As sister Dawn Abigail was telling them how Sal Louis hadn’t been around for a couple weeks, a little boy was shot in the St. Thomas Housing Project. LaStanza’s radio told the story in sharp, staccato, police language. A loud beep tone was followed by, “Signal 34S – possible 30 – 400 block of St. Andrew – perpetrator still on scene – any Sixth District Unit.”
Unit 602 responded immediately, followed by a host of others who were cut off by another beep tone from headquarters. “Perpetrator from St. Andrew fleeing uptown on Annunciation – black male – ” headquarters began describing the shooter.
LaStanza tapped Jodie on the shoulder, interrupting her conversation with the good sister, who wore a Mama Cass muumuu that was once white but now sported large yellow stains beneath each armpit.
“Let’s go,” he said, turning around and heading for the door.
The radio exploded with calls from cops in pursuit of the perpetrator, interlaced with calls from Unit 602 who had arrived on the scene and called for an ambulance – and a homicide team.
“Where are we going?” Jodie asked as they jumped into the Maserati.
“St. Thomas. 34S – probably a 30 by now.”
“They need help?”
LaStanza turned down Felicity Street and punched it.
Somehow, a day shift homicide unit beat them to the scene, quickly calming things down and putting out a detailed description of the shooter.
“Did they ask for help?” Jodie said, hanging on when LaStanza jammed the brakes to keep from running up the rear of a rusty pickup truck.
“Nope,” he said, “but we’re going anyway.”
When they arrived, an ambulance was leaving, in a big hurry.
•
They had to push their way through the crowd collecting on the north side of the projects, hulking three and four story brown brick buildings. LaStanza stopped as soon as he was through. He saw a woman in a bathrobe sitting in the dirt in a courtyard. Her head was bent down and she was crying, her hand resting in a pool of blood in front of her. Two uniform men were standing over her. The commander of the homicide day watch, Sergeant Val Buras, was kneeling next to the woman, trying to talk to her.
Three small children behind LaStanza were wailing now, tears streaming down their small, dark faces. LaStanza looked over their heads at another dark face, grimaced in pain. A Teenage girl in a saints tee-shirt and blue jeans cried aloud, “I knew they were gonna shoot some little child one day.”
Another woman started crying about two other shootings where children were wounded. They were drug shoot-outs, she said. LaStanza heard the mother begin to talk between heavy sobs. He turned around and stepped closer.
“I was heating his lunch – he was playing on his bicycle – ”
There was a tricycle lying on the other side of one of the patrolmen.
“I called out the window for him – he started to come around to the back door – and I heard a shot – my baby was on the ground – I jumped out the window – and Cecil Cornelius was holding my baby saying he was sorry – ” Her tears fell in the dirt. “It was Cecil Cornelius. I know him. He killed my baby.”
Buras left her alone a minute, got on his radio and gave headquarters the name of the suspect.
A little boy started pulling on LaStanza’s pants leg. The boy had pushed his way past Jodie. LaStanza looked down into a tortured face that looked up at him and asked, “Is Bobo dead?” He was about four years old.
LaStanza knelt down and said, “I don’t know.”
The little boy buried his face in the crook of LaStanza’s neck and started to really cry. LaStanza put his arms around the child and picked him up. The boy’s legs wrapped themselves around him.
Buras stood now and moved over to them. He was a burly man with curly brown hair. He was shaking his head in disgust.
“It only gets worse, don’t it?” the sergeant said. Then he said, “What y’all doing here?”
“The Batture,” Jodie answered.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Is the victim 10-7?” Jodie asked.
Buras nodded and started to move away toward the crime lab technician who had just arrived. “Another hour and a half,” he called back to them, “and this woulda been yours.”
“Need any help?” Jodie asked.
“Naw,” Buras said, “we got it.”
LaStanza looked at his partner. She didn’t seem to be the least bit upset. Good homicide man, he thought to himself. He turned away because – he was upset. He was more than upset. He could feel his hot Sicilian rising and knew that he’d better put a quick cap on it. A good homicide man didn’t lose his head while others were losing theirs.
Behind him someone shouted, “Come on! Move!” It was Stan Smith, working his way through the crowd, which had grown even larger.
Coming up behind them, Stan reached over for the boy in LaStanza’s arms. The little boy blinked his frightened eyes at Stan, then obviously recognized the tall, uniformed sergeant and lunged into Stan’s arms.
