PI On A Hot Tin Roof

finished.
    “Well, he’s getting his bar where he wants it,” Adele said crisply. “Get that, will you, Sandra?”
    Someone was at the door—two burly brothers, dressed in baggy jeans and T-shirts. “Can I help you?” Talba asked.
    “We’re here to do the heavy lifting,” one of them said, a youngish guy with a shaved head like her brother Corey. He was cute and he knew it.
    Talba played dumb. “I didn’t know we were expecting…uh…”
    “This the Champagne residence, right? Mr. Nicasio sent us.”
    “Oh, of course. The guys to do the heavy lifting.”
    “Now ya catchin’ on.”
    She was catching on, all right, and beginning to worry about her offer to help serve. “Mr. Nicasio coming to the party?” she asked casually as she let them in. That was all she needed; she wondered about Jimmy Houlihan, too.
    The two men exchanged a look. “Don’t think he invited,” the cute one said. “But he like to help out whenever he can.”
    In a way it was too bad. Sure, he might have recognized her, but she’d have loved the chance to photograph a bail bondsman at a judge’s party.
    “Miss Adele! The guys are here to help.”
    Adele bustled into the hall. “Oh, good. Can you two go in there and work with Kristin? She’s the blonde one.” To Talba she said, “How’d you do with my extra server?”
    “I don’t know if it’s going to work out. He’d love the job, but this is the weekend he has his daughter.”
    “How old is she?”
    “About ten.”
    “Perfect. She like parades?”
    “What kid doesn’t?”
    “Good, get him to bring her—Lucy can babysit. She won’t like it, but she can do it. How are you at arranging flowers?”
    “I could give it a shot. But wouldn’t that be more Suzanne’s thing? Seems like she’s the aesthetic type.”
    Adele looked bemused. “‘Aesthetic.’ Well, aren’t you a case. Never use a ten-cent word if you got a three-dollar one. Good idea, though—might make her feel important. Suzanne! Hey, girl, I need you.” She winked at Talba.
    Talba spent the rest of the day ironing tablecloths, which Adele had just discovered she’d forgotten to send to the cleaners, and came out of the laundry room to find Suzanne in tears, crying out her woes to Royce, who had by now gotten home from a day of drinking beer and catching throws. Kristin seemed to have left, and Adele was nowhere to be seen.
    “Kristin thinks she owns the goddam house, and Mama Dell takes her side. Can’t you do something?”
    “Well, Suzanne, for God’s sake, what do you care? This party’s all about Daddy, not you. Can’t you just do your meditation and your feng shui and call it a day?”
    “This
is
my feng shui. This is what feng shui’s all about. If they do it her way, it’s going to screw up the traffic flow. Everybody’ll congregate in the front of the house.”
    “So? Once the parade starts, they’ll be that much nearer. Give it a rest, will you?”
    “Kristin thinks she owns the goddam place.”
    “Are you jealous of her or something? Who cares? Daddy has a different girlfriend every six months.”
    “You know what, Royce Champagne? You are a wimp! An unmitigated coward and a craven little kid.”
    “Suzanne, I am so sick of your whining I could scream.”
    Me too,
Talba thought.
I’m out of here and you can all rot in hell.
    She took her weary bones home and transformed herself. Half the fun of being a baroness was dressing the part, and she had a new outfit from the Ashro catalogue, “the animal magnetism duster set.” The dress was layered, the outside layer being a jungle print with leopards and zebras frolicking in a turquoise jungle and the bottom layer a chiffon leopard print, which brushed and swirled around her ankles a good foot below the jungle layer, which matched the duster. Both pieces were banded in gold and trimmed with bronze beads. Not everyone could get away with it, but a baroness could, with about five pounds of turquoise jewelry.
    Miz Clara, as always on reading nights, deputized herself into the fashion police: “Wait’ll Eddie see that. He gon’ fire ya fine behind.”
    Talba was used to this—once, her mother had pronounced her “a rummage sale on the hoof.” The threat of firing was mild.
    Talba was more or less the house band at a restaurant called Reggie and Chaz, famous for its poetry readings and its cheap and cheerful decor, which was notable mainly for the dozens of Guatemalan belts that hung from the ceiling like so many