PI On A Hot Tin Roof

proxy. I’ve got an emergency, but unfortunately I don’t know Jimmy by sight.”
    The white woman’s features froze. She was one of those bird-like gym rat types whose day was probably all about getting her fingers and toes painted. The kind who had a garage that opened with a remote and never parked on the street for fear of getting mugged. She might not be a racist, but Talba had a feeling this was the first time an African-American who wasn’t on staff had ever been to one of her parties. And she wasn’t adjusting any too quickly.
    Talba had a feeling mentioning Angie’s name wasn’t the way to go. “I’m a P.I.,” she said. “My firm works with his firm.” It might even be true. Eddie’d been around so long he’d probably worked with every lawyer in town at some point.
    “But I…but it’s Mardi Gras!” In some other context it might have sounded shallow, but in New Orleans, everything stops for Mardi Gras. Talba could grasp Patsy’s displeasure. This was like appearing at someone’s house on Christmas morning.
    She was almost out of ideas, but at that moment a man in a Mardi Gras rugby shirt danced up. “Hey, darlin’, you’re missing the parade.” He put a well-shaped hand on Patsy’s shoulders, and was rewarded with a scathing look.
    “Jimmy?” Talba said, before Patsy could recover.
Can this marriage be saved?
she thought.
    The man removed his hand from his wife’s shoulder and offered it to Talba. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
    There were a lot of different ways you could say that phrase. This man said it gently, sincerely, as if, despite its stiffness, it came naturally to him. Talba saw that he was tall, with good shoulders and a big chest. He had silky brown hair—quintessential white-dude hair—and small, stylish spectacles; one of those pinkish Irish faces; a rounded nose, but an oval face, an open one. An attractive man, someone Angie could be friends with.
    She gave him a broad smile. “Sorry to barge in like this. One of your clients asked me to get in touch, but when I called…”
    “Oh, God, no telling who answered the phone.”
    “It was someone who didn’t seem to know where you were.” She glanced nervously at Patsy. “I wouldn’t have come, but your client’s got a sort of emergency.”
    He laughed. “Don’t tell me he called from Central Lockup.”
    Talba lifted a wry eyebrow. “Guess it’s happened before.”
    Houlihan seemed to be uncomfortably aware that his wife was taking in every word, and doing a slow burn at the same time.
    “Patsy, you go on and have fun. Let me see what I can do for this lady.”
    Patsy drifted away, apparently determined to keep up appearances, but Talba surmised that her house at Mardi Gras had the same rules as an exclusive men’s club—no business was to be transacted on the premises.
    Talba smelled a spat in the making. She felt sorry for him. “It’s Angela Valentino,” she said.
    “Geddouttahere!”
    “She was with Al Brazil when they got popped. You know, Chief of the Poison Oleanders?”
    “Sure. Everybody knows Big Chief Alabama. By reputation, anyhow. What happened?”
    “She says somebody planted drugs on the Chief.”
    “That Angie. What a little Pollyanna.”
    Talba was getting impatient. “I work with her dad, so she called me. Said to get you to get a judge to set bond for both of them.”
    He nodded. “I can do that. Hey, no problem whatsoever. We got a couple judges soakin’ up the suds right out on the porch.”
    “Well, one thing. She said anybody but Buddy Champagne.”
    This time he was the one speaking eyebrow language. “Well, that do make it harder.”
    “Champagne’s here?”
    Houlihan shrugged. “He’s a neighbor. Easiest thing in the world to set it up.”
    “Loosely translated, she said she’d rather rot in jail.”
    He laughed. The judges weren’t the only ones soaking up suds. “Hey, you’re a pretty sharp cookie. Who are you, anyway?”
    “Talba Wallis. I work with Angie’s dad. He was away, so she called me.”
    His face clouded. “But why didn’t she just call me directly?”
    “They don’t give you a phone book and she didn’t have your number memorized.”
    “Well…she used to.” She could see the regret in his face and thought that anyone married to Patsy Houlihan could be forgiven for having a wandering eye. “Angie’s really in jail? Little Angie?”
    “Last I looked, little Angie could take ten men about your size.” It was