House of Blues (35 page)

She watched the pols and dignitaries file into the
church, and thought that Jim was a much more important person in
death than . he'd been in life. He would have shaken his head, she
thought, and said, "Mm mm mm."

There would have been a lot here to puzzle him.

So much had been changed by his death. It wasn't
merely that one second he'd been breathing, the next he hadn't.

It wasn't just that his death left a hole.

The department was different, his families' lives
were different, her life was different. Even the climate of the city
was different.  And who could have predicted it? He was only one
man—a decent man, a good cop, a good friend—but the domino effect
surprised her.

There was something here that bore thinking about;
something larger; but she couldn't handle it now.

The service had begun. Sounds of quiet sniffling
filled the church. When the eulogies were given, she joined in
herself. When Joe Tarantino, her lieutenant, talked about what Jim
had meant to the department, it came clear to her how much she was
going to miss him, how much she'd depended on him.

She saw Adam Abasolo near the front of the church and
wondered what a steady diet of him was going to be like. He'd come to
Homicide from Sex Crimes, much against his will, she was sure. He'd
once told her he liked Sex Crimes because the perps got more time,
the cases were more interesting, and you were really doing something
for the victim. He was right on count one, semi-right on count two—a
lot of teenagers killed each other over drugs, but every now and
then, Arthur Hebert's daughter shot him—and right again on count
three. In Homicide the victim was past it.

Abasolo had been fine in the short term, but she
didn't know how he'd wear. The fact that he was so attractive might
be a problem. Would it be weird, riding in a police car with all that
testosterone in the air?

Probably not, she thought. Police work was absorbing
enough so you'd hardly notice. Unless his ego was so big he insisted
you notice.

But she didn't think Abasolo was like that. She
thought he was a good cop. More of a hot dog than jim, maybe, but a
little faster, probably, and a little trickier.

And that, she realized, was what bothered her. She
was tricky herself. Were they the same kind of tricky? That was the
question. A hymn began, and that brought her back to the present.

Jim's barely cold, and I'm already thinking about
working with someone else. But I had to sometime. Life goes on.

It seemed immeasurably sad to her, that life would go
on without Jim, and yet it did occur to her to consider the
alternative. What's wrong with me? I haven't got time for this crap,
I'm a cop. But she had a nagging feeling somewhere in the back of her
brain that she wasn't done with it; that it wouldn't let her alone,
whatever it was.

When the service was over, she and Steve walked back
to her house, so she could change for lunch, but they were barely
inside the door before they were all over each other like a couple of
teenagers. They ended up making love on the living room rug, not even
managing to climb the stairs, and they didn't make it to lunch
either.

Because she had worked so late the night before, Skip
had taken the morning off, but the case really couldn't wait while
she took Steve to the airport, especially since the trip there
involved a stop to get Napoleon. So she had called him a cab.

She made a couple of tuna sandwiches to eat while
they waited for it. She was only able to nibble, pretending a little.
She found the food wouldn't go down past the lump in her throat.

Steve said, "I don't know if I should say this,
but I can't help worrying about you sometimes."

"
When you're in LA., you mean? Why?"

"Oh, I don't know, it's like a magic spell. If
I'm here, nothing can happen to you. If I'm not—if I call you and
you don't answer—my imagination runs wild."

"
Look. What happened to Jim was a freak. I mean
it; Homicide's one of the safest places a cop can work. Think about
it. We get there after the shooting." She was trying hard to
keep her voice from breaking. What she was saying was true, but at
the moment not even she believed it.

She forced a smile. "Let's talk about you. The
famous project that's going to bring you back to New Orleans."

"
I wish I could meet Delavon."

"
Delavon! Do you realize he probably set us up?
I mean, Jim was probably killed on his orders. You can't mess with a
creep like that."

"He must be a true psychopath. I'd love to get a
psychopath on film."

"
Forget it," she said. "Why don't you
do kids with gay parents?"

"Whatever made you think of that?"

"
Or French Quarter kids. On the one hand
surrounded by drag queens and literary eccentrics, on the other,
known by everyone in the neighborhood. Big-city, small-town life all
rolled into one."

"Not bad. It's not exactly the heartland."

"
Or just—you know—weird lifestyles; odd
families."

"
I can't think where I'd find any of those."

"Maybe Dee-Dee and Layne'll get married."
She was babbling. They were both babbling.

The taxi had honked once;
it honked again.

* * *

Grady had been drinking all morning. He never drank
to write. Couldn't focus, couldn't think, couldn't even stay awake.
On the other hand, he hadn't been able to write about The Thing
sober. The worst that could happen was he'd waste another day; he'd
already wasted plenty of them.

He plunged in, as far back
from the bad part as he could remember:

* * *

It was Easter, and Reed had awakened both of us
early, Evie and me, so we could see what the Easter bunny brought.
The Easter baskets varied from year to year. That year I got green
and the girls got purple; that is, they were straw-colored with
another color woven in—green for me and purple for them. They had
that synthetic grass in them, the stuff that looks like shredded
AstroTurf, and plenty of jelly beans in the bottom. Then there were
chocolate bunnies and marshmallow chicks that tasted like cellophane,
and chocolate-cream eggs. The Easter eggs weren't there, because we'd
dyed them ourselves—so the bunny couldn't be expected to bring
them.

We always got some little gift besides the candy. One
year I got the duck that became the bane of all our lives, but it
wasn't that year. That year I got a Mickey Mouse watch. Reed got what
Dad insisted was a "bunny lady," a purple and white stuffed
rabbit with short mouselike ears instead of long ones, red cheeks,
and feminine features, pouty mouth included. Evie got some sort of
jewelry-making kit, and frankly, I don't think she liked it much. She
was in a horrible mood that day, cranky and snappy.

