The Empress File

get with old-fashioned air-conditioning. Following the hand-painted signs, I climbed a flight of stairs to the city clerk’s office and asked the woman behind the counter if she had a city or county map. She had both and was happy to give them to me, free. There was a built-in safe at the back of the office, with a black-painted door and gold scrollwork. The combination dial was big as a saucer and right out on front, just as Marvel said it was.
    T HAT NIGHT LuEllen and I drove the station wagon out to the Holiday Inn, which had the trendiest bar and best dining room in town. Itwas also the most expensive. Crossing the parking lot, I noticed a white BMW parked at the corner of the inn, nudged LuEllen with my elbow, and nodded toward it.
    “I like the boat better,” she said.
    Inside the restaurant a dozen couples were scattered around at other booths and tables, peering at each other in the half-light of little red candle bowls. We raised a few eyebrows when we came in, especially since I was carrying a leather shoulder bag. Men’s shoulder bags are not a big fashion along the river. But we needed a place where we could meet with John Smith, Marvel, and Harold, and we also needed a reason to go there. Like drinking.
    I finished most of a bottle of wine during dinner and could have gotten thoroughly pissed in the bar afterward if I hadn’t been dumping most of the drinks into a planter. We were still building the image: If the rented Chevy was often seen in the parking lot, it was just the drunk painter in the bar, or, if not in the bar, then the dining room. If not either, then probably in the can.…
    I stopped at a phone on the way out, carrying my shoulder bag.
    “On the way,” I said.
    John had a room on the ground floor. We walked out of the bar toward the parking lot, took a left instead of a right, down an empty hallway, and knocked once on a door that opened instantly.John shut it behind us. Marvel was on the bed, cool as always.
    “Whoa,” I said when I turned around.
    “Sharp-dressed man,” John said a little awkwardly. He plucked at the seams of his trousers. “How do I look?”
    “Like a thirties nigger from Harlem,” said Marvel.
    “Supposed to look a little like that,” John said. He was wearing a dark blue double-breasted suit with pinstripes, a white shirt, a wine-colored power tie, and slightly pointed black wing tips. The jacket’s padded shoulders were a hair too wide, the waist a bit too narrow. The
pièce de résistance
, a toupee with long straight hair, sat on top of his head. It fitted him well and had been combed through with an oily dressing until it shone. He looked sharp, like a subtle parody of a banker. Like a gangster.
    “Think you can do it?” I asked.
    “Yeah. I been in street politics long enough, and Marvel’s backed me up with some people who’ll say they know my name. People down in the capital.”
    “OK. How about—”
    Marvel interrupted. “Did you rob Dessusdelit and Ballem and Hill?”
    I was ready for it. I glanced at LuEllen, my forehead wrinkling, then back to Marvel. “What?”
    “Did you hit the mayor and Ballem and Duane Hill’s house?” She was watching me closely, but I can tell a lie.
    “No. What the hell are you talking about?” Behind me LuEllen was shaking her head.
    “Somebody hit their houses, really fucked them up,” John said. “Two nights ago. We thought—”
    “Not us,” I said. “This could complicate things. If the cops are tearing up the town, looking at new people…”
    “No, no, they’re not,” Marvel said. “Matter of fact, we’ve mostly heard rumors.… There hasn’t been any official police report. A couple of white boys been picked up and squeezed, but that’s about it.”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll have to watch it. Can you have your people—”
    “Sure. We’ll stay in touch,” Marvel said. She was still suspicious.
    I turned back to John. “How about the rest of it?”
    “I called this Brown guy, the landowner. He didn’t make any bones about the land being for sale. He sounded pretty anxious; he was also curious about why anybody would want it.”
    “That’s an element in a good con job,” I said. “Somebody suddenly sees value where nobody else could see it. It makes them wonder what’s going on.”
    “I hope,” John said. He had been taking in mycostume and now cracked a smile. “You look like you’re in a movie, like an
artiste
. You oughta dab some paint on your