Lousiana Hotshot

better. Should have been better.
    What the hell was he thinking? He had no idea what Anthony was. For all he knew, his son was now the junior senator from Idaho.
    What was “better,” anyhow? Some part of his brain was asking a question: Does it mean doing better? Or something else?
    I don’t understand how all these years have gone by and now you’re almost sixty-five. I got this email today from a girl who works for you and I thought I might not see you again, or Mom or Angie either.
    When Eddie heard those words, something exploded within him. He felt it start in his stomach and shoot up to his skull. It was pear-shaped and purple and when it popped open it was spiky inside, like the inside of a fig. It was fury.
    He honestly believed he would have killed Talba Wallis if she’d been near enough at the time. He wanted to smack her across the room and stomp her.
    It wasn’t an urge he’d ever had before. It scared the hell out of him.
    Goddam you,
he had shouted, and hung up the phone. Now these tears.
    And the headaches, Audrey had said. The headaches were about Anthony.
    Oh, Audrey. Audrey, what have I done to you?
    The shame of it, of her going to a shrink, going on his account, because of what he was putting her through— that was more than he could take. It sat on him like a boulder.
    He closed his eyes. He was lying on the sofa in the reception room with all the lights out, and now he just wanted to rest.
    His brain kept cycling, round and round and round, endlessly, endlessly, and then it stopped.
    He slept.
    He dreamed he was in a courtroom, and Talba Wallis was the judge. She stood before him like a crow in her black skin and black robe, and then he was led to the guillotine. He wanted to tip the executioner, having read that it was the done thing, but the man turned away from him, muttering.
    No words were spoken in the dream, but in the clarity of the dreamscape he understood his crime.
    It was doing the unforgivable.
    He awakened moaning, trying to call for help, to be heard, and tried to remember what it was that he had done in the dream.
What
was unforgivable?
    He knew.
    It was something so contemptible, so petty and mean, so wrong and immoral, so childish and stupid and arrogant and utterly vile he couldn’t even think about it. It couldn’t have been he who had done it, it was impossible. The best thing was just to bury it, never to name it in his mind again, never to put words to it, never to let it into his consciousness.
    But now there was this thing with Audrey and the shrink. That was right in his face, and it was his doing. That he had to own up to. And if he did that… If he did that, the whole house of cards came down.
    Let it,
he thought.
Goddammit, let it.
    His son had left a phone number on his voicemail— he didn’t know if he had the balls to dial it.

Chapter 14
    Ms. Wallis came creeping in like an old cat in a yard full of new smells, unsure what might leap out of the dark.
    “Eddie? You in here?”
    “Waiting for you. Audrey called.” She had called the house thinking he’d be there— as he would have any other time. But tonight he wasn’t ready yet. What had happened to him was far too intimate to talk to Audrey about.
    “Come on in, Ms. Wallis. I’m not gonna bite you. Hell froze over.”
    “Eddie, let me just say… ”
    He stopped her with a slap at the air. “Ya know what we guineas say? Fuggeddaboutit.” He took a sip of the scotch and water on his desk. “I learned that in a mob movie. What’s ya pleasure, Ms. Wallis?”
    “Nothing, thanks.”
    “Ya better have one, or we won’t communicate. I’m way ahead a ya.”
    She seemed to relax a little. “You have any white wine?”
    “Are you kidding? Detectives don’t drink white wine. It ain’t macho.” When he was drinking, he couldn’t be bothered watching his grammar.
    “This one does.”
    “Oh, all right. I’ll get ya some.” There was a little refrigerator in the copy room that now served as her office.
    “I’ll get it.”
    While she was gone, he had a little more of his own drink. He had a real nice buzz, and he wanted to keep it going. She came back with the glass in one hand, the bottle in the other. “I ran into some problems, Eddie. It’s nice you’ve forgiven me, but…”
    “I didn’t say I forgive ya.”
    “Well, anyway, we’re talking. We might not be after I tell you what’s going on.”
    “Damn, Ms. Wallis. Can’t it wait? I talked to my son tonight for the first