Louisiana Lament

big girl.”
    “Yeah, sure. When hell freezes over.” At least he could tease her.
    “Actually, I’m fine there. Nobody even notices me.”
    “I can’t even trust ya not to run a stop sign.”
    “You’ve got three other divorce cases. Who’s going to do the surveillance on George Richardson if you do this one? Not to mention Walter Carpenter and Gina Piccolo.”
    The hell of it was, she was right—he didn’t have the time. “Goddammit! Nobody in the whole town’s gettin’ along these days.”
    She smiled at him, knowing she’d won. “Except you and Audrey, I trust.”
    Why didn’t she stay the hell out of his personal business? He waved her away and didn’t give her or her tattooed buddy another thought until she phoned Friday night.
    The thing about these cheating cases, Talba had noticed, was that the wronged party usually had a pretty good idea of what was going on. Sure enough, just as Babalu had predicted, no sooner was she out of town than Jason closed his chocolate-brown curtains and walked down his front steps so obviously freshly showered and spiffed up for a date that Talba could almost smell his cologne.
    He got in his dark-blue Camry and drove to a restaurant on Magazine Street, where he met an extremely attractive woman who seemed a few years older than he, and the lovely couple had the good grace to sit right by the window. Talba got as good a picture as she could, but a flash wouldn’t have been cool in the circumstances.
    So far so good. So beautifully according to script she thought of quitting right then and there. But there could be lots of reasons for having dinner with a woman—maybe she was directing a play he was in; or maybe she was his aunt.
    She looked like she had money—nice haircut, good manicure, expensive casual clothes. Talba wished she’d gotten a look at her shoes and bag—these told the tale best. She was willing to bet they were expensive. This woman definitely didn’t seem a match for Jason, who, she had to admit, was quite a looker. But a more or less unemployed actor. This woman was too rich, too straight, maybe too old. She probably wouldn’t even speak to a tattooed person.
    Eddie had a saying for domestic cases:
The longer, the later, the stronger.
So far as he was concerned, if the subject left the paramour’s house at one a.m., it was a lousy case. Three a.m. was a lot better. All night, of course, was pretty hard to refute. Talba had brought a Thermos of coffee with her.
    Maybe they’d hold hands at dinner. Or kiss in the parking lot. That would be good enough for Babalu—she didn’t need something to take to court.
    But, no, they didn’t. In fact, they maintained such a respectful distance Talba thought perhaps the thing was innocent. And after dinner they split up, Jason going to the parking lot the woman in a different direction.
    Oh, well. The night was young. Maybe he’d go to a bar and pick someone up. In fact he swung out of the lot and waited—until a white Lexus drew up alongside him. The driver was his dinner companion.
    Okay, here we go,
Talba thought.
We’re going to Sweet Thing’s house.
That was what Eddie called all the female paramours: Sweet Thing. She hoped this one didn’t live in some white folks’ neighborhood where they’d shoot her on sight.
    Her hopes were dashed when Sweet Thing drove straight to Old Metairie, a swish suburb nearly as snotty as Uptown. But whatever the social prejudices of the residents, just about none of them were black. There was no way she was going to pull off a night in front of a suburban mini-mansion without someone calling the cops. This was the bad part of surveillance—you never knew where you were going to end up.
    She called Eddie on her cell phone. “Boss, I need your help. I’m in Old Metairie.”
    “Well, hell. Get out.”
    “The subject’s in some lady’s house. I can’t leave now—I’ve just about got him.”
    She heard him sigh. “Miz Wallis. I’ll get ya for this.”
    She breathed a sigh of relief and gave him the address. Eddie sighed. “I’ll take a taxi and get out a block away or something. All we need is two cars on this, things aren’t bad enough.”
    Talba cordially hoped it wasn’t going to be a long night. Not only was Eddie getting on in years, but he had the worst bags under his eyes of any human she’d ever seen—great tumorous bulges paved over with purple gator-skin. You could make a
fine
pair of shoes out of them, now that she thought of it.