“Come on Elroy,” Stan said, patting the child’s back, “your Mama’s all worried about you.” Stan started back through the crowd, turned around and told LaStanza, “This is one of ma’ little padnas. So was Bobo.” Continuing through the mass of people, he called back, “I’m gonna get that no-good, rotten, dope-head, scumbag Cornelius! Personally!”
“Yeah!” Someone in the crowd responded.
Another cop started toward them from where Stan was heading. LaStanza saw Jodie look away quickly and move around him. The cop was sporting a flat top and a pencil-thin moustache and LaStanza saw a K-9 patch on his shoulder. In the instant before the cop arrived, LaStanza remembered that Jodie used to date a guy in K-9.
“Hey, Baby,” the cop called out to Jodie who ignored him. He put out his hand to LaStanza to shake, but didn’t look at the detective. The man introduced himself.
LaStanza didn’t catch the name and didn’t shake the hand. Jodie started walking away and LaStanza followed.
“Hey,” the K-9er called out behind him, “you need my dog to help clear the crowd?”
LaStanza wheeled around and said as he backpedaled, “Take out your dog and I’ll shoot him. Then I’ll shoot you. Then I’ll go tell the grand jury about this stupid K-9 cop I once met!”
The cop’s face turned angry before he did a about-face and left.
“Is he gone?” Jodie asked when LaStanza joined her next to the dilapidated, brown-brick project building where Bobo used to live.
“You didn’t go out with that Ass-hole, did you?”
Jodie pointed to her temple and said, “Tell me I wasn’t stupid.”
LaStanza remained at the scene. Jodie didn’t complain. He watched the day shift process the crime scene and watched the civilians come and go, staring at the pool of blood and Bobo’s mother still sitting in the dirt. Some of them were crying. Others just pointed and whispered.
LaStanza caught pieces of conversation from his radio and from Buras and the other homicide men from the day watch. It appeared that the perpetrator was exchanging shots with another man, a running gun battle, probably over drugs, the victim was caught between them. Bobo just celebrated his fifth birthday two days earlier. He was shot once, in the head. He wore a Snoopy tee-shirt.
Then the reporters arrived, excited men with pencils and note pads, good-looking women with cans of hairspray in their hands, accompanied by television crews that set up quickly as the women with the hairspray primped in mirrors held up by bored assistants.
Everything stopped a moment later when Reverend Stokes showed up in a three piece, lime-green suit and matching patent leather shoes and began singing “Amazing Grace”. The man’s voice echoed between the tenement houses of the projects. LaStanza closed his eyes. He remembered, when he was a boy, the priest at Holy rosary who would sing “Ave Maria” through the large PA system through the neighborhood, sounding like God, Himself. A well of emotion rose in LaStanza’s chest. He had to force himself to steady his breathing. A good homicide man keeps his head when everyone else is losing theirs. It was hard, sometimes, when a child was due up next on the autopsy table and a rich voice boomed, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me – ”
Then he heard Jodie telling him a homicide team apprehended Cornelius on Louisiana Avenue. They recovered a .32 caliber pistol from the suspect. They were bringing him to the Bureau.
Someone came and took the mother away. Then the cops started leaving, one by bone.
An hour later, LaStanza was still leaning against the three story, brown-brick building with the green balconies and abundant graffiti. His partner stood next to him. There was still a crowd in the courtyard.
Then the real show began. The new Chief of Police arrived with his entourage, including his pretty-boy chauffeur, a twenty-year old kid who received lieutenant’s pay to drive the Chief around. Everyone knew the kid got his job because he was the nephew of some senator. The entourage also included the fat Chinaman.
Chief Ron Miles wasn’t from new Orleans, which was only part of his problem. He was also pasty-face, ugly actually, with wispy white hair and a high-pitched, whiney voice. His pug nose and baby-pink complexion gave him the appearance of a hog. To LaStanza, he was a skinny Porky-Pig. No one on the department listened to him and NO ONE respected him.
Miles had one friend: the fat Chinaman. Everywhere the Chief went, he was accompanied by the fat Chinaman. No one seemed to know much about the guy, except he had lots of political connections.
If the Chief and the Chinaman weren’t gay, they should have been. They looked the part. Not that being gay, in a city like New Orleans, was much of a problem. Unless you’re chief of police. Not to LaStanza particularly, but most of the other cops were far more macho.
The Chief decided to hold a press conference at the very spot where the murder occurred. The television crews scrambled to set back up and hurried to catch what was left of the sun. When one of the TV crewmen, backing across the yard for a better shot, stepped in the blood from little Bobo’s brain, LaStanza yelled, “Hey Ass-hole, watch where you’re stepping!”
