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  “Excuse me. How far back would you like me to start?”

  “Why don’t you see if you can nose out who Church was seeing?”

  “You’re a pain in the butt, you know that?”

  She gave him a level look.

  “Okay, okay. Ladies’ choice.”

  She made a face like she had gas, then, “Or you could start with Billy Jack.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What about Jimbo?”

  Noooo. She wanted Jimbo too. Oh, God, this was stupid, her trying to work with Harry. She’d never been good at sharing with anyone. It wasn’t her fault; she was an only child.

  She tried a counteroffer. “If you do Billy Jack, you could have lunch at Patrissy’s. You could do it right now. Weren’t you hungry?”

  He considered that for a minute. “Actually”—he threw money on the table, stood, taking her elbow—“you follow me. I’ll point you at Cole Leander’s on Julia. And we could stop by Mother’s. It’s on the way.”

  They were down the steps in a flash.

  Hell, why not? she thought. “Killer oyster po’boy at Mother’s, as I remember.”

  On the sidewalk now he smiled the slow smile. Food was food. Foreplay was foreplay. It didn’t have to be Galatoire’s before he took her by the hand and they played out the rest of his daydream.

  Twelve

  SAM WAS DRUNK on food, on a Ferdie Debris from Mother’s. Harry’d convinced her she had to try the combo: juice and gravy and bits of browned roast from the bottom of the pan over ham and roast beef on a French loaf with creole mustard, lettuce, and tomato.

  She was staggering—an easy mark for the two little kids outside Cole Leander’s barns, which were not red, as she had imagined, but a series of enormous pale green Quonset huts.

  “Hey, lady, gimme a quarter, we’ll watch your car.”

  “Yeah, where’s it going?”

  “Goin’ bye-bye, you don’t get some ’nsurance.”

  She was already reaching in her purse for change.

  “Neighborhood’s that tough?” She looked up and down the industrial street. Except for a couple of big trucks, nothing moved.

  “Neighb’s bad. Thanks, lady. We watch your car good.”

  “How come you’re not in school?”

  “We waiting for lunch.”

  Sam scanned the street again. “Doesn’t look like any cafeteria to me.”

  “Yeah. Uh-uh, well, you just wait till the truck come. San’wich truck be here, Mr. Leander he turn the sidewalk into a restaurant.”

  The taller boy thought he’d gotten off a good one, shoving the shorter, probably his brother, almost knocking him down. They exchanged high fives.

  “Mr. Leander buys you lunch?”

  “Two lunches. Sometimes three.”

  Just then a truck painted with red and yellow stripes toodled around the corner and stopped. Its music reminded Sam of long-ago county fairs, the oom-pah-pah of a calliope.

  “Old Mr. Leander?” she said.

  “That the one.”

  “Blind Mr. Leander?”

  “One used to chase us with dogs. Go blind, my mama say, he got humble. Watch out now, lady. Out of the way. Here Mr. Leander come.”

  With that a side entrance of one of the Quonset huts opened, Cole Leander exited behind a German shepherd guide dog. He filled the whole door frame, a giant in a bright orange jumpsuit. He was silver-haired, egg-shaped with a bay window of a belly—in his handmade alligator cowboy boots about six and a half feet tall.

  His voice was thick and rich. “Delilah, you smell any boys out here?”

  The dog barked, the signal for a well-practiced routine—the two little boys assuming four, or was it six, voices, running in circles, shaking Mr. Leander’s hand from different heights, now squatting, now on tiptoe, then the shorter perched atop the taller’s shoulders. They included the man who sold the sandwiches in the joke—Buster’s what he called all the boys, real and imaginary—shoveling out franks as long as the old man and the boys kept ordering.

  When they’d stuffed down their fill, “This here lady’s looking for you,” the older child said, the one who’d taken her quarter.

  “She is?” said Cole Leander. The blind blue eyes turned toward her. “You want a hot dog, darlin’?”

  “No thank you, sir. I just ate over at Mother’s.”

  “Well, well. Idn’t that wonderful? You know, I’d like to take these boys”—he waved in their direction—“over there sometime. Think they’d like some of those big ol’ po’boys, but we, my driver and I, couldn’t fit ’em all in the car. This many boys. Idn’t that a shame?”

