Louisiana Lament

thrown in jail. I mean it, Ms. Wallis, this is life-threatenin’.”
    Eileen Fisher crept into the room, nervous, her lightly pimpled brow now slightly damp. “Eddie, you okay? Somebody shot at ya?” She was his niece, though she avoided calling him “uncle” at the office.
    “Hell, no, Eileen, nobody shot at me. I swear to God if one word of this gets to ya Aunt Audrey, I’m firin’ you too. Swear to God, do ya hear?”
    She nodded, face pink as a petunia. She just stood there a moment, the silence lengthening. Finally, she said, “I think I better get y’all some coffee.”
    Eddie waved her out of there. “Naah, we’re fine. We’re fine, okay? All in a day’s work. You okay, honey?” Niece or not, he never called his employees pet names. However, if Eileen quit, there’d be hell to pay in the family. He had to calm her down. “There’s no danger, Eileen. No danger at all. Ya okay with that?”
    He finally got a smile out of her. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever ya say, Uncle Eddie.” She was a good kid, just a little timid. “Don’t call me ‘uncle’ in the workplace.”
    She smiled at him over her shoulder.
    Ms. Wallis, now. She wasn’t timid. As soon as Eileen was gone, she was full speed ahead again. “Eddie, who was it? Brashear’s goons?”
    “Naah, hell. Brashear.” He was starting to come down from the adrenaline rush. “Brashear’s lame as they come. It was somebody else, Ms. Wallis. Private citizen.” He could feel his hands starting to shake. He put them in his lap so she wouldn’t notice. “They shot from a car. Followed me first—then I pulled over and boom!”
    Her face was full of emotion. She seemed so hard-bitten half the time. But look at her now. “You could have been killed,” she said.
    “Uh-uh, that wasn’t the plan. The idea was to send a message loud and clear: ‘Get the hell out of Clayton and stay out.’ Okay, fine, we get it. We been to Clayton. We didn’t actually conquer yet, but we came and we saw. And we ain’t going back.”
    He watched the little sunrise of surprise on her face at his use of the Latin quote. “Hey, Ms. Wallis, wake up—I went to Catholic school. Ya don’t have to go to college to know everything.”
    Her expression brushed his words away. She just loved being superior, but she didn’t like it worth a damn when he caught her at it. She said, “What kind of car was it?”
    “Silver Lincoln. Couldn’t see the plate.”
    “He was on my tail, too.”
    “So that’s what you were hidin’.” He felt fury roar up his spine; blood rush to his face. “Goddammit, Ms. Wallis! When ya gonna figure out what’s important and what’s not?”
    “Hey, Eddie, calm down. It could have been anybody. He didn’t shoot at me.”
    Eddie was so mad he couldn’t even think of any words. “Shit! Just shit! Get outta here, Ms. Wallis. Just get on outta here.”
    “Eddie, I’m sorry.” Three words he thought he’d never hear from her. And then she left him to pull himself together, get his heart to slow down, his hands to stop shaking.
    * * *
    Talba was genuinely sobered—not by Eddie’s temper tantrum; she’d seen that before. Simply by the knowledge that somebody’d actually shot at him. It might be only a warning, but it was vicious.
    She felt the need to escalate, to move in double time. And, anyway, she’d had it with waiting for Calvin Richard to develop a conscience. This time she didn’t go through Skip. She called the department personnel office and let them ring him. And when she had him, she minced no words. “Sergeant Richard, this is Talba Wallis. Someone shot at my partner. It’s time we talked.”
    To her surprise, he didn’t resist. “Ms. Wallis, I’m real sorry about that. Listen, I’m sorry I hung up on you, too. I got some time now if you like—you want to come on by? I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
    Just like that. Instant turnabout. She wondered why. He was attached to the First District, just outside the French Quarter. It was a prime location for coffeehouses, and she could have used a midmorning jolt. But evidently Richard meant the offer only as a figure of speech. “Let’s go for a walk in St. Louis Number 1,” he said. He was talking about the cemetery across the street. He wanted privacy.
    Calvin Richard was a handsome man, his skin a good, rich mud color, his hair in a buzz cut.
    She said, “Your parents told me you were dead. Now why would that be?”
    “Yeah. They told me they did that.”