Everyone turned to him, including the Chief.
“Oh, thanks,” the TV crewman said, wiping his foot in the clean dirt. Dumb douche-bag thought LaStanza was helping him.
It was definitely time to leave.
Jodie hurried to keep up. “Hey,” she called out, “what’s wrong with you?”
“I’m pissed!”
“I know that,” she had to run to get in front of him, “but your face – ”
“Huh?”
“It’s all screwed up.”
He felt himself breathing heavy now. He stopped and inched up to her and said, “I – wanna kill that fuck-head!”
“Which one?” She was trying to be funny.
“Cornelius,” he snarled.
“So do I.”
“No.”
She didn’t understand.
“I wanna give back his gun and have him face me, man to man, so I can blow his fuckin’ brains all over the project.” He grabbed the front of her blouse. “I wanna stick my hands in his brain and squeeze it and then feed it to the blue-gum-dogs.”
He let go of her blouse.
“When I say I wanna kill someone. I really wanna kill someone.” He didn’t have to tell her he’d done it before. She knew. He never realized just how much he liked it.
•
Fuck Sister Abigail and her sweaty muumuu. LaStanza headed for the Bureau. He wanted to have a little talk with this Cornelius fella. If it was drugs, maybe it was Tees and Blues, a drug now out of fashion and not as easy to get as crack. Maybe Cornelius knew the two Pams. Maybe LaStanza could weasel the name of the other man who was shooting it out with Cornelius at St. Thomas. Maybe Cornelius knew something about The Batture.
Passing Annunciation Square, LaStanza slowed down and looked over at a crowd of St. Thomas Project kids who were lucky enough to be playing in the right park that day.
Then there was another loud beep tone on his radio, followed by – “Signal 64 in progress and a 34S – Schwegmann’s Supermarket – 1325 Annunciation.” An armed robbery and a shooting were going down two blocks away.
“Jesus!” LaStanza hit the accelerator. Jodie grabbed for whatever she could grab and shouted, “Goddamn Sixth!”
Nobody beat the Maserati this time. LaStanza had to hit the brakes hard and cut the wheel sharply to the left to keep from overrunning the entrance to the parking lot on the Melpomene side of the supermarket. The Maserati slid to a stop, blocking the entrance of the lot.
Stepping from the car, he already had his .357 magnum out and cocked and pointed skyward. He called out to Jodie, “Watch the cars,” meaning the parked cars to her right, “might be a getaway waiting!”
He walked forward carefully but purposefully, glancing at the cars parked against the front of the store, looking for any movement. Nearing the door, he saw someone move. There was a large, mountain-of-a-man with a shotgun standing just outside the main front door. It looked just like – it was unmistakably – Lieutenant Bob Kay of the Training Academy. Kay was barking orders to a light complected black man with wild eyes and frizzy reddish-brown hair puffed out like one of the Three Stooges, Larry the Stooge. The man was backed up against the brick wall next to the front door. He had his hands in the front pockets of his blue jump suit as he blinked his eyes like an antelope looking down the snout of a lion.
LaStanza looked around as he approached the lieutenant from the rear and said “Hey, Bob. It’s Dino. You OK?”
“Yes,” Kay answered, “you may approach.” The lieutenant was in a lightweight jogging suit, his glasses secured to his head by an elastic band. He was trying to sound calm but LaStanza noticed a slight shiver in the single-barrel, pump, twelve-gauge police shotgun held like a toothpick in Kay’s large hands.
LaStanza eased up to him and saw Kay flinch when Jodie rushed up.
“Watch the door,” LaStanza said. “There could be others.”
She nodded excitedly and jumped toward the front door. God, she was wired.
LaStanza turned back to Kay who was saying “He’s got a gun!”
“Looks like you got him covered,” LaStanza said calmly.
The lieutenant nodded, the shotgun bouncing up and down like a magic wand.
LaStanza yelled to the man, “Put your hands up!” The man blinked his wide-set eyes at the detective and quickly obliged. “And show me your palms.” The man did.
“I’m gonna search him,” he told the lieutenant. He waited for the shotgun to rise and point skyward.
“All right,” Kay said, his large eyebrows furrowed down, still leering at the man. “Go ahead and search the suspect.”
Kay wasn’t really a man-mountain, he just sounded that way. He was only six feet even but always wore a bullet proof vest, even off duty, which made him look larger.
