Louisiana Lament

by Julie Smith

  Talba smiled again. “Especially poetry.”

  “It was absolutely a fantastic business. If it hadn’t been so capital-intensive, I’m sure we would have developed a devoted clientele. We might not have been rolling in money, but it was always partly for the fun of it—and the pleasure of doing something for our artists.”

  Talba seriously doubted that was the way Allyson saw it. “I’m curious,” she said. “How did it work as a business? I mean, who had what job?”

  “Well, I was CEO and Allyson was president.” Rosemary laughed. “Isn’t that grandiose? We had a lot of fun with that part of it.”

  “But how did you actually divide the labor?”

  “We both found the artists—that was the fun part—but neither of us had any experience producing a catalogue, so we had to hire an agency. They did an absolutely gorgeous job.”

  “It sounds expensive.”

  “It was ruinous. I’d never have sunk the money into it if I hadn’t been absolutely convinced it would pay off handsomely.” She looked out the window, for a moment not meeting Talba’s eyes, or perhaps she was genuinely interested in a bird on a nearby branch. “But it didn’t,” she said at last.

  “I’m sorry. But at least you were in it together.”

  Rosemary’s mouth twisted, as if she were trying to control it. “In a sort of a way, yes.”

  “Uh-oh. Sounds like it wasn’t that great a partnership.”

  “No! Allyson was wonderful. I knew what I was doing when I got into it. My husband’s gone now and my son told me not to do it, but I thought, I don’t care what happens, I want this chance to succeed in business. But of course I didn’t know I was going to get sick.” Once more, she touched her head, rubbing it a little; Talba wondered if she’d shaved it when her hair got sparse. “Sometimes I think I gave myself cancer, just worrying about the business.” She sighed. “I really don’t know what went wrong. All Allyson’s projections indicated we’d break even in the first six months. We thought people would kill to buy this stuff.

  “And a lot of people did buy it. We actually took in a couple of hundred thousand dollars in no time at all. But we never dreamed it was going to be so expensive to produce the catalogue. And the postage! We forgot about that entirely.”

  The pronouns weren’t lost on Talba—Allyson had made the projections, but “we” had forgotten and miscalculated and screwed up. Either Rosemary had to be the world’s worst businesswoman, or Allyson had conned her so completely she didn’t even know she’d been conned.

  “Something like that must have been pretty tough on the friendship,” Talba said.

  “Oh, no. Allyson was a force of nature, that’s all. You just had to accept her for who she was.”

  Talba figured Rosemary was in for several hundred thousand dollars, at least—that was a whole lot of acceptance.

  “So that was our relationship,” Rosemary concluded, folding her hands on the duvet cover. Rather than tired out by the interview, she seemed invigorated. “I loved her, and I’ll miss her. And that poor little Cassie—such a shame about her.”

  “About her death? Horrible, yes.”

  “Not just her death. Her life. She just never could seem to do anything right. Her mother was always so worried about her.”

  Now here was a very different view from the prevailing one. Talba wondered if there was some shadow cast of friends who’d adored Allyson and condemned Cassie. “How was that?” Talba asked. “What kinds of things did she do wrong?”

  Rosemary laughed. “Well, wanting to be an actress—what more can I say?”

  “But… I don’t understand. Her mother was a poet, or a student of poetry, at any rate. That’s not usually considered a lucrative career, either.”

  “I don’t think it was about the money,” Rosemary said gently. “I think it had to do with motivation. No matter what, Cassie just couldn’t seem to—you know—up and do anything.”

  “But she was pursuing her career as an actress, and working for a caterer as well. That’s what most aspiring actors do, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know.” Rosemary made a peacemaking gesture. “All I know is, she was a disappointment to her mother.”

  Talba considered asking about Hunt Montjoy, but something told her not to go there—probably the fact that she couldn’t think of a way to ask the question she wanted to without being downright offensive. Inwardly, she laughed at herself. Something about Rosemary’s exaggerated gentility had gotten to her.

  “I guess I should ask you the important stuff,” Talba said. “About her death.”

  Rosemary visibly took a breath.

  “Are you all right with this?” Talba asked.