  “It is, indeed.” Sam grinned at the two miniature extortionists. The smaller one stuck his tongue out.

  “Well, now, boys, y’all get on back to school,” he said, shooing them like biddies, “me and this lady’s gonna go on inside, see what she wants with a pore old blind bastard.”

  *

  The interior of the dimly lit barn was a freak show, a surreal world of giant cowboys and coiling serpents, pirates and showboats. Toothy crocodiles yawned. Skulls gaped. Bogey stared into the face of Miss Liberty. Bay after bay of plaster and plastic and papier-mâché phantasmagorica reached as far as Sam could see.

  Mr. Leander, who knew his inventory by heart, was giving her the tour.

  “You use them more than once?” Sam asked.

  “The figures? Oh, sure. Some krewes do the same thing year after year, though most don’t. Now and again they’ll swap or buy from one another. Your less affluent krewes will rent floats that rolled earlier in the season and we’ll rebuild for them. But the units they sit on—now, there’s where you got your history.” Leander patted the side of a green and purple Greco-Roman extravaganza. “Yep. Like this baby right here. What you’ve got under this here Comus float is an old, and I mean old, farm wagon. Pull that skirting up, darlin’.”

  Sam was looking at an iron-rimmed wheel with wooden spokes.

  “You see what I mean?”

  Cole Leander was one of those men who was passionate about his business, who couldn’t tell her enough—once he’d rearranged her introduction of herself to his own liking. By him, she was doing a feature story on the art of float-building.

  “Oh, yeah, we’re a Pic’N’Pac store of the bi’nis,” he was saying. “Got everything here you’d need. The tractors to pull the floats once we build ’em. Kings’ and queens’ crowns, masks, we got your doubloons and your tossing favors, your gift items. We even do you the insurance.”

  “You do?”

  “Well, through our old friend Tench Young.”

  “Sort of keeps it all close to home.”

  “That’s the idee. Just a little cottage industry—Mardi Gras.”

  He laughed at that, and Sam could see he was taken with the notion. Carnival was the kind of “cottage” industry that afforded him alligator boots worth a couple thousand and a diamond ring on every finger. Some of them were dazzlers. Though it was possible they were fakes, like the cache of rubies and emeralds spilling out of a treasure chest behind her. But she doubted it.

  Sam and Leander were sitting in his little glass-enclosed office now. His secretary, a motherly type, had brought them each a cup of good chicory coffee. Leander was reared back in his chair. Delilah rested her muzzle on one boot.

  “I met your insurance man, Mr. Young, during Carnival. In the Sazerac Bar,” Sam said. “I was over here then. Guest of Kitty Lee.” She watched his face carefully. But all she saw was a big grin that stretched the waxed ends of his handlebar mustache out wide.

  “Kitty Lee,” he said. “Idn’t she a darlin’? You known her long?”

  “Since college.”

  “Well, idn’t that wonderful? I always think that’s grand when friends stay in touch over the years. ’Course, if you’re an old hound like me, don’t ever leave your home grounds in the first place, it’s not like you ever lose track of anybody. Though you might want to sometime.” He laughed at that, showing
his good humor. “Well, I reckon you heard about the hard time old Tench is giving Miss Kitty. And Ma Elise. Zoe. God Almighty, those Lee women, ain’t they something?”

  “They are indeed. And they are having their problems with Mr. Young.”

  “Problems!” Leander Cole hooted so loudly, Delilah scrambled to her feet. “Whoa, girl. Daddy didn’t mean to scare you.” Then to Sam, “Honey, Tench Young got hold of a nickel belongs to you, you got more than problems. You got yourself a hell of an ordeal. Now.” He leaned forward as if he could read her face. And she wasn’t so sure he couldn’t. Then his voice sharpened a little, though it was still sweet—like a well-made piquant sauce. “I been wondering when somebody was gonna come around wanting to talk with me about Church.”

  Sam didn’t say a word, just kept breathing.

  “Idn’t that really why you’re here?” Suddenly he’d given up his fiction that she was there on assignment.

  “It does interest me.”

