James Burke - Dixie City Jam

I heard his throat working again, words forming, then sticking unintelligibly in his mouth. Someone pulled the receiver from his hand.

'The wifey plowed again, Dave?' she said. Her voice was sweaty and hoarse, like a person high on her own glandular energies. 'You should have taken me up on my invitation. It'd give you something to fantasize about.'

'Your boyfriend's tracked shit over two continents, Marie,' I said. 'It looks like you're going to take the bounce with him.'

'Can she have orgasms while she's on the grog?'

'Save the comic book dialogue for after your trial. There's an amateur theatrical group at the women's prison in St. Gabriel. You'll fit right in.'

'I keep having this dream. There's a pump handle in it. It feels hard in my hand, and it has moisture dripping off it. I wake up all hot, thinking of a big dark policeman. I get hot even talking about it. What's my dream mean, Dave?'

'I'll say adios now, Marie. Then I'll unplug the phones. Enjoy the time you have left with Buchalter. I bet he really knows how to capture a lady's, heart.'

There was a pause, then I heard a match strike against an abrasive surface, the match head hissing, and her breath exhaling.

'Run the coordinates in the personals of The Times-Picayune ,' she said. 'If you don't, we reach out and touch someone. No, not the sow or the little girl. Maybe the boogie and her son; maybe your uncontrollable friend, Purcel. Will would love to spend a few hours alone with Mr. Purcel.'

'Be careful what you pray for.'

'You're so clever. And the wifey so sweet. I'm glad you're in the tropics where the sheep don't freeze up.'

I eased the receiver down in the cradle, then unplugged the phone jacks in both the kitchen and living room.

I undressed down to my skivvies and sat on the bed next to Bootsie in the dark. She was sleeping on her stomach, and I ran my hand down the smooth taper of her back and over her rump and bare thighs. Her skin felt hot, almost feverish, but she did not respond to my touch. Outside the window, the trees thrashed and swelled in the dry wind. I lay on top of the sheets and stared upward into the darkness, the backs of my fingers resting against Bootsie's leg, the words of the woman named Marie Guilbeaux like an obscene tongue in my ear.

The next morning I got up early and drove back to New Orleans. I stopped first at the library, or morgue, of The Times-Picayune , then drove down St. Charles and found Hippo Bimstine working behind the candy counter at one of his drugstores in the Garden District. He wore a starched gray apron over his white shirt and tie and rotund stomach, and his hair was oiled and combed as tight as wire, his thick neck talcumed, his face cheerful and bright.

Hippo had the confident and jolly appearance of a man who could charm a snake into a lawn mower.

'Another nice day,' he said.

'It sure is,' I said.

'So why the dark look? You dump some money at the track?' His smile was inquisitive and full of play.

'I guess I get down when I find out a friend has tried to blindside me.'

'What are you talking here?' He tried to look me steadily in the eyes.

'Max Calucci's been saying peculiar things about you, Hippo.'

'Consider the source.'

'I am. He's got no reason to lie. He says Tommy Lonighan told him you removed some stuff about the Nazi U-boat from the public library.'

'I'm under arrest for library theft?'

'Buchalter and his buttwipes used up my sense of humor, partner.'

'We're talking in hieroglyphics here. You're mystifying me, Dave.'