Lousiana Hotshot

time in ten years.”
    She forced a smile. “I’m happy for you, Eddie.”
    He could see that she was, or rather he somehow felt that she was, because of a certain softness that had crept into her voice and the set of her shoulders. But she was so tense she could barely bring herself even to utter the social niceties.
    He went into his tough-guy routine. “Yeah, so, we’ll get to that. What’s on ya mind? You were gon’ talk to the hat-shop lady, weren’t ya?”
    “Omigod. Is that where we left off? That was about three lifetimes ago.”
    He found himself getting irritated. “You been doin’ stuff I told ya not to?”
    She was gulping her wine. ‘Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think I really blew it too.”
    “Oh, shit, is anybody hurt? Excuse my French.”
    “Maybe. But that part isn’t my fault. What
might
happen is.”
    He held up his glass and saluted her. “Good thing I’m drinking this stuff.”
    She tapped his glass with hers. “Me too.” She giggled.
    “That’s it. Ya gotta keep smiling.”
    “The good news is, I’m pretty sure I know who the guy is who had sex with Cassandra. The bad news is, I’m afraid she’s in danger.”
    He snorted. “Danger’s a way of life with that kid. Mama like that, she’ll be lucky to get through high school.”
    “Shall I start at the beginning?” She looked as if she were trying to get her breath.
    Eddie nodded. “Take ya time.”
    “Millie the Milliner told me Rhonda used to date a black guy. And guess what his name was?”
    “I don’t know. How’m I s’posed to know?”
    “Toes.”
    “Well, great. Toes who? Mystery solved. Older sister’s beau seduces kid sister’s kid friend. Toe jam, like I said.”
    “Toes Who is the question, all right. I found out he’s a friend of Baron Tujague.”
    It took Eddie a second to place the name. “The rapper?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Damn.” That struck him as not a good thing— too much power and ruthlessness on the loose.
    “So I did a little investigating…”
    “Wait a minute. Not so fast. What exactly did ya do?”
    “I went to work as a temp for Tujague.”
    “You what?” He really couldn’t help laughing. She had more balls than Spalding. “Little lady, you got
cojones.”
    “I’m not little, and I’m not a lady.”
    “You right about that— if that trash mouth of yours is any indication.”
    To his surprise she let that one go by, even though it was practically an invitation for a “fuck you.” “To make a long story short, I met him, I met his brother and some of his friends, I followed them, and I figured out Toes is probably the brother.”
    Eddie was starting to grasp the seriousness of the thing. “Whew. Heavy-duty.”
    “Yeah.”
    A light sweat had broken out on his upper lip, an instinctive sign he sometimes got about trouble.
    “So I took some pictures and showed them to the girls— Cassandra and Shaneel.”
    He leaned back in his chair and rocked. “Good,” he said. “Good.” She was brash, but she knew how to get the goods. Actually, he was kind of proud of her.
    “They denied knowing either of the guys I showed them. So I thought, okay, I know someone who knows the guy for sure— Millie the Milliner.”
    Eddie approved. He actually approved. It must be the scotch.
    “Well, that’s when the fun began. She tossed me out of the shop.”
    He might have known. “What’d ya do to her?”
    “Nothing. I swear to God I didn’t even say anything.”
    “Come on, Ms. Wallis. What’d ya do?”
    “Just walked in. And she said she’d talked to her lawyer.”
    “Lawyer? Well, what’d ya do the first time?”
    “Eddie, you’ve got to trust me. I probably did make some wrong moves, but not with Millie. What I think is, somebody got to her.”
    “Paid her off, ya mean?”
    “Or threatened her. Could have been that.”
    He thought about it. “Yeah, you right. Could have been that.”
    She hunched up her shoulders, as if to ward off an attack. “So I had no choice but to try Pamela. I know you told me not to, but—”
    “No. At that point ya had to.” Only, he should have done it himself, Eddie thought. But he’d been out of commission, covering up a ten-year-old sin.
    Talba put her hand on her chest and exhaled. “I thought you were going to kill me.”
    “Give me time. I might still.”
    “Well, her parents were abusive from the start. They’re obvious racists—”
    “I don’t want to hear that. I will not tolerate calling people names as a result of your