  Leander roared at that, laughed till he had to wipe the tears. “Interests you. I bet it does, missy. Seems to me, ought to interest somebody, man gets run down in the middle of St. Charles Avenue, prominent citizen, insurance worth a million, you’d think somebody’d be asking some questions, wouldn’t you—especially of an old friend sued him for ten times that.”

  “Ten million?” She hadn’t known Leander’s suit was for that much.

  “That’s it, missy. That’s what I asked for after old Church showed up his snout a little too deep in the ether, happened to be my morning I was having him do a little patch job on a retina. I’d already lost the other eye a couple of years earlier, let the same problem go too far ’fore I went for help. So when old Church made that little slip with the laser, well—”

  “And you’re still pursuing it with his estate?”

  Cole Leander let the question sit for a nice long time. The man hadn’t worked in this rolling stock form of theater all his life to have no sense of timing.

  “Nawh,” he drawled finally with a big grin. “I’m gone drop the suit.”

  “You’re settling?”

  “Honey, you don’t hear so good for a reporter. I said I’m dropping it.”

  “Why’d you want to do that?”

  “Because I decided to forgive him. Man’s dead. What’s the point? And all the money in the world idn’t gonna bring back my sight, is it?”

  “Nooooo. But—”

  “Seems strange, don’t it? Makes you wonder.”

  “It does.”

  “Seem strange to you a man could be the orneriest son of a bitch in the city for nigh onto seventy years, then suddenly turn into an old sweetie?”

  Sam laughed.

  “Well, I was that. You ask anybody. I did great work; me and my boys could build you a float that would make their eyes pop out there on Canal Street. But do you think I would give you the time of day?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Nawh. I was mean. I was a nasty man with nasty ambitions. Mammon was my god. I wanted to roll”—he shifted his great shoulders and belly back and forth—“wallow in greenbacks. In greed. In emeralds and diamonds and rubies.”

  He paused and took a long swig of coffee.

  “Though”—and then he laughed—“you might notice I’m still partial to the diamonds.” He rubbed his belly, rocks on his fingers flashing. “But you got to allow a pore old blind man a few indulgences—even after he has found the Lord.”

  Sam had had a feeling they might be headed in this direction.

  “Oh, yes.” And even with those two words she could see the tent, smell the sawdust and the sweat of a revival preacher. “Yes, I found my salvation in the Lord not too long ago, and just in time, praise the Lord. He wrenched me away from my life of selfishness, money-gorging, and sin.”

  Leander stood and began to pace around the small office. Delilah, who’d caught this act before, lay her nose on her front paws and watched, moving only her eyes.

  “I was lost. Oh, yes, Miss Samantha Adams of Atlanta, Georgia, I was lost. But now, praise the Lord, now I’m found.”

  The voice was a roller coaster locked into that good-old-time-religion groove. Voice of velvet. Yes, indeedy, Jimmy Swaggart, homeboy from upriver Baton Rouge, had nothing on Cole Leander.

  “Have you taken to preaching, Mr. Leander?”

  “Oh, no, sugah. Though I thank you for thinking so. That’s a compliment. No, I’ve taken to listening. I’d never listened before in my life.”

  “And after you started listening, you decided to forgive Church Lee for—”

  “Go on. Say it. For blinding me. Yes, but also for giving me vision.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  Cole Leander threw his head back and shook it. He looked like George Schultz doing Bert Lahr doing the Cowardly Lion. He even roared on cue.

  Then the voice dropped back down, making a loop-de-loop into a satiny whisper. “Because you see, I am blind but now I see. It was Church who introduced me to that blessed angel. That blessed angel of mercy, praise her name, Sister Nadine.”

  Thirteen

  “WELL, I MADE an ass of myself last evening, didn’t I, but it wasn’t the first time, and I suspect it won’t be the last, will it?” Kitty was apologizing to Sam over the phone.

  “Probably not. But there is one thing I want to talk with you about.”

  “Yeah.”

  “About my fee. I really don’t think fifteen per—”

  “Take a hike, Adams.”

  “That’s what I thought you would say.”

  “We aim never to disappoint here at Lee & Associates Public Relations. Now, what the heck you been doing since I kicked the poop out of you last night?”

  Sam told her about the meetings with Harry and Leander—saving for dessert what Leander said about dropping the lawsuit.