  Rosemary nodded, reaching for a glass of water beside the bed. “I want to help.”

  “Okay, then. Can you think of anyone who’d want to kill Allyson?”

  Tears leaked into the corners of Rosemary’s eyes. “I’ve thought and I’ve thought about that. I can truthfully say that Allyson Brower was one of the finest human beings I ever met. I never in my life ever met anyone so generous and kind and so loved. I wracked my brain for days on this, and I honestly couldn’t think of a soul who’d want to hurt her.”

  Talba absolutely couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What about her children?”

  Rosemary nodded. “They had their differences. But in the end, Allyson loved them, and they loved her.”

  “Old boyfriends? Anyone like that?”

  “Of course that terrible Burford Hale disappointed her so horribly. Cheated her out of all that money, and then refused to marry her. But, honestly, I can’t see a motive in that. Can you?”

  “He cheated Allyson?”

  “Oh, yes.” Rosemary’s expression clearly said, Some detective. “He lived in her carriage house, or had his office there or something, for months, and took advantage of her so abysmally. Never paid her a cent of rent.”

  Two sides to everything, Talba thought. She said, “Surely you must have a theory, Mrs. McLeod. The killer had to be someone who knew her—do you have any thoughts at all?”

  “I should think it would be obvious. It was that boy, Rashad something. You know how Allyson collected strays—or perhaps you don’t. But Burford Hale was one, I guess. And then that boy. There was always someone hanging around looking for a free lunch. She didn’t know anything about Rashad—anything at all. I’ll bet if you looked into it, you’d find he has a history of violence.”

  He might, Talba thought. He just might.

  “I’m actually surprised the police haven’t made an arrest.”

  “Maybe they will soon,” she said. Thanks to my superior sleuthing. She rose and extended her hand. “Mrs. McLeod—”

  “Rosemary.”

  “Rosemary, I’ve so much enjoyed meeting you. It’s a privilege to see someone so fine-spirited in the face of—” Talba was floundering, wishing she hadn’t started the damn sentence. It sounded pompous and wasn’t the sort of thing she usually said, but something about Rosemary McLeod had touched her—perhaps it was her baby-pink innocence, encased in a baby-pink gown and blanket.

  “Why thank you, Miss Wallis,” Rosemary said, “I’ve enjoyed your company.”

  Talba left thinking it was too bad Allyson and Rosemary couldn’t have been lesbian lovers—it would certainly bolster the theory of someone for everyone. Or perhaps they had been. If she put her mind to it, Allyson could evidently seduce almost anyone.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Eddie thought it might be a good idea to give the whole Rashad thing a rest for a day or two—let the kid settle down after being chased by an avenging goddess, which is what Ms. Wallis must have looked like. He pictured her flying up that hill at Lee Circle, and chuckled to himself.

  What he needed was a new perspective, and he wondered if he could get it at Monday night football. Whathehell. He could just go, and if the tinsel twins weren’t there, he could come back the next night. And it didn’t matter if he arrived empty-handed—T
heresa wasn’t going to burn him, so long as he got the goodies to her before he asked for the next favor.

  Having had only salad for lunch, he figured he could have as much dinner as he wanted, and Audrey had bought steak—steak and spaghetti being a specialty of hers. In fact, she specialized in spaghetti and anything. But the trouble with steak was, it made you sleepy. So Eddie didn’t get to Pete’s till after a little nap, which put him there in about the middle of the third quarter.

  What they did on Monday nights at Pete’s was set up a widescreen TV in a back room, but tonight the Saints were playing the Falcons, and the Saints were trailing, 28-0. People were so demoralized they were filtering out of the back and beginning to drown their sorrows in the bar proper, where the jukebox bawled out “Unchain My Heart” and four silent televisions provided partial escape from the Saints’ humiliation. Eddie figured he might as well establish a command post at the bar before it got boisterous and crowded. The place was the size of the average home living room, and who cared about the game at this point?

  The first thing he noticed was that Theresa wasn’t behind the bar. The guy who was, big guy with glasses, was one of the owners. He knew Eddie, but with luck, Theresa had spread the word to forget the Eight-Inch thing.

