Louisiana Lament

I want to know and have him not know I know. I need to buy myself time to think about what to do.”
    “What to do! I’ll tell you what to do.”
    Babalu’s eyes misted over. “Talba, please.”
    Talba eased up. The healer, the talented poet she held in such esteem, was really much more fragile than Talba liked to believe. She remembered something Babalu had once told her about her name—
Maya
meant peace or something, but
Babalu
was an Afro-Caribbean god or saint, always depicted with a crutch. “It’s the archetype of the wounded healer,” she said.
    Talba hadn’t pressed it, taking it at the time for some kind of general metaphor, something about everyone being wounded. But it occurred to her now that this woman, so strong on the outside, had internal wounds so severe she didn’t even have the self-esteem to get rid of a scrofulous piece of shit who was cheating on her. Well, fine. Talba could help with that. And not by nagging either. It would be her pleasure to shoot a home movie that would stand up in court. Not that that was needed—she just liked to do things right.
    The second Babalu left, Talba sat down to do what she always did after an interview, and found she hadn’t done the first thing right. Eddie had taught her two primary rules of doing business—first cash the check; second, run a background check on the client. Babalu had paid her retainer in cash (not surprising—she liked her own clients to pay cash), so the first wasn’t necessary. However, due to that oddity, Talba had no way of knowing what her client’s legal name was; and it hadn’t occurred to her to ask. In fact the whole background routine had slipped her mind, and now that she thought about it she found it creepy. Maybe you made an exception when you knew the client. Certainly her subconscious had.
    But something nagged at her. Did she really know Babalu?
    She knew Babalu wasn’t a charlatan. Maybe that was enough.
    She busied herself backgrounding Jason instead, an eminently boring task, since everything checked out down to a very decent credit record. (This was something PI’s weren’t entitled to, but Talba knew how to get it and on this occasion, since a friend was involved, she went for it.) Granddaddy must have done well by him, she thought. That part boded well for Babalu; it was
something
to cling to.
    Next on the agenda was a recon of the surveillance area, and it was nearly time for lunch. She could get some fresh air and do the recon at the same time—right after she rented a car.
    Jason lived in the area of town referred to as the Lower Garden District, not to be even slightly confused with the Garden District proper, which was very proper indeed. The lower version was hip, upwardly mobile, mixed in just about every way, and a little dicey—actually a by-the-numbers neighborhood for an unemployed actor. It offered good deals if you didn’t mind watching your back.
    Jason’s building was a rambling old Victorian that had been chopped up into apartments; he had the second floor front, and Babalu had said he usually kept the curtains closed so he could see his screen. Brown velvet curtains, she said; very masculine. Okay, fine. Apartment identified. Now the vehicle. Talba looked, with envy, for a dark blue Camry, and indeed there it was, its plate number nicely matching the one her trusty computer had just told her had been issued to a Jason Wheelock at this very address. All systems go. The bird was in the nest.
    The next issue was her own security. There was a reasonable amount of traffic, both vehicular and pedal, and there were plenty of black people in the general mix. She wasn’t going to stick out too much. She just wished her rental car weren’t white, which was all they had by the time she got there. She felt a little conspicuous in it.
    Yet she knew she probably wasn’t. Unless there was a neighborhood biddy who spent her days peering out the window, chances were good no one would notice her at all. The surveillance ought to be a piece of cake—anything would be, compared to the turn her afternoon was about to take. She hadn’t yet told Eddie about the accident.
    * * *
    Eddie felt himself shaking his head, which made him feel old. “Ms. Wallis, Ms. Wallis.” He wished he could come up with a better response, but his young associate had left him more or less speechless, and it wasn’t the first time. “Ya ran a
stop
sign?”
    She’d just told him that. He was trying to wrap his brain