House of Blues

don't have to take this
shit.' And I called my sister to come get me.
    " See, what they do, they get you dependent on
'em. You can't go do nothin' on your own. I thought about that when I
was lyin' there. I wanted to go, but where was I gon' go? The church
wouldn't let me go back to dancin', and tha's the only way I know to
make a livin'. Tha's when I thought about Evie and how she left
'em—just flat-out up and left 'em—so she could do what she
wanted.
    "She's a real pretty girl, see? You ever seen
her?"
    Skip shook her head.
    "Pore thing, I bet she had to get all perfumed
for Daddy every now and then. Anyway, everybody said she should be a
model, she was pretty enough, and that gave her the idea to go to a
modeling agency. You know you can make good money that way? You don't
even have to take your clothes off or nothin'. You get jobs like
handin' out stuff at conventions, shit like that. No sex. No nothin'.
just handin' shit out." She shrugged, as if it were too much to
fathom.
    "Well, Evie did that, and he did the same damn
thing to her."
    "I don't follow you."
    "Humiliated her; held her up as some terrible
example of a hussy in front of everybody. So then she had no way to
make a livin'—or she wouldn't of if she hadn't seen through it a
lot faster than I did. She just went, ‘I'm outta here,' and that
was that. So I thought, 'I can do that.' And you know what? I'm outta
there."
    " I'm happy for you, Nikki, I really am."
Skip smiled. "Tell me, do you have Evie's forwarding address?"
    Pigeon looked surprised. "No. She didn't leave
one."
    " Oh. Well, do you know what agency she worked
for?"
    "Agency?"
    "Didn't you say she worked for a modeling
agency?"
    " Oh, yeah. No, I guess I don't know. If I did,
I'd go right down there myself."
    "Okay. Do you want to file a complaint about the
battery?"
    "What battery?"
    "Jacomine hitting you."
    "Oh, no. No way. He'd kill me."
    " Kill you? You really think he'd kill you?"
    "I wouldn't put it past him."
    "Nikki, are you trying to tell me something?"
    "You mean, like, he kills people? Well, I don'
know of any, but I'm just sayin' he could, tha's all. He's that
evil."
    Skip went back to her desk and started calling
modeling agencies.
    The fifth one, fancifully named Cygnet, said Evie
Hebert no longer worked for them, and twenty minutes later she was in
their office. Another ten minutes and she had Evie's address.
    Just like that. St. Expedite was working overtime.
    Or, she thought, every now and then things just go
right.
    Something shifted inside her, and she realized it was
depression beginning to lift. She hadn't yet experienced it as
depression, only as a heaviness; unnamed baggage she'd carried since
that night in the Iberville project. There had been a sense, she
realized, that nothing would ever go right again, a low—energy
feeling that affected her self-esteem.
    She had a sense now of victory, almost an elation,
far out of proportion to the tiny fact she'd uncovered.
    I'm going to get Sally back. She knew she hadn't
really believed it for some time.
    Things are going right. They really are. Tricia found
Dennis; that fell into my lap. Though not really, she knew, because
she had found Tricia and had set in motion Tricia's need to prove
something to her.
    And now this.
    Evie lived near Claiborne, in a run-down building in
a rundown neighborhood. Whether it was mostly black or mostly white,
Skip didn't know; demographics changed from block to block. There
were a few cars parked out front, but not the Heberts' beige
Mercedes, the one Reed had left in. The place looked deserted.
    She found a phone and called Cappello. "I got an
address for Evie, but it looks like no one's home."
    "I'll send you some backup."
    "I think I might try the Avon lady routine. If I
don't call back in twenty, assume the worst." She hung up before
Cappello could answer.
    She had no bag of cosmetics, but she always kept a
clipboard handy, along with a copy of an opinion survey she'd picked
up from a genuine surveyor, and some product brochures.
    She rang Evie's doorbell and waited.
    Nothing.
    She rang it again, and stood there.
    She was about to slip a brochure under the door, to
discourage suspicion, when someone shouted down from upstairs. "Hey!
You lookin' for Evie?"
    Skip consulted her clipboard as if unsure. "Does
Evelyne Hebert live here?"
    "Yeah. I mean I guess that's her name—I call
her Evie. She hasn't been home in days."
    "Are you the building manager?"
    The face leaning down was