Jazz Funeral

fact—Mason Brocato. Well, she’s not really my friend. She’s Camille’s.”
    “I love this town.”
    “What?”
    “Oh, never mind.” Growing up, she’d hated the city, hated the web of connections no one could avoid there, hated the way everyone knew everyone else’s business. Now she was getting used to it, at times like this even liked it. “Well, look, this is kind of delicate, I guess—it’ll be obvious why I’m asking what I’m asking. Can we talk without this getting back to Camille?”
    “Sure. If Mason did it, fuck her.”
    “Mr. Compassion.”
    “Hey, I’ve mellowed. Everybody says so.”
    “Can you find out what Mason’s financial situation is?”
    “I already know. She was over here two days ago complaining to Camille that she’s putting her house on the market. Claims she’s tapped out and it’s all Chas’s fault.”
    “Has she actually put it on the market?”
    “How would I know? But she did mention her agent—that’d be about real estate, wouldn’t it? Jimmy Holhngsworth, who I went to Newman with. Wanted to know if he was married.”
    “Do you have his phone number?”
    “He’s too young for you. And he is married.” He hadn’t mellowed that much.
    One phone call to Hollingsworth identifying herself as Conrad’s sister, and she had what she needed. In fact, more. Not only did he verify the pending house sale—he said, in that confiding Southern way Skip had come to love, “You know Mason’s been going through some hard times lately.”
    A simple “Oh?” and he poured out the whole story. Nothing you could take to court, but the same story three times—plenty good enough for O’Rourke.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
    “So how can we be talking if I have your only phone?”
    “Melody, is that you? Thank God you’re all right.”
    “Like you really care. Thanks for turning me in.”
    “I didn’t turn you in. You left, and the next thing I knew a cop turned up saying you were involved in a chase.”
    “Oh, sure. Like you gave me your only phone.”
    “I forgot about this phone. I’m not kidding—it’s an old one I had in the basement. I only remembered it when you didn’t come back.” There was a rattling at Richard’s end. “Hear that? It’s me shaking the phone. I dropped it three times and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. That’s why I got a new one.”
    “You just happened to conveniently forget about it.”
    “Melody, I didn’t call the cops. I swear it.”
    “Well, if you didn’t call them, why the hell were they chasing me?”
    “Did you see the person in the other car?”
    “Not very well—it was just some cop wearing shades and a baseball cap. Really great disguise; fooled the hell out of me.”
    “Melody, listen, I don’t think it was a cop. You’ve got to go home—or come here at the very least. You have to get to someplace safe.”
    “No thanks. I know how safe I was before.”
    “Then why’d you call?”
    “You might have turned me in, but I’m still not a car thief. I parked your goddamn car near the auditorium. I hope it gets stripped. I already gave your phone to a kid in the neighborhood.” The Municipal Auditorium was in Treme, a neighborhood that terrified most white people.
    Melody hung up, furious.
    How dumb does she think I am?
    She was at a pay phone at a hotel she’d heard about where lots of kids stayed. More like a flophouse, really—just a few bucks a night. On the way over, she’d shoplifted a pair of panties from Maison Blanche and picked up some shorts at the flea market. She’d showered, applied the Kwell, and was now experiencing blessed relief. She had just about enough for lunch and bus fare back to Joel’s.
    Hoping the bed harbored no bugs (though it looked like it did), she sat down and thought about what to do next.
    Betrayed by Richard. I still don’t believe it.
    Or did I know all the time—unconsciously, as she would say? Did I know I couldn’t trust her or anybody else on this miserable planet?
    How about if I just go walk in front of a bus or something?
    She had to lie down. She felt too awful to sit up. She didn’t even want to curl up, to feel her body against itself, comforting itself. She just lay rigid on her back, arms at her sides, as if she were dead.
    She wished she were. Really, really wished it.
    The idea about the bus had struck her fancy.
    Got Janis’s Ol’ Kozmic Blues again.
    Janis had been like her. Hadn’t fit into her hometown, had been too different to