She even threw a tantrum before church.

"I don't want to go!"

"Quiet, Evie."

"You can't make me."

"
I'm going to count to three . .

That sort of thing. At the time, I didn't know what
it was about—no one paid any attention to Evie, except to tell her
to shut up—but now that I think back, she was in a tomboy stage.

She was probably pissed that the bunny hadn't noticed
and brought her some boxing gloves or something.

She must have hated her dress too. It was some kind
of light pink extravaganza; and Reed had white lace, I think, with a
pink sash, those tiny little black shoes with straps (are they the
ones called Mary lanes in books?), and white lace socks. I'll never
forget how she looked that day. I thought she was the cutest thing I
ever saw. She had a neatness to her, a compactness, even as a tiny
child, that I always admired. Evie on the other hand was all over the
place.

I wonder what on earth I'm saying here. Perhaps I'm
talking about energy, whatever that is. Reed's was contained, I
think, just as it is now (too much so, I think). Evie's was full-out.

A child like that is an inconvenient child; a child
who takes I up a lot of space; space I felt should have been mine, I
guess; space our parents would just as soon have had empty and
peaceful.

Naturally, Mother and Dad won the fight, and Evie did
go to church. It's worth noting here that she always seemed to think
she'd win, and she never did. I never even tried, and I don't suppose
Reed did either because we saw you couldn't win. But that never
seemed to occur to Evie for a moment. What was wrong with her, I
wonder?

Anyway, we did go to church, all five of us, and
afterward we were supposed to go have lunch with our
grandparents—Dad's parents, the ones who started the restaurant.

They were old even then, and had long since retired
from running it. They lived in Covington, across the causeway, and
the ride over always seemed endless to us, or perhaps only to me, if
it's true that boys are noisier and more rambunctious. Anyone who's
ever had Evie for a sister would doubt it, but there is only one such
male and I did turn out to be a writer, a distinctly effeminate
calling in my father's opinion.

We all knew the afternoon would hold no pleasures for
us children. First there would be a lunch of ham, probably, with a
million vegetables, followed, if we were lucky, by some passable
dessert. The whole procedure would be far too formal for my taste,
and none of the food appealing except the dessert. But with luck Ma
Mere would make a peach pie, I thought (though I know now it was far
too early for peaches).

The worst was that we wouldn't be permitted to remove
our oppressive Sunday clothes until after lunch had been consumed
and—tedium of tedium!—photographs taken. Hair would be combed and
recombed. Then we'd have to stand still and squint endlessly into the
sun, holding our Easter baskets and possibly the treasures brought by
the seasonal rodent. With luck, Evie and I would be posed together
and I could untie her sash, or hit her upper arm or something. Both
girls had Easter bonnets that year. On the way to church I had jerked
Reed's off her head and threatened to throw it out the window. She
cried and Mama hit me, but I could probably attack Evie's with
impunity. It was a sort of wide-brimmed straw affair with a pink
velvet ribbon around it and a nosegay stuck in the ribbon. I might be
able to pull the flowers off, or perhaps sail the entire hat into the
neighbors' yard.

We had to make a stop first, and I remember thinking
about that in the car—the little ways I could torture Evie. When I
look back on it, it amazes me that I wasn't remotely worried about
punishment. I am not quite sure why, but I have some ideas. There is
the possibility that I was just dumb, unable to think that far ahead.
But I have considered this a lot—I have had much occasion to ponder
it, as the day's subsequent events will show—and I think not. I
think that I believed I could do what I wanted with impunity,
especially where Evie was concerned, and I think I had good reason
for so believing. Why, I really do not know.

I am over thirty now, and that was in the early
sixties, before feminism got going, I think. I wonder if it was
simply that I was male (a poor specimen in my father's opinion, but
male nevertheless) and therefore privileged. It doesn't seem
possible, and yet how else to explain it? Reed was self-censored, so
far as I can tell. She never did anything wrong. Evie did everything
wrong. But surely not everything because it is not she who would have
sailed the hat, and then there was the other thing. The thing that I
call The Thing.

The stop we had to make was at the restaurant. I
don't know why we stopped that particular day, but it wasn't unusual
for us all to stop there on a Sunday, or any other time when Dad had
business to do. And Easter was a huge day, a day when all those who
didn't have to go to their grandparents' got to have Shrimp Arnaud at
Arnaud's, or Bananas Foster at Brennan's, or Oysters a la Foch at
Antoine's, or Crab Hebert at Hebert's.

While we had to eat ham.

Not only that, we weren't about to get any ham for at
least an hour.

We were starved. But when we went in the kitchen at
Hebert's, the cooks made over us and gave us tidbits, especially, one
named Albert, an old black man, or maybe he wasn't so old, but his
hair was starting to gray and he was slightly stooped.

Albert had a gentleness about him, a maternal
quality, it seemed to me, though that sounds contradictory
considering his sex. I felt—I don't know—loved (I guess I can say
it, I'm half drunk) in his presence, in a way I never did in the
presence of either of my parents. Albert simply was more gentle,
there's no question, by temperament, but I think perhaps there might
be more to the story.

All parents say they love their children, and no
doubt they believe they are telling the truth (though I never saw the
slightest evidence that either of our parents loved Evie, unless you
count the fact that they took care of her in material ways). No doubt
they would have felt bereft if their children had died (though Evie
might as well have, and I am not sure that anyone missed her after
she left, except for me, and I was always attracted to her. She was a
sexy child, I think—can children be sexy?).