“Assume the position,” he told the man, “come on, you’ve seen it on TV.”
The man obliged, putting his hands against the bricks and spreading his legs, which LaStanza kicked even wider before pulling the back of the man’s belt outward so the suspect was leaning forward, off balance. LaStanza pressed his magnum against the base of the man’s skull. Bracing his leg against the back of the man’s left leg, LaStanza frisked him carefully.
LaStanza un-cocked and slipped the magnum back into the holster at the small of his back and pulled out his handcuffs, pulled the man’s hands back one at a time.
“Put your forehead against the wall.” He slapped them on the man’s hands. He stepped up and turned the suspect around to face the wall of the supermarket.
“He’s clean,” he said “Stand up and don’t fuckin’ move.”
A Sixth District Unit skidded up behind the lieutenant. Two young faces LaStanza had never seen before alighted from the car, revolvers drawn.
“Hey, you!,” LaStanza called out to the first patrolman, “read this Ass-hole his rights and put him in the back of your car.”
The suspect decided it was time he should start talking, “Yeah, I killed her. The bitch!”
“Hey,” LaStanza shoved the man’s face against the bricks, “you’re not supposed to confess until after we read you your rights. Don’t you watch TV?”
“She a slut,” the man argued back. “The bitch! She a dead slut now!”
LaStanza noticed blood on the man’s fingers and jogging shoes as the patrolman led the suspect away. He waved Jodie over and said, “Stay with the Ass-hole. Don’t let anyone near him! When the crime lab arrives, have them swab his hands and take his shoes right away. Got it?”
She nodded excitedly as she pulled a Miranda card from her purse and started reading the shooter his rights.
“And write own whatever he says!”
She nodded harder.
He grabbed the other patrolman and told him to search the area for anyone sitting in a car, like a getaway.
“Then write down the license plates of every are here. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now,” he turned back to Kay, “cover the door, I’m going in.”
“Where’s your vest?” Kay asked.
“You sure this was an armed robbery?” he asked back, his eyes scanning the interior of the store through the glass front door. There were plenty people still inside, most huddled behind counters.
“Don’t know,” Kay answered. “I was just going in, heard the report of gunfire, retrieved my shotgun from my unit and saw this man running out. He’s got blood on him.”
“I know. Cover the door.” LaStanza took off his jacket so his badge could be seen and threw it across the hood of the Sixth District Unit. Then he pulled his magnum out again and moved forward.
“And don’t let anyone leave,” he called back to the lieutenant.
“Of course,” Kay responded.
LaStanza walked through the automatic doors and moved steadily to the first counter and stopped. A skinny white woman with stringy black hair was crying next to him. He asked her if there were any robbers still in the store. She started crying louder.
While others are losing their heads, he thought to himself. Then he had another thought. Dino, my boy. You just might get to shoot someone after all.
That thought calmed him even more. He’d already felt a calming as soon as he stepped from the Maserati. It was like hitting a plane, a leveling off of adrenalin that made everything – smooth and exact and precise. He was in another gear. He wasn’t even breathing heavy.
With the magnum cupped in both hands and pointed upward, he moved deliberately and furtively across the front of the store, following the trail of blood that dotted the floor, to one of the side aisles. At the entrance of the wide aisle he found a bloody footprint from a jogging shoe that turned the corner. He peeked around the corner.
It took a second for the scene to register, especially with the victim’s feet sticking in the air out of the frozen food cooler that ran, waist-high, down the center of the wide aisle. The bloody footprints led to a wide circle of blood next to a mop and bucket on the floor a few feet from the cooler. The body was that of a dark skinned black woman, her feet sticking straight up, as if she’d been dropped from the ceiling right into the frozen food.
LaStanza uncocked his magnum and moved toward the body. It was hard making her face out for all the blood that had gushed from her wounds, inundating the entire display of Cool Whip where she lay.
He had an even harder time trying to find her carotid artery to check for vital signs. Then he saw why. Besides the hole in back of her head, a bullet had severed the artery. When he touched her neck, what little blood remained in the artery oozed out on the Cool Whip. She wore a baby blue smock over her dress. The mop gave her away. She was a porterette, probably mopping up some mess when she was shot, at least twice.
He heard whimpering on the other side of the cooler. He wiped his fingers on a clean spot on the smock and re-holstered the magnum before calling out, “Hey. It’s the police. You can come out, now.”
A black face peeked up over the cooler and blinked at him. It was another porterette, a very short woman with a flat-top haircut. She started crying louder when she looked at her compatriot, so rudely disposed.
