Thrown-away Child

nosed the Chrysler into a semicircular drive fronting City Hall. He stopped the car at the main door, slipped the automatic transmission into park, and then sniffed his armpits some more.
    “Holy shit, I surely do hope Hippo don’t smell none of this coon tang. I can’t seem to shake it.” This Vonny said in the presence of an ancient black man wearing the livery of a car jockey. He had hobbled up to the Chrysler in his orthopedic shoes just as Vonny started sniffing. Vonny sighed now, plopped the panama back on top of his head, and stepped out of the car as the old black fellow held open the door. Vonny badged the car jockey, who was old enough to be his father. Then he patted the Chrysler’s hood with a gauze hand and told him, “Keep her right here for us, boy.”
    These remarks I let pass, like the others. I stepped out from my side of the car and looked up, beholding the seat of government of the city of New Orleans.
    I have seen a lot of ugly buildings in my day. Everybody has. Architects are among the worst criminals of modern society. But the centerpiece of New Orleans government was a singular study of repellent design.
    The Hall, as Vonny called it, was a low-rise cluster of squatty gray slabs, with windows in thick frames painted in a shade I would call throw-up green. Some of the windows were open, some shut. They all looked burned or broken, even close up.
    There was no dome to relieve the flatness of the roofline. No graceful cupolas, no heroic friezes, no inspiring statuary—not a scrap of the Crescent City’s trademark iron lace. Out-of-towners would know the New Orleans City Hall was neither a parking garage nor a bankrupt factory with smashed windows solely because of an enormous sign with chipped paint that read simply, CITY HALL.
    Inside the hall, the architect’s vision continued. The lobby had all the atmosphere and amenities of a subway platform, complete with fluorescent lighting that made skin look ill, the bouquet of deceased rodent, and a newsstand over the elevators operated by a sleepy man chewing with his mouth open so everybody on the way upstairs would notice he was enjoying a white bread sandwich with olive-and-pimento-loaf bologna and mayonnaise.
    The elevator operator, a flabby white lady with big hair somewhere in her fifties and well settled in a life of occupational redundancy and vending machine snacks, pushed a button that Vonny or I could have pushed for ourselves. This was right after she asked, “What floor you gents want?” To which I had said, “Alderman Giradoux’s office, please.”
    We emerged at the top floor. The first thing anybody sees off the elevator is an open, mahogany-trimmed archway to Hippo’s outer office. Vonny was a tool just lying around for using. Maybe I could make Hippo strut and trip...
    The same as I had in mind for someone else. Various supplicants—maybe a bodyguard or two— were sitting in the visitors’ chairs and reading magazines. They were all men, all of them white, all of them wearing sharkskin suits of a type I have beheld only in Bronx mob joints. One guy wore aviator-style sunglasses. This one in the shades gave a little salute of recognition to Sergeant LeMay, who acknowledged the gesture.
    “Oh, hello there,” I said to the yellow-headed, gum-clacking receptionist. “You’re a pretty thing.”
    “Yeah, I been told that. What do you want?“
    “Want to see the good alderman.”
    “This time of day, you got to have an appointment. You got one?”
    “Well, I’ll tell you—I was here earlier today to see my old pal Hippo. Detective Neil Hockaday’s the name. From New York.” I took out my NYPD gold shield and flashed it. Vonny did the same with the local equivalent. “You weren’t around, though. I’d have remembered you.”
    Pretty flipped through her appointments calendar, tunning a store-bought fingernail from top to bottom of each page. “I don’t see no Hockaday from New York.”
    I turned to Vonny. “Tell Pretty how come we’re incognito.”
    “Oh, sure—yeah.” Sergeant LeMay leaned down close enough to smell Pretty’s Windsong perfume from the drugstore. He whispered, “It’s confidential like. It’s about them murders on the TV and all.”
    “Really?” Pretty was impressed.
    “Truly,” I assured her.
    Vonny puffed out his chest.
    “I guess y’all should maybe just go ahead. Nobody in there with Hippo now.”
    “Like I was hoping,” I said.
    Check out that office of his, Hock. Look