The Axeman's Jazz

in one lifetime.”
    Seduction.
    And the speaker was her date. He was talking to a slim young blonde with blue eyes that hadn’t seen much beyond a Catholic girls’ school. She wore her hair in a pageboy tucked behind her ears so you couldn’t see how wet it was back there. Skip’s nerve endings stood on end. If he took her home, went into her house, they couldn’t follow. He could strangle her and they’d know when he went in and when he left, but she’d still be dead.
    She kissed Alex on the cheek, hoping to put the girl off. “Skippy, baby.” He put an arm around her, pal-like, and kept talking to the girl, ignoring Skip. In turn, she wrapped her arm around him, rubbed his love handles. She leaned against him, nuzzled an ear, then danced out of reach, hoping she’d be more attractive that way. Unfortunately, she ran—literally—into Abe.
    “Hi.” He had a mouthful of guacamole, but that didn’t stop him from talking. “Great party, huh?”
    “A little quiet, maybe.”
    “I was just thinking that. Say, there’s only this one guy. Do you think the Axeman’ll count that as a band?”
    She was surprised to realize it was the first mention of the party’s purpose.
    “Abe, do you think there really is an Axeman?”
    “You mean did the media make him up? Hey, two people died.” His voice was angry, his face starting to get red.
    “You don’t have to get mad. I was just making conversation.”
    “Well, I didn’t think that was funny.”
    “Sorry.”
    Abruptly, he left her. Di arrived with Jillian, very short, very fat, wearing a vintage dress, strapless and black, with humongous boobs spilling out of it. Because she was so short, everyone was literally forced to look down her dress. Things jiggled.
    “You’re a newcomer?” Her voice was tiny—such a baby sound you could hardly believe it belonged to an adult. She stroked Skip’s arm as if she were an animal.
    “Yes. I moved to town fairly recently. You?”
    Jillian smiled and rocked on her feet, not answering at first. She didn’t seem to want to talk. Finally she said, “I don’t really live here. I’m a student.”
    “And what are you studying?”
    “Law.” She smiled and sort of purred. “I want to be a criminal lawyer. A prosecutor.” Said in that tiny voice it was laughable.
    “Interesting field.”
    She smiled and purred some more, still stroking Skip’s arm.
    “Excuse me, would you?” Skip said. “I have to find someone.”
    “I really liked what you told me.”
    Skip hadn’t told her a thing
. I wonder if I should have mentioned chiropractors. Or vegetables maybe. I know—new paradigms.
    The crowd was getting thicker now, and the musician was taking a break. Tapes had been substituted and people were starting to dance
. Oh, boy. Bunch of honkies on fruit juice. Get down, you party animals!
    It was starting to look like a party, but it still didn’t sound right. For fun, she started a few more conversations, and she saw that it wasn’t just the lack of booze or the right subject that was responsible. She dragged out her vegetables and her paradigms, but a lot of these people were like Jillian and Chris. You talked to them; they didn’t really talk back. Just smiled and nodded, sometimes rocked; often purred. Seemed eager to please, even overly nice. But really didn’t try to connect. She wondered if they were on something, but couldn’t think what it might be, unless it was the high you get from fasting.
    On the whole,
she thought
, I’d rather be in Chalmette.
    She looked around for Alex, didn’t see him. Her heart in her mouth, she threaded her way through the crowd, probably looking as tense as she felt, because Abasolo caught her eye and pointed to the bathroom.
    Alex came out, hair combed, face washed.
    “Looking good,” she said, and meant it.
    “Let’s get out of here.”
    Oh, boy. Now the fun begins
.
    “Meet me at…”
    “Actually, I walked over.”
    “Okay. We’ll go together.” He had acquiesced awfully easily. Did that mean she wasn’t the target, that he didn’t mind being seen with her?
    “Tell you what, though. I’ll meet you outside in a minute.”
    She went out, signaled O’Rourke in a car across the street, and waited, noticing that the streets were mobbed with Axeman revelers. Many wore T-shirts bearing the skull and crossed axes that some enterprising entrepreneur had made the official emblem of the evening.
    For fun (Alex’s idea) they took a tour around the Quarter.