  “Eddie Eight-Inch!” the guy said. “Long time, no see.”

  So much for being undercover. “Hey, Jackie. No joy in Mudville, huh?”

  “Thought that was baseball.”

  “Yeah, maybe it was.”

  To signal that he wasn’t up for conversation, he glued his eyes to one of the silent televisions that were always on, for some reason. Gradually, he began to inspect the rest of the room. A more ordinary watering hole you couldn’t imagine. Originally dubbed the Out in the Cold Bar, Pete’s was dark, with the dark, fake paneled walls of a million gin joints in a thousand towns. It had about five or six tables and a regular old beat-up bar, with a couple of firemen’s hats hanging behind it. But there was something about the place—something beyond the sum of its parts. It had great ambience, even with Theresa’s absence.

  It took a few minutes to take everything in, but Eddie gradually realized that the guys he wanted were seated at a small round table by the front window. Both of them, only the twerp wasn’t in pin stripes. Eddie figured him for the one in the blue button-down. In here, that was like wearing a tux. The other one had on an orange Auburn T-shirt that covered a well-formed bourbon belly, and a baseball hat. The clincher was the big mess of papers they had on the table. That was definitive. No one, but no one had ever brought work into Pete’s before—he’d have staked his life on it. So it had to be Taylor and Montjoy.

  He moved down a couple of seats, to get a little closer. If he really paid attention, he could just hear.

  “I don’t buy it,” Taylor said. “The guy’s wife just died, and he’s going out prowling the night after the funeral? Uh-uh. Totally out of character.”

  “What does a hack like you know about character?” Montjoy sneered.

  Hoo-boy, Eddie thought. Is my timing good or what?

  “Look, Hunt,” Taylor said, “they brought me into the project because I know how to write a screenplay. Sure, it’s your gig; sure they want your name. You don’t have to remind me every ten seconds. I think by now I’m pretty well aware of it. But you might want to remember that they asked for another writer because the average poet doesn’t write screenplays.”

  “Novelist.”

  “What?”

  “You forget I’m a novelist, Taylor?”

  “Look. Let’s cut to the chase, as we say in El Lame. You pay almost ten bucks for a movie, you don’t want to see Harrison Ford acting like an asshole.”

  “He’s not an asshole, he’s trying to forget.”

  “It’s not going to play that way.”

  “Shit! That’s hack thinkin’. What the fuck do I care how it plays? Are we aiming for quality here or are we pandering to the masses?”

  “Hunt, they’re paying us to write a movie.”

  “The goddamn thing’s supposed to be noir. The guy can’t be a candy-ass.” Eddie noticed that Montjoy’s S’s were getting fuzzy.

  “Look,” Taylor said, “let’s go back to the master on that. ‘Down these mean streets a man must go, a man who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.’ He’s untarnished, see? He’s a better man than you or I.”

  Montjoy boomed out a laugh. “Wouldn’t take much, would it?”

  “Guess not.” Taylor chuckled a little as well, but tentatively.

  “Sure wouldn’t take much, would it, Wayne, my man?” He got up and grabbed his buddy’s shoulder, possibly to steady himself, and then he lurched over to the bar. “Let’s see what ol’ Eddie Eight-Inch has to say about it.”

  Shit, Eddie thought. What’s Theresa done? Spread the word a PI’s coming in tonight?

  “Hey, Eddie! Hunt Montjoy. How ya doin’?” He clapped Eddie on the shoulder as if they’d been buddies since high school.

  “Yeah, I know who you are. The question is, how do you know me?”

  “Whaddaya mean?” Montjoy looked at him as if he were speaking pig Latin. “I heard Jackie call ya Eddie Eight-Inch. Whole place did. Said to myself, I gotta meet a guy named Eddie Eight-Inch. Now, why they call ya that, Eddie?” He winked, and it made Eddie feel dirty. He got an inkling why women hated that kind of thing.

  There was a scraping of chairs and a general chorus of “shit”s from the other room. The game was over, and people were starting to melt back into the front bar. Almost the first one out was Theresa. Seeing Eddie, she glanced quickly away.

