Lousiana Hotshot

contracts.
    Her last act before leaving that night was to call CompTask and, in the guise of Ms. Jackson, ask them to send Liza back.

Chapter 10
    “No. No way. Negative. Uh-uh. Over my dead body.”
    Talba stared at her email and thought perhaps there was room, after all, for the Luddite opinion that not all business need be conducted on the Internet. She had simply inquired of Darryl Boucree if he would care to accompany her to a program of indigenous rap and hip-hop music featuring national artists, and even offering to supply the tickets. Surely this was too strong a reaction.
    She tried the phone. “Mr. Boucree, sir, I find that usually when I ask a gentleman for a date, I get a much more polite reaction. I just don’t believe you can say to my face what you said to my computer.”
    “Ms. Wallis, ma’am, I don’t believe I heard you. Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone.”
    “Perhaps we could trade. If you’d do this one little thing for me, no telling what I might do for you.” She spoke in a whorehouse whisper.
    “Not on your life,” he answered. “Not for all the money in the world. Not even if…”
    “I wasn’t thinking about money.”
    “Not even for your precious smooth black skin.”
    “Dark brown, actually. And surely you jest.” People liked her voice. Some had joked that she could make a bundle doing phone sex. She put all the sweetness she could muster into the last four words.
    “You’re on your own, Ms. Wallis.”
    She was getting exasperated. “Well, what’s the big deal? Rap’s an African-American art form. Why all the resistance?”
    “It’s also a part of kid culture that I get all too much of. You know what that asshole calls women?”
    “What asshole? There are three artists on the program.”
    “You know what asshole. Baron Tujague.”
    “I thought he came to your school, and you liked him.”
    “All right, all right. He’s civic-minded, I guess. This thing tonight, for instance. It’s just that I hate that shit. It’s so slick and ugly.”
    “Slick and
ugly
… mmmmm. Sounds like fun. Slick and
uuuggly.”
    He laughed. “God, you’re a sexy woman.”
    She pressed her advantage. “Listen, this thing’s for the Musicians’ Clinic. How in the name of your profession are you going to find a better cause? And they’re each only going to do one number. Rich people are going to be there— think they want to hear rap?”
    It was a promotional party for the second CD produced by the Musicians’ Clinic at LSU, this one all rap, all original songs. Darryl’s own band, the Boucree Brothers, had a song on the first. Tickets were two hundred bucks apiece, and Talba figured she could expense a couple.
    “Why is it so important to have me with you?” Darryl asked, and she could see she just about had him.
    She thought of something to say that finally convinced him— or maybe it was the way she said it. It had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with her feelings for him.
    The thing was a two-hour deal at the House of Blues, a venue of which Darryl disapproved on grounds that the acoustics of the place were wasted on rap. But there was nothing, as Talba pointed out, wrong with the drinks. She was wearing one of her Baroness outfits, flowing fuchsia harem pants with tight shiny top and the hat she’d bought from Millie the Milliner.
    Because the point of the CD was to promote health, and because much of the Baron’s fanship was perceived as being drug-friendly, to say the least, he’d been asked to write an antidrug song. And had. A song about dying and all your friends dying and leaving your kids behind, still little kids, “no daddy or nothin’, and your mama cryin’.”
    “Rhymes with dyin’,” Darryl noted, but even he found it hard to find fault.
    “Now, listen,” said Talba, when the songs had been sung and the pitch made, “you’re a famous musician. Here’s the deal. You go suck up to him, and while you’re at it, introduce your friend who could be his sister, their names are so similar.”
    He smacked his forehead. “This is what it was all about.”
    She shrugged. “Well, the other thing and this— the thing I mentioned.”
    “You mean you love me so much you can’t stand to be away from me, even for one evening.”
    “Well, yeah, sure. You know that’s true. Except for the evenings I can.”
    “God, what I do for women.” He grabbed her hand and started to blaze a trail through the crowd.
    “Better lose that