Lousiana Hotshot

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, tha’s the important thing. I don’t mind tellin’ ya, I thought ya was hustlin’ me when ya first come in wi’ that. But I see you really got somethin’ to say. Ya really got a idea there.”
    “I thought you’d think so.”
    “I’m gon’ run that by the Baron. I think it’s somethin’ he might like to do.”
    “Great.” She stood and held out her hand. “That’s all I can ask.”
    “You got a card?”
    “The best way to get me’s on my cell phone. Let me give you the number.” For good measure, she threw in her pager number as well.
    She mentally congratulated herself— it really was a good idea. She’d damn near convinced herself. Her only regret was that she hadn’t had a minute to photograph the client report. Still, maybe there was a way to get back in; she looked at her watch. Not now. She just had time to grab a quick bite and get to Fortier before Shaneel got out of school.
    But on the way out, there was one little thing she could do. She noticed most of the cars had been driven away by the card players. When she was near enough to the Navigator, she surreptitiously opened her purse and upended it. With a little squeal, she squatted to pick up the mess, taking a moment first (very carefully, so as not to set off the alarm) to place one of her magnetized homing devices on the underside of the car— it might not be his, but she’d bet a hundred dollars it was.
    She was in her own car, thinking about the Shoney’s where she’d seen the Baron’s gang, when her phone rang. Her stomach shimmied— with Eddie in the hospital, any call could be bad news. “Hello?”
    “Your Grace, it’s the Baron.”
    “Why, Your Grace. Wha’s up?”
    “I hear ya been to see my brother.”
    “News travels fast.”
    “I got my feelings hurt. Why didn’t you come see me?”
    “You’re kind of an important man. I didn’t think I could get an audience.”
    “Pretty lady can
always
get an audience. You got one now. How soon can you get here?”
    She thought about it; this was going to make things tricky, but the opportunity to bug the big man’s office was too good to pass up. She could do it if she forgot about food. “Where are you? I’ve got a three o’clock.”
    “Come on. Give me five minutes. You got to be in the ‘hood— you just saw Toes.”
    Toes.
There it was, crouching on the line like a spider made out of words. “I saw
who?”
    He laughed. “Tha’s what we call my brother. T-h-o-s, Toes. It’s from Thomas.”
    “Oh. Gotcha.” She made him give her directions, though due to her recent foray, she really didn’t need them. Seven minutes later she was standing in his office.
    Today he was dressed in the universal baggy rap uniform. She gave a little bow. “Your Grace.”
    He nodded, not standing to receive her. “Welcome.” He leaned back. “I know you’re in a hurry, so listen up. That’s a dynamite idea you got.”
    “It wasn’t mine— it’s the organization’s.”
    He waved at her. “Yeah, yeah.”
    Seeing her chance, she said, “I got the impression your brother didn’t think much of the idea.”
    “Oh, yeah? That’s not what he told me. He sounded real excited.”
    “Oh. Well. I guess I got the wrong idea. I got the feeling he thinks you don’t like to do
pro bono
work.” The Baron made no attempt to conceal his annoyance. “And that he thinks my project’s kind of smalltime.”
    “Goddammit, if I’ve told him once, I’ve told the sucker… ” He caught himself and let the sentence trail off.
    Talba was drunk with power. “I mean, I didn’t really appreciate it when he called the kids freaks.”
    “What kids?”
    “You know— the ones we’d like to benefit, the kids with birth defects. He called them ‘deaf-and-dumb freaks with flippers’— it’s… you know… kind of an expression that sticks in your mind.”
    “Goddammit!
I’m gonna…”
    “Oh, no, no. I didn’t mean to get him in trouble. It’s okay— he did tell you about the project and I think, after we’d talked a little bit, he was genuinely convinced of its value— at least from what you tell me. Funny, though, when I left the office I still thought he was hostile to it.”
    “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Your Grace.” He rose and started pacing, eventually turning to look out the window in the direction of his brother’s office. Hardly believing her good luck, she slipped a transmitter under the lip of his desk.
    This was working out