PI On A Hot Tin Roof

Evangelical.”
    Talba breathed a sigh of relief. The problem could be solved the New Orleans way. It was all about who you knew.
    “Lemme jus’ give Antoinette a call. What this lady call herself?”
    “Alberta Williams.”
    Her mother heaved her tired body to her feet and padded off in her old blue slippers. She didn’t believe in cell phones; still kept an old-fashioned plug-in model in her bedroom. Talba thought she was going to scream with impatience during the thirty minutes it took Miz Clara to get current with Antoinette and then to ask for the reference.
    She came back nodding. “It be all right. Antoinette don’t know her, but she know somebody who do—in her ladies’ group. Miz Augustine gon’ make the call—Versie Augustine. I tell her it’s real important, she say she do it right away.”
    “Thanks, Mama. I’ve got to go over there right away. You coming?”
    “Me? You axin’ me?” She didn’t think she’d ever seen her mother look so surprised.
    “I really pissed this lady off. I might need
two
character references.”
    “Well. Guess I gotta.” Miz Clara could hardly contain herself. “Lemme get some shoes on.”
    Talba parked in front of the Williams house. “Nice neighborhood,” Miz Clara said sarcastically. Indeed, it was a few steps down from their snug cottage on Louisa Street.
    Talba dialed the Williams number and asked for Alberta.
    “Speakin’.”
    “Mrs. Williams, this is Sandra. The woman who called about the survey? I’m real sorry about that. Did you hear from Versie Augustine?”
    “I heard. Says ya on the up and up, no matter if ya lie. Gon’ take a lot to convince me, though.”
    “Well, I got a lot. Look out your window, will you?” Talba waited till she saw a head peek between the curtains. She waved. “I’m out here with my mama. Could we talk to you for five minutes?”
    “Mmmph. Guess so.”
    She didn’t let them in, though; kept them on the stoop, while Miz Clara explained that her daughter was a “special investigator” working for the forces of right and decency, and nearly making Talba blanch—it was a crime to impersonate an officer, and this came dangerously close. But in the end, a deal was struck, and Alberta Williams went back in to phone Judge Champagne with some cock-and-bull story about a family emergency requiring her to send a niece to fill in for a few days.
    Miz Clara preened all the way home. She was going to be hard to live with for a long time to come.
    “Cain’t
wait
to see how this one come out,” she cackled as she heated up leftover stew. “The Baroness de Pontalba cleanin’ white ladies’ terlets. Mmm. Mmmm.”
    “Okay, Mama, happiest day of your life. Let’s break out the champagne. But whatever happened to first African-American president?” This was one of the three jobs Miz Clara had always deemed suitable for her offspring. The other two were Speaker of the House and doctor of medicine. Talba’s brother Corey had actually achieved the last of the three.
    “Might as well see how the other half live,” Miz Clara said. “I got one thing to say to ya, ya don’t want to get fired first day on the job.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Whatever ya do, whatever they tell ya, don’t use nothing but Ivory liquid and bleach on the marble. Anything else’ll stain, ruin it for good.”
    “What marble?”
    “These folks got any money?”
    “Enough for a full-time maid.”
    “Mmm, my baby gon’ be doin’ laundry. Bet they make ya iron the sheets.”
    “Mama, what marble?”
    “Rich folks got marble all over. Got bathrooms most paved with marble. You mind Miz Clara now.”
    Talba promised she would and excused herself. She couldn’t wait to call Jane Storey: “I’m in.” Jane was howling by the time Talba finished the story of the mama con, especially the “special investigator” part.
    “Think I could get thrown in jail for it?”
    “Naah. Your word against theirs. Miz C. said ‘private.’ Williams heard ‘special.’”
    Talba sighed. “You don’t know my mama. She wouldn’t lie if it meant I was going to the guillotine.”
    “Know what it reminds me of? The time when I was traveling in Europe and had to come home for an emergency appendectomy. I’d just been bumming around, filing a few stories here and there—”
    “Unemployed, in other words.”
    “Yeah, and I was so out of it, Mother had to fill out the hospital form. Was she about to put down ‘unemployed’? No way—who knew what