  “You think he’s trying to get you into bed?”

  “Nawh. He’s too old—and too holy.”

  “They’re never too old, and you know that’s not who I mean.”

  “Harry? He’s too young.”

  “Ha! And you’re keeping your fingers crossed on that one, ain’t you, girl?”

  “Am not.”

  “Ah, Sammy, Sammy. This is old Kit you talking to. Now, what you waiting for? ’Fraid he’s gonna run you to ground?” Three beats passed. “You know, think about it, Harry might have the stuff to do that very thing.”

  What stuff was Kitty talking about? “You want to sit around all afternoon talking trash or you want to get on with business here?”

  “Well, pardon me, Miss In-a-Big-Hurry. You lived in California too long, girl. They’ve turned you into a Yankee.”

  Sam laughed. “That’s for sure the first time the Left Coast has ever been accused of lighting a fire under somebody’s fanny. Most folks think you go out there for the big snooze.”

  “Not N’Awlins folk, honey. You know we got the national monopoly on relaxation. Cain’t get no work done before lunch—too busy drinking coffee, and then afterward—well, you need a little nap, then it’s cocktail time and—”

  “Kitty, you’d tell me if there was somebody you thought had it in for you, wouldn’t you? Wanted to hurt you through Church, I mean—”

  “Why, of course I would. Why? Did you run up on somebody said something different?”

  “Nope. Just checking. What about Ma Elise?”

  “You kidding? She’s already outlived all those what were jealous of her beauty, or our family, or our old house.”

  “That pretty much leaves Zoe, doesn’t it?”

  “So, what you got?”

  Sam took a deep breath. She didn’t want to raise Kitty’s ire again, harping on the same sore spots.

  “Two things. One, Harry’s found Madeline.”

  There was a long silence. Finally Kitty said, “Good. You’ll take care of your business with her, and then we’ll see where that leaves us. Vis-à-vis Zoe, I mean.”

  That was a step forward. One more. “And Zoe told me the name
of her supplier.”

  “Yes?”

  “His name’s Billy Jack. That mean anything to you?”

  “Not really. Though this is the second time I’ve heard it today. Harry called and said something about the same man, left you a message.”

  “Gee thanks, Kitty. You’re a hell of an answering service.”

  “I was getting to it. He said, Just a minute, let me find my glasses here. She read off the words: Billy Jack’s no longer at the restaurant. No forwarding. I’ll go at him another direction.”

  Whatever that meant, Sam murmured.

  “Wait,” said Kitty. “There were two more calls. G.T. said she wanted to talk to you. She left her work number.”

  “I was going to call her. Woman has great ESP.”

  “Honey, ESP ain’t the half of G.T., once you get to know her. And Hoke Tolliver called. Your boss, he said to remind you, in case you’d forgotten.”

  “Such a card, that Hoke.”

  “He said he would appreciate it to hell and gone if you would give him a jingle.” Sam could hear her lighting a cigarette. “He sounded kind of cute.”

  “He is, if you like a man who looks like a hound dog with a crew cut. And first you’d have to beat his wife, Lois, off with a stick.”

  “Girl, why you bothering me with these little details?”

  “Before you go back to earning a living, tell me about this Sister Nadine that Cole was talking about, said Church led him to her.”

  “Cole Leander’s lost his mind is what. Church wouldn’t ever have anything to do with that preacher woman. My brother may have had a whole slew of vices, but proselytizing folks, even a slimebag like Cole Leander, into the clutches of TV evangelists wasn’t one of them.”

  “TV?”

  “You haven’t caught Sister Nadine’s act? Oh, that’s right. I forget she’s on the local cable. But I tell you, she ought to be national. International. Hell of a lot better than Joan Rivers.”

  “That’s not saying much. She’s funny, you mean?”

  “Hysterical. Ask Ma Elise or Ida. They catch her every afternoon—when they’re not over at the poolhall shooting snooker with the boys in tight jeans. But Church—?” And then there was the slightest, the tiniest of pauses. Sam knew something had dawned on Kitty, something she wasn’t telling. Then Kitty raced on. “Never Church. If you wanta see her yourself, she’s on at three. When ladies get tired of watching Oprah parade herself around, they flip over to Nadine.”