New Orleans Noir

nodded to him. Ernie looked confused, as though he didn’t recognize him.
    “So now he sends in the last team, the New Orleans detectives, you know. Old-time guys, polyester pants and skinny ties. They disappear into the woods and nobody hears a thing for about three hours.”
    The bartender returned and stood in front of Lew. Lew looked at his glass and saw that it was empty again. How many was that? The bartender rapped his knuckles sharply on the bar twice, indicating that the next round was on the house. He gestured broadly at the row of bottles behind him. “Make a wish.”
    Lew looked at him and smiled for the first time that day. Make a wish.
    He wished that his hands didn’t shake so much in the morning. He wished that he didn’t hurt all the time, like there was an animal dying inside him. He wished that his daughter wasn’t living in Algiers with a drug dealer who might or might not be a member of the gang Lew just got assigned to monitor. He wished that he wasn’t having an affair with his doctor’s receptionist. He wished his wife didn’t know.
    “Jameson,” he said, still smiling. The bartender poured generously.
    He wished he wasn’t partnered with Tommy Mulligan. He wished he could still feel drunk when he drank, not just the dulling of pain. He wished he hadn’t stopped off tonight, or that he hadn’t had this last drink, or that he wouldn’t have the ones that would follow. He wished that he wouldn’t have to drive home tonight to Metarie as he did most nights, with his shield case open in his lap, badge and ID card readily visible for when he got pulled over. Mostly he wished he didn’t have three years to go. Three years was too long. It was too damn long to be stuck with the likes of Tommy Mulligan, a bad drunk, and a loud, stupid braggart. A man who couldn’t hold his tongue for three years. A man who would crack if pushed, even slightly.
    He wished he didn’t make decisions that were wrong; knowing they were wrong, feeling compelled to make them anyway.
    He wished there hadn’t been three men on the scene before he arrived today, and he wished there hadn’t been three knives under the body when he’d turned it over. Three knives stupidly, amateurishly tossed, practically on top of one another. He wished he didn’t feel the sickening weight of two of the knives in his left pocket. He had left the one that most closely resembled Ernie’s description. He wished he had six months to go, like Ernie, instead of three years. Three years if he could even get Tommy Mulligan past a grand jury without stepping on his own dick.
    The bartender replaced Lew’s drink again as Tommy turned and winked at him.
    “So, after like three hours, there’s suddenly all this fucking noise. Bang. Crash. Whap, whap, whap.” Tommy emphasized every sound by pounding his hand—palm flat—on the bar. “The two New Orleans boys come out of the woods, and they’re carrying this deer. And the deer is like, all beat up. He’s been worked over. So the deer looks at the mayor, and the deer says,” and Tommy paused, savoring the moment. He was just telling a joke in a bar. Not a care in the world. He was beaming. “‘Okay, okay, I’m a rabbit.’”
    Lew raised his glass and let the laughter behind him blend in with the background bar din. It sounded distant, and somehow warm and cozy. Inviting. He wished he was there with everyone enjoying himself. He thought about where he’d toss the knives into the lake out at the West End tomorrow. He drank half his drink in a swallow and held the glass in front of him, looking through the amber fluid and ice at the bar mirror. Tommy Mulligan nudged him, hard, and some of the drink spilled from the glass and ran down his arm. He felt it inside his shirtsleeve.
    “Get it?” Tommy said. “Do you get it? ‘I’m a rabbit.’”
    “Sure,” Lew said, feeling the cold liquid almost to his elbow. He continued to look through his trembling glass at the faraway party in the mirror.
    “I get it,” he said, “I’m a rabbit.”

SCHEVOSKI
    BY OLYMPIA VERNON
    University District
    For my brother, Ricky S. Vernon
    S he vomited on Magazine Street.
    She stumbled in. The sign read, Miss Mae’s. A bar. She and the other white girls, their angular faces melting and disobedient like a blade, a glacier. She and the other white girls, laughing, laughing and stumbling about on the corner of Magazine Street in Uptown New Orleans.
    Yes, they laughed and stumbled about with