The Axeman's Jazz

crystal bowls—actually bells for meditation—stood on a sideboard. A bust of Apollo topped a bookcase. Sandalwood scented the air. Candles covered nearly every surface.
    Yet care had been taken not to let the mystical trappings become heavy, weight the room’s essential femininity. The walls were painted apricot; taffeta drapes striped in apricot and white flanked the French doors, a simple cornice between them. A Victorian settee was covered in tangerine, piled high with pillows. The other furniture was also old but light, walnut or cherry. The candles, all forty-odd of them, had been chosen for their perfect complementary colors—either white or shades of yellow and orange, or dark green for contrast. A single art object hung on the walls, a metal sculpture painted white and touched with gilt, a cut-out of a graceful woman in flowing gauze. She was winged, but no angel; more like a fairy. Her airy quality reminded Skip of her owner.
    “This is quite something.”
    “What?” Di was lighting some of her candles. “Oh, my decor. I’m a priestess of voodoo, you know.”
    “Oh.” Were there white voodoo priestesses? Skip supposed so. “I got the impression meetings were pretty much your whole life.”
    “Far from it, my friend. Far from it. I’m a hypnotherapist some of the time. And kind of an amateur nutritionist.”
    “Ah, yes. Live foods.”
    “I might surprise you with some of the things I do ”
    Oh, Lord. You certainly might.
    “Now where’s that book?”
    Together, they surveyed her bookcase. It contained a better selection of New Age writings than any three bookstores in New Orleans, and quite a few books on breast cancer, more, Skip thought, than anyone would have who had merely a passing interest in it. But there were no books on either voodoo or hypnosis.

TWELVE
    THERE WERE A lot of popular meetings in the Quarter, it seemed. Alex had one at eight that morning and had agreed to meet Skip at Café du Monde. It meant sitting outside, but at seven o’clock New Orleans in August was bearable, even right on the river, where the air hung like a curtain, sultry and entangling.
    He was late, no doubt to make an entrance, Skip thought when he pulled up on his hog. Even though the temperature would soon climb to ninety, perhaps to a hundred, he’d tied a bandanna around his neck. He’d tucked a blue work shirt into tight jeans, and if he’d asked her to make love under the table, she’d have had a hard time turning him down.
    She had his book on the table, thinking that would flatter him, but he turned it over even before he sat down—and then, seeing his photo on the back cover, turned it front side up again.
    “Did you really read that thing?” he said.
    She nodded. “You’re awfully modest for a best-selling author.”
    “Not best-selling.” He dismissed the notion with a wave. “I know the publicity says that. Maybe I made some best-seller list somewhere, and that’s how they justify it, but if you saw my royalty statements, you wouldn’t die of envy.”
    After they had ordered their café au lait and beignets, Skip presented the book for signing.
    But Alex said, “Not just yet. Let’s talk first. You make me nervous.”
    “Little ol’ me?”
    Alex didn’t smile. He squinched his eyebrows into a nasty scowl. “Yeah. Little ol’ you. I keep wondering who you are.”
    “I didn’t know I was that threatening.”
    “You’re a psychologist. I hate psychologists.”
    “Oh, my God!” She wanted to give the impression she was taking him seriously, but this was too much. Before she could stop it, a belly laugh rumbled up and out. “A psychologist! Why on earth do you think that?”
    Mr. Macho now wore a bewildered, slightly hurt look, the look of a man who’s been made light of, and Skip regretted her amusement. She touched his wrist, knowing even as she did it that he would probably take any physical contact as a sexual signal, but thinking it necessary to establish rapport. “Because you’ve read the books,” he said.
    “You’re the last guy in the world I’d have suspected of having a self-esteem problem. Does it occur to you that many members of the general public have read the books?”
    He sighed. “You have no idea how much I wish that were true. What are you?”
    Somehow her flattery ruse was backfiring. “Why,” she asked, “do I feel like I did something wrong by asking for your autograph?”
    “We really have to talk.” This time he grabbed her wrist,