LaStanza inched back away from the body, careful not to step in anything. He stopped when he saw a small, blue steel automatic, also lying in the cooler, atop the only bucket of Cool Whip that hadn’t been splattered. It was a typical, Saturday-night-special, looked like a .25 caliber. He also saw a spent casing on the floor next to the blood.
He walked around the cooler and took the crying woman’s hand and led her away.
“Is she dead?” the woman wailed.
He nodded. The woman started running in place and wailed even louder. He waited a moment before leading her to the front of the store. On the way, she cried out. “I know who did it! I saw him! It was her husband!”
He managed to learn, between more sobs, that the husband had waltzed right in and shot the victim, then shoved her in with the Cool Whip and shot her again and then walked out.
There were seven patrolmen out front now. Kay still had his shotgun at the ready. LaStanza waved them in and told them it wasn’t an armed robbery. It was only a misdemeanor murder: a husband-wife killing.
He grabbed a patrolman and sent him to the body, to secure the scene. “Don’t let anyone near her. Except Homicide.”
“Yes, sir.”
The wailing woman had caught her second breath and wailed even louder. He squeezed her hand but let her continue. She was running in place again.
Then he saw Paul Snowood and Fel Jones walk in and almost started laughing. Fel wore, of all things, a golden cowboy suit, hat and all. He looked like a dark version of Cleon Little from Blazing Saddles. All he needed was a fuckin’ palomino. From the scowl on Snowood’s face, LaStanza could see Country-Ass wasn’t amused.
“Nice outfit,” he told Fel when they arrived.
“He looks ridiculous!” Snowood said.
“You’re just jealous,” LaStanza said, “because it looks better on him.” Snowood’s suit was barely western.
“That’s all right,” Country-Ass argued back. “He just caught this fuckin’ case!”
Snowood had his Glock 17 in hand. It was his famous plastic, NATO gun, twenty sots with big clip. Safest place to be, LaStanza always said, was in front of him.
“Put that away!” It was Kay, who had followed them in. He pointed to the Glock, his large eyebrows protruding angrily over a pair of brown eyes that never seemed to blink. Snowood obliged, not because Kay was a lieutenant, but because it was Kay of the Training academy. He’d taught them ALL.
The porterette suddenly regained control of herself and started tugging on LaStanza’s dress white shirt, babbling, “I know who did it! Slick’s husband did it!”
“OK,” LaStanza said, “who’s Slick?”
“The girl was shot. Georgina. But everybody calls her Slick.”
Fel Jones started writing immediately, stepping up and taking over. “And what’s your name?”
“Soule Evans.” The woman did a double take at the black cowpoke.
“You the police?”
“He’s the high sheriff,” LaStanza assured her. Fel pointed to his star-and-crescent badge, pinned neatly over his left nipple.
“What was the victim’s last name?” Fel asked.
LaStanza was about to lead Snowood to the body when he heard the witness answer, “Snatch.” He stopped. Everyone stopped.
Fel looked up from his notes and said, “Say what?”
“Her last name Snatch.”
Fel looked over at LaStanza and started giggling.
Slick Snatch. LaStanza never thought he could be floored by a name. He’d thought he’d heard them all. Felicity Jones, who grew in the Sixth District, grew up in the world of strange names looked astounded.
Snowood broke the silence with a booming, “Slick Snatch. I don’t be-fuckin’-lieve it!”
•
The suspect was still blabbing when LaStanza joined his partner. Jodie stood outside the marked unit writing down what the suspect was belting out.
“She a no-good fuckin’ bitch! She a fucking dead bitch now!”
LaStanza interrupted him “Your old lady named Slick Snatch?”
“Yeah. She dead ain’t she?”
LaStanza tuned away. The suspect continued, “She did me wrong , man. I had to do it!”
It was after dark now and LaStanza looked over at the line of witnesses that the patrolmen were identifying before releasing.
“I took care of business,” the suspect continued. Jodie kept on writing.
Snowood joined them. He was looking for the crime lab, which was late.
“I guess we’ll call this one the Snatch Case,” he quipped, tucking a fresh wad beneath his lip.
LaStanza shook his head, “No way. Cool Whip Murder.”
“Yeah,” Snowood agreed, “That’s got a nice ring to it.”
“Cool Whip?” Jodie asked. LaStanza told her to go take a look at the body.
The suspect then asked if LaStanza was married.
“Shut up!” Snowood said.
“I got advice for married men. Watch yourself, ‘cause a woman’s nothin’ but a whore, a slut!”
“Send it to Dear-fuckin’-Abby! And shut the fuck up!” Snowood yelled back. He had no effect on the suspect’s soliloquy.
“I work hard all my life and find out my wife’s a whore. I heard her on the phone. She was, like, having sexual relations on the phone with some dude. I heard her!”
LaStanza and Snowood started moving away.
The suspect called out, “Hey, how long is this gonna take?”
“About six years,” Snowood answered.
Before my trial?”
“No, until all your appeals are gone and we fry you. You owe the state two jolts for this one. You’re gonna get the hot squat, my man.”
Only, they knew better. Goddamn misdemeanor murder. It was Second Degree Murder at best. Probably end up with a manslaughter conviction. Unless the DA fucked it up in court, which happened too fuckin’ often.
The crime lab finally arrived and Snowood could start processing the evidence from the suspect and the scene. Then, just as everything was calming down, Stan Smith arrived. Bob Kay took that moment to exit Schwegmann’s with Jodie.
“Hey,’ Stan called out to LaStanza, pointing toward Jodie, “If you’re not fuckin’ her, can I?”
“She a whore too!” the suspect yelled.
Snowood shoved the man back into the seat so hard, he bounced off the other door. It was the crime lab man’s turn to start complaining now. He was trying to swab the man’s hands for a neutron activation test.
Bob Kay hugged Jodie and then started hugging everyone else. Grabbing LaStanza, he squeezed and patting him on the back and whispered, “Brother,” in LaStanza’s ear. There was no use trying to avoid the hug. Bob always hugged his brothers and sisters in blue. When he used to work for LaStanza’s father, he used to hug him too, rubbing his ever present five-o’clock-shadow on his commander’s face at the end of each shift.
Kay had one more word for LaStanza, “You better wear your vest next time.”
“You shop here often?” Dino asked back.
“Yeah.”
“Well, stay away from the pink cool Whip.”
Kay almost smiled.
The suspect got to ride to the Bureau in style, in the back seat of the Maserati. Once there, LaStanza questioned the man briefly. Mr. Snatch was a muggle-head, too ignorant to know anything of value about The Batture. He was too busy hating his wife – the slut.
Cornelius, who was still at the Bureau, was even worse. He’d been handled too many times to even give any information except his name and address. Cocksucker was on probation for a cocaine conviction and had seven previous drug arrests.
•
When the Maserati finally made it back to Milan Street, Jodie was too tired to climb out. She’d been sneaking peeks at LaStanza all evening and he didn’t like the way she was eyeballing him, as if he was going to fritz out and start shooting people. He was going to apologize for grabbing her blouse. But now, with her still eyeballing him in his car, he’d let it lay.
Slowly, she opened the door and climbed out. LaStanza looked toward her house and saw a black cat in the window. He smiled to himself because he thought of another story.
“We used to have a black cat,” he told her as she dragged around the front of the car.
“My old man called him ‘Nigger’.”
Jodie tried to smile.
“We got him right after the Howard Johnson sniper. By then, my old man was carrying a 30-30 Winchester rifle to work every day. He used to go out on the porch every morning and call the cat, ‘Hey, Nigger! Nigger!’”
Jodie stopped to rest against the left front fender.
“One morning the cat was across the street. My old man, Winchester in hand, started calling, ‘Hey, Nigger! Nigger!’”
“Son-of-a-bitch didn’t see the black mail man down the street. The mail man ran up and said, ‘Yes, officer. You called me?’”
“Is that true?” Jodie asked.
“Absolutely.”
Jodie squinted at him again and said, “What brought that story on?”
“Saw the cat in your window.”
“Oh?”
“Didn’t know you had a black cat.”
“I like cats.” She started for the house and added, “I hate dogs.” She went though her small front gate and up the steps. Turning back she called out, “Slick Snatch? Kinda name you’d see in a cheap novel, huh?”
“Naw, it’s just the Sixth.”
She went in. The girl hated dogs but went out with a K-9er. LaStanza pulled away thinking the whole fuckin’ city was crazy.
He raced the Maserati home, blowing up Magazine street at over a hundred. There was never a cop when you needed one. He popped Led Zeppelin back in and cranked up the stereo. A little song called Black Dog screeched in with, “Hey, Hey, Mama said the ways you move gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove – “”
Lizette was at the computer when he walked in. She turned to him with a smile and said, “So, how was your day?”