Louisiana Lament

last thing he wanted to do was call Ms. Wallis to come bail him out.
    He asked at the desk for Judge Samuel’s room and was given a number, which he took as a sign that the judge was up to having visitors.
    He was sleeping, his wife at his side, wearing a look of unutterable sadness.
I should go,
Eddie thought.
I shouldn’t do this.
    But somehow, he couldn’t stop himself. The man was very gray.
    “Yes?” the wife said.
    “Are you Mrs. Samuel?”
    “Yes.”
    “Eddie Valentino, Mrs. Samuel. I wanted to ask your husband about an old case of his. Is he able to talk at all?”
    She turned fearful eyes upon him, uncertain what to say. The man in the bed spoke in a whisper, eyes still closed. “What case is that?”
    “Judge Samuel. How do you do, sir? I don’t want to disturb you.”
    “You’re not disturbin’ me, son. I’m not going anywhere. Tell me what I can do for you.” He sounded as if every word could be his last. The woman looked terrified. “Tell me what case you mean.”
    Eddie stepped forward uncertainly, so as to be able to hear. “It was the Donny Troxell case, sir.”
    The man’s eyes opened, searing through space. “I’m not gon’ talk about that!” Clearly the Judge couldn’t turn his head to see Eddie. Just as clearly, he was furious. He started to cough. The coughs began slowly and built to a frightening crescendo. His wife called a nurse, who rushed in and began to reposition him. Eddie had no idea how serious the cough was, whether life-threatening or not but if so, he couldn’t help but notice that the judge garnered all his strength to hurl his possibly last words at Eddie: “You idiot!” Mrs. Samuel turned a face of pure hatred upon him.
    Eddie got out of there fast. He felt small. Though he had no idea what he’d said that tortured this man, it was obvious his usual methods weren’t working in Clayton. He felt bad for the judge and bad for his wife and very much as if he deserved the old man’s parting epithet. He felt like an idiot. He felt a deep need to gain back some of his self-respect and he knew perfectly well there was a way around the stonewalling. But there was no talking cure here. If he and Talba were going to dig into the past they were going to have to do it almost literally—with a mountain of paper and a pickax. There was nothing to do but wait for the damn transcript.
    He was turning onto the Interstate when he noticed a silver car behind him, a Lincoln Continental, he thought. Actually, he’d seen the Lincoln for some time, but only now did it occur to him that it might be tailing him. He tried some tricks—changing lanes, even getting off the Interstate—and yes, he was definitely being followed. By someone who didn’t care if he was made and yet having been made, didn’t simply go home, message delivered. Once on the frontage road, Eddie turned onto a nameless backroad, then stopped abruptly and let the car sail past hoping to get its plate number, blissfully unaware that his young assistant had tried the same thing.
    As soon as the driver realized he’d been had, he screeched into a one-eighty and barreled back toward Eddie, who was still parked, too startled even to take action. And then Eddie heard a sound like a backfire.
    For a moment he clung to the reality of a split-second before:
was
it a backfire? In his heart he knew it wasn’t. It was a gunshot; he was unarmed and about to die.
    The second shot hit the car, and Eddie hit the floor. Yet that was the last one he heard. Timidly rearing up after the longest minute of his life, he found himself alone on a deserted stretch of highway. He had to urinate so badly he didn’t think he could get to a gas station.
    What the hell, he could get out here and go. The guy wasn’t coming back. His job was done.
    He drove back to New Orleans in peace and entered his own office bellowing. “Ms. Wallis, get in here! I gotta talk to you now.”
    When a surprised Talba stumbled into his cubicle, he shouted, “Goddammit, ’scuse my French! Somebody just shot at me! Banged up Audrey’s Cadillac too.”
    “Oh, shit, Eddie. What happened?”
    “What happened? What happened, is we’ve wore out our welcome in Clayton, once and for good and all. Ya not going back there for any reason, and ya gonna give me ya word on that.”
    “Okay, Eddie. Sure.” She looked scared to death. Good.
    “And if ya do, ya fired. It’s that simple. I am not having my employees getting shot at. Bad enough ya got