned her gun.
    " You be careful," he said. "Streets
full of badasses."
 
 
    7
    She planned to go to Kurt's that night, the bar
Justin Arceneaux had mentioned, but she couldn't see doing it before
nine or ten, giving the regulars time to filter in. A good thing
because she had dinner plans. All the people she loved best—two of
whom didn't care that much for each other—were getting together.
    The two who didn't get along were Steve Steinman and
Skip's best friend and landlord, Jimmy Dee Scoggin ("Dee-Dee"
to Skip). From the moment Skip met Steve, Jimmy Dee had considered
him a rival (though Dee-Dee was ineligible by dint of sexual
preference). Steve had sensed his dislike and returned it.
    But things were starting to change. For the first
time in years, Dee-Dee had a lover, and with Layne as a buffer, the
four of them could get through a double date with perfect civility.
Tonight there would be five, including their friend Cindy Lou
Wootten, sometime police psychologist. Despite her white-bread name,
Cindy Lou was black; and despite her Vogue-model appearance, she knew
the darkest secrets of the human heart, including such nuances as how
to handle Frank O'Rourke, the homicide sergeant whose life's work
seemed to be making Skip miserable.
    They were going to Irene's, the Italian place down
the street.
    Skip was looking forward to it like a kid—after the
humiliating events of the day, she needed diversion.
    She was slipping on a silk tank top when she heard
Steve mumble something. '
    "What?"
    He walked into the bedroom. "Sorry. I can't get
used to this place. I thought you were two feet away."
    " It's better, though, isn't it? You can get a
beer without bumping into me."
    "I kind of liked that aspect." He looked
around. "But I have to admit this is rather grand—I never saw
a slave quarters this big."
    Skip's old apartment had been one room—one small
room—hardly big enough for two people to have a drink in. But Jimmy
Dee had taken it back when he decided to adopt his dying sister's two
kids and convert the entire Big House, as they now called it, to its
former use as a one-family home. He'd given Skip his own beautifully
restored slave quarters at her old rent, and she was in the process
of converting it from the quintessential bachelor quarters to an airy
oasis of plants and art—or as much art as she could afford.
    Only now they called it the garçonnière .
    The kids were from Milwaukee, and Dee-Dee wanted to
protect them from the city's brutal history.
    "Well, Dee-Dee knocked out walls. They probably
had two or three families in here." She shook off the thought.
"Let's not dwell on it. I'm sure it wasn't fun, but at least no
one could be bothered haunting—they were all too glad to get out."
    "Maybe the