  This was getting to be a mess. Now he really needed her, to give him legitimacy. “Theresa!” he hollered. “Hey, it’s Eddie—don’t ya remember me?”

  It took her about a nanosecond to get his drift. “Eddie, babe! Ya lost weight or somethin’—lookin’ like a million, dawlin’.” She came over and hugged his neck.

  “Hey, ya know my good friend, Hunt? He wants to know why they call me Eddie Eight-Inch.”

  She smirked. “Ax him what he thinks.”

  Eddie turned triumphantly back to Montjoy. “Some things a gentleman just don’t mention.”

  “You sound like Wayne over there. Hey, Taylor, come meet Eddie Eight-Inch.”

  Taylor joined them. “Heard of both of y’all,” Eddie said. He’d decided to go for broke. “What’s ya movie about?”

  Montjoy grabbed the floor. “There’s this PI, see, who’s having an affair with this woman—I see her as, like, Catherine Zeta-Jones; real sensual babe. Well, our guy’s wife gets murdered, you follow? While he’s with the babe—”

  “—And the cops think he did it,” Eddie finished, “but he’s got no alibi because she’s his best friend’s wife.”

  Montjoy looked disgusted. “Eddie, Eddie. Give us a little credit. We’re professionals here.”

  “Okay, what really happens?”

  “Well, after he leaves the babe, she gets murdered, too.”

  “Hold it. I thought it was Catherine Zeta-Jones.”

  “So what?”

  “Well, you can’t kill off the star at the beginning of the movie.”

  Taylor started guffawing like Eddie was Chris Rock. “Oh, yeah. Man’s a professional.”

  He looked at his pal. “See? Every guy on a bar stool knows more about movies than you do. What’d I tell you? This ain’t art, buddy—it’s a money-making machine.”

  A nasty glint shone in Montjoy’s eyes. “If it’s got your name on it, already it ain’t art. Goes without sayin’.”

  Eddie said, “Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Taylor. My associate’s a poet and she’s been readin’ your novel. Says it’s good stuff. And she’s got an MFA.” (To his knowledge, she didn’t.)

  Taylor was starting to be amused. Eddie had an idea he knew exactly who he meant. “Oh, yeah? What does she think of Montjoy’s stuff? He’s got a Pulitzer.”

  “Says it’s sexist.”

  “She’s mistaken,” M
ontjoy said. “My work’s not sexist. I’m sexist.”

  “Ya proud of that?”

  “Listen to him. ‘Proud o’ dat.’ You teach at UNO with my buddy here?”

  “Touché,” Taylor said, and he took a good swig of something that looked decidedly pink, exactly as Theresa had predicted. “Hunt, I believe our friend is having us on a bit. I think possibly his associate paid me a visit last week.” He stood and stuck out his hand, which Eddie shook reluctantly. “Mr. Valentino, I presume?”

  Eddie said, “Dr. Valentino to you,” to show that he got the joke. “At your service.”

  But Montjoy was drunk enough to take him literally. “Oh, shit. Since when did they start giving Ph.D.’s to yats to teach ‘popular literature’? Now, there’s an oxymoron for you. Popular fuckin’ literature! You get your degree from Diplomas-R-Us or what?”

  For once, Eddie wished he had one of those official-looking badges Ms. Wallis was so crazy about—flashing it might give Montjoy a minor heart attack, or maybe a stroke, which he would really enjoy about now. Failing that, he figured he’d have to grovel. “Naah.” He looked at his beer, and laid on the accent as thick as he could. “I ain’t no professor, Mr. Montjoy. But I am at ya service. Ya writin’ about a PI, right? Well, ya lookin’ at one. Step right up and get ya free information. I’m in a helluva mood. Never have been a Saints fan.”

  He made sure he delivered the last line low enough that no one else heard. In these parts, knocking the Saints was like knocking Catholicism. But he’d guessed right about Montjoy, who promptly gave him five. “My man! Never could stand those wusses. You really a PI?”

  “Thirty years’ worth,” Eddie replied.

  “Hey, Wayne! We got us a gold mine, here. What you drinking, Eight-Inch? Say, how do you find out if somebody’s got a criminal record?”