Louisiana Bigshot

and brains. Few little things like that.”
    “Were he and Clayton Patterson an item?”
    “Naw. Calvin had too much sense for that. Now she tried. You can bet on that. But Calvin wouldn’t have none of that. Nooooo. Way too straight-arrow.”
    Talba smiled at him, ready to get out of there, chomping at the bit to get to Calvin. “Can I ask you one last thing? Who’s the Pattersons’ maid?”
    He looked at her suspiciously. “Now, why’d you think I’d know a thing like that?”
    “ ’Cause Clayton’s a small town—everybody knows everything.”
    “Tell me something. This thing you’re doing—this investigation—it’s got something to do with Clayton, don’t it?”
    “It might. She came from money. She had money to leave.” A leaf from Eddie’s book.
    A slow smile came over him. “Oh, I get it. I’m startin’ to get it. She left something to somebody. Awright, I’ll he’p ya. I can find that out for ya. I don’t know who works for those people, but I got an aunt who will.”
    He pulled out his cell phone and spoke unceremoniously. “Who work for the Pattersons? You know, King and them. Yeah, I know her. Where she stay at? Okay.” He put the phone away. No hello; no good-bye; no need to identify himself. It wasn’t Talba’s style, but she sure knew a lot of people who talked on the phone like that. He pocketed the phone. “Ontee say the lady name Betty Majors. She stay over on Pearl Street.”
    She thanked Marshannon and left with an embarrassment of riches. She’d sure been right about talking just to black people. If even a third of what he said was true, she’d learned more about Clayton Patterson from him than she had from the rest of the town put together.
    Now what to do with it all? Make a run for Calvin, as had been her first instinct? Or try for Betty Majors?
    She looked at her watch. Betty Majors ought to be getting off about now, and Pearl Street was close. Nothing made better sense than to go see her now. But something made Talba hesitate. Clayton was dead; Donny was dead. And Calvin’s parents had told her Calvin was dead. The question was, why? The obvious answer was, to keep her from talking to him. They feared for him. Should Talba fear for him as well?
    She did. And yet, how was she going to keep him alive by going to see him first? His parents would have phoned to say she was coming, so he’d be warned. And he was a cop; he could take care of himself. She settled on Betty Majors.
    She got back on the interstate and headed toward Clayton. She was three or four miles down the road when she noticed a silver Lincoln behind her. The one she’d seen before? Every other car on the road was silver these days.
    She’d have to keep watching it. She changed lanes, made as if to get off at the next exit Slowly, unobtrusively, so did the Lincoln. Did that settle it? Probably. She thought she should assume she was being tailed.
    At first that was merely intellectually interesting, and then she noticed her palms were sweating. I’m turtling out, she thought, going into denial. It was an extremely dangerous defense mechanism. She couldn’t afford to do it, she had to be alert.
    She tried another lane change, noticed the other car did too.
    Well, hell. He was practically insulting her intelligence, he was so bad at this. Who did he think he was, anyhow? Her palms were still sweating, but she was getting mad. That was good—it meant she was awake. She might as well make it work for her. What she needed was his license number. How to get that?
    She pondered it almost all the way back to Clayton, keeping the car in sight wondering if she’d been stupid with the lane changes, telegraphed that she’d spotted him.
    Aha! She remembered Eddie’s trick of tailing a car from in front—it was a neat reversal, and she could reverse the reversal. Get this car in front. She pulled off at a gas station.
    And sure enough, it worked beautifully. The Lincoln sailed by, as if it had no interest whatsoever in a gray Isuzu Trooper. Talba shot out of the station after it, bearing down, but she had overestimated her steed. The Lincoln simply opened up, and no matter how hard she pushed the Trooper, it was no contest.
    She was pissed off. There was an up side—not only had she lost him, he’d lost her. But it might not be over, she thought—in a town like Clayton, he could find her.
    Once back in town, she tried the phone book again, and once again it delivered for her. There was a John