PI On A Hot Tin Roof

right. Kept to himself when he was here. Never one of the boys. I think some judge got him the job. And also queer as a quacker.”
    “What judge?”
    “We don’t say that name here anymore. FBI might be listening.”
    “Ah. The one that was just in the news? Pals with Harry Nicasio?”
    “The one Harry offed.”
    “Harry
offed!” Eddie hadn’t thought of that one. “Why would Harry off him?”
    The Saint shrugged. “Knew too much. Kill the witness, ya kill the messenger. Nobody to testify, Harry stays out of a cage.”
    “I don’t want to get too personal here, but seems to me some of your guys might make pretty good witnesses. Whatcha gonna do, keep ’em under guard?”
    “Hell, they’re armed.”
    “Ya really think Harry offed him?”
    “Just a theory. But, my opinion? They don’t call Harry the Old Nick for nothin’.”
    “I didn’t know they did.”
    “Eddie, Eddie—ya been out of circulation too long. Sit down. Take a load off.”
    The Saint sat in his own chair and picked up a mug of coffee. He didn’t offer Eddie any.
    Eddie sat, too. “So about my queer duck. Ya sayin’ he
is
gay?”
    “Gay as a blade. That don’t go down too well around here.”
    “What, did he grab the other guys or something? How would anybody know?”
    “Hell, he didn’t hide it. Talked about it all the time. Real popular dude.” The Saint rolled his eyes.
    “Last I heard it wasn’t a firin’ offense, though.”
    “Naah. He roughed up one too many prisoners.” Here, the Saint paused, pregnantly. “But, hell. You been around, Eddie. You know how it is. Assholes get out o’ line, somebody’s gotta control ’em.”
    The Saint was subtle, but Eddie thought he was getting his drift. “Meaning he didn’t do anything that wasn’t standard procedure.”
    “Usually, one deputy don’t report another.” The Saint’s eyes were hooded, his voice low. “Like I said, real popular guy.”
    “Come on. The guy had juice. Didn’t Buddy Champagne pull any strings?”
    “Nope. Just let it happen.”
    Eddie wondered what that meant. He said, “Think there was any kind of falling-out with the judge?”
    The Saint just shrugged. “Buddy was a big boy. He knew how things work here.”
    “So what you’re sayin’ is, Leitner was more or less drummed out.”
    “We gotta have some standards here.”
    “No quackers.”
    “No quackers who
brag
about bein’ quackers. Ya see what I’m sayin’”
    Eddie saw. There’d been a time when he’d been perfectly in sync with what happened to Leitner. He was surprised to find himself annoyed with the Saint’s smugness. “I musta moved on,” he said. “Hell, I’m a paragon of tolerance these days. Got me a black female associate. Young, too.”
    “God help ya.”
    “Yeah, well, that’s not the bad part. This one’s a college graduate and smarter’n your whole staff put together, which wouldn’t take all that much. And got a mouth on her.”
    The Saint laughed. “Know what I’d do with that one? I’d fire her ass.”
    Eddie stood up. “Can’t. Audrey and Angie’d fire me. Besides, she does all the work anymore.”
    He thanked the good Lord Ms. Wallis would never find out he’d bragged about her to the sheriff’s main man—and then he thanked the sheriff’s main man. He left to report his findings, secretly chortling that he’d learned a new phrase to annoy Ms. Wallis with.
    For once, she was in her office, doing the employment and prenuptial backgrounds (which she called “sweetie snoops”) that he loathed with every fiber of his sixty-six-year-old Luddite being. Give him a good insurance fraud any time. What he loved was to be out there with his camcorder, snaring some bozo who was supposed to be half-crippled building himself a new addition he intended to pay for with his insurance windfall. Guy like that deserved what he got. Eddie found it highly gratifying.
    “What’d ya do with the kitten?”
    “Took it home. Koko and Blanche weren’t pleased.” Her own two cats had been inherited from another job. Animals were sticking like lint to her lately.
    “Had a talk with the Saint,” he said, helping himself to a seat.
    “Who? Oh. St. Bernard. At OPP.” Orleans Parish Prison. “What’d he say?”
    “Says Buddy got Leitner the job.”
    “Big surprise.”
    That annoyed Eddie, but it gave him the opportunity to use a word he thought she’d really hate, coming from his mouth. “You dissin’ me?” he said.
    Instead of being annoyed,