Ridley Pearson - Pied Piper

“Which is just what was happening,” Montevette contributed.

“Been going on for years, come to find out. Decades maybe. You need a birth certificate for a child, you simply come up with the hundred dollars.”

“No adoption at all,” Daphne said, amazed at the simplicity of the scam.

“No need,” replied Montevette. “You obtain a fraudulent birth certificate for the child in your name, and he or she is legally a member of your family. Who’s to question it?”

“It allows the mother to be paid for more than just hospital costs,” Miss Lucy explained.

Boldt said, “It creates a viable black market.”

Montevette agreed. “But it was closed down.”

“I knew some of them girls,” Miss Lucy told them. “Some of them is still doing time for that. And believe you me, that was the last of it. Don’t even ask, Miss Matthews, because I can see you’re about to, aren’t you? That was the last of it. Honestly. They cracked down hard on those girls.”

“But there are other ways,” Boldt said, fishing for a back door through which he might locate the Pied Piper or his accomplice.

“Oh there are!” Miss Lucy said cheerily. “Another one I’ve heard about is this missing father thing.” She explained to blank looks, “A single mother has a child and does not list a father on the birth certificate. Happens all the time. Either she wants no part of the man that put her in that condition, or she don’t know who done it to her anyway. Maybe she’s a drug addict, or in some other way where she don’t exactly want the child no more. The way they do it, she sells a man-a complete stranger-the chance to put his name onto the birth certificate as the lawful father. Now this is the legal birth certificate we’re talking about. This stranger is now the legal father of that child and has custody rights to that child, custody rights that she is willing to surrender for a price. It’s a common means of adoption in the minority communities, believe me. Middle-class Cajun or blacks buy a blood right to a child. Cheap and easy.”

“But not only with blacks,” Daphne said.

“No, you’re right. White trash, too. Maybe some suburban teenage kids. Thing is, it’s legal of course,” she smiled, “as long as you ain’t found out by no DNA test.”

“Do the attorneys need special training, licenses, anything like that?” Boldt asked.

Montevette answered. “As far as I know, in Louisiana there are court fees to be paid, paperwork that must be filed. It’s a specialty field, but by choice, not requirement.”

“And if an attorney desired to bypass certain elements in the process?” Boldt asked.

“I see what you’re driving at. Sure do. But he couldn’t arrange a legal adoption without a judge on his side because of the requirement of a court appearance. Flat out, could not do it.”

“But with a judge in his pocket?” Daphne asked.

Montevette and Miss Lucy exchanged looks. Miss Lucy said, “Miss Matthews, Louisiana ain’t exactly like other places. An expression like that-it’s offensive.”

Montevette explained, “Let me tell you how we operate in New Orleans, Ms. Matthews. I have a little family farm not far from here. Not even an hour’s drive. I own a farm vehicle, an old 1960 Ford half-ton. Use it on the farm to haul fallen limbs, move fence, that sort of thing. Run it into town on the odd day for groceries. The law requires I get that truck inspected once a year. Everything on it must function correctly in order for me to obtain my permit to operate the vehicle. It has been a long, long time indeed since everything on that truck has functioned properly, Ms. Matthews.

“Now there’s a man named George,” he continued, “whose job it is, for the price of a twenty-dollar permit fee, to inspect vehicles in our parish. I have known George for many, many years. Nearly as many as I have been driving that old Ford. I see him exactly once a year. For an extra twenty dollars George issues me my permit. Always has, always will. And that’s just the way it’s done around here. Guys like George, like me, we’re everywhere. No one is hurting nobody. It is just the way business,”- bidness -“is done.”

“Which might include business between attorneys and judges,” Boldt suggested.

“Which on some level definitely includes attorneys and judges. On some level . Most definitely. And police, no doubt. And doctors and window washers and tree trimmers. Part of the culture, you might say. I am not condoning such behavior, but it is as inescapable as are so many elements of our fine culture. Southern culture.”

Miss Lucy said, “If you are willing to pay for it, if you are willing to wait long enough to find the right person to help you, there is little you cannot do. Which is not to say it’s a criminal place. I’m not implying that. It is not! We have crime and we have cops and we have courts, same as any other city.”

“But as a people, we emphasize relationships over the letter of the law,” Montevette said. “Black or white or Cajun, doesn’t matter. We make relationships. The man who mows your lawn eats his breakfast alongside your children. Relationships,” he repeated.

“An attorney could buy off a judge,” Boldt said. “Forge documents of a mother surrendering a child, and the rest would all be perfectly legal. Even the adopting parents might never know the adoption was-”

“Improper,” Montevette supplied. “It would not be illegal , you see. Not per se. Not with the proper paperwork in place. Only improper.”

“Improper,” Daphne echoed, getting a take on the man’s attitude, and cringing internally.

“Mind you,” he said, appealing to their curiosity, “there would be a paper trail to follow,” he glanced at Miss Lucy, “if one was ambitious enough to pursue it.”

Boldt understood the man was making an offer. “The names of the attorney and the judge would appear on the paperwork.”

Montevette said, “The paperwork is filed in the parish where the judge sits. In a large parish, it might seem a little coincidental for the same judge and attorney to process too many adoptions.”

“But not in a small parish,” Miss Lucy informed the two visitors. “There may be only one judge in the entire parish.”

“Certainly possible,” Montevette agreed. The shadow of the fan pulsed across his face, like a curtain being pulled back. A thought had come to him. He said, “No, Miss Lucy, I believe we are wrong. The originals would remain with the parish. But in the case of a private adoption, copies would be filed either here in New Orleans, or in Lafayette, depending on the parish of record.” He met eyes with Boldt and smiled coyly. He glanced at Miss Lucy and said to Daphne and Boldt, “It would be our pleasure to help you in this endeavor. I think you may find Louisiana a bit of a foreign country.”

Miss Lucy said, “Perhaps we can translate for you.”

Montevette, his eyes charged with excitement, slapped the table. “It’s that paperwork we want to follow.”

Smiling John’s Pleasure and Social Club, a corner establishment in an ethnically mixed neighborhood of Cajun, Caribbean and Afro-American, caught between the opulence of the Garden District and the commerce of downtown, smelled of a rude combination of perfume, stale beer and vanilla air freshener. The soles of LaMoia’s ostrich boots stuck to the wooden plank flooring. Obnoxiously loud Cajun accordion music roared from distorted ceiling speakers as six women-girls really-played pinball.

He sidled up to a set of recently waxed legs that disappeared into a tiny piece of red leather. The look she offered LaMoia was sad and distant-a junkie. He passed. The second machine received its hip bumps from a Creole girl still in her teens who filled out the denim overall shorts and white camisole so that any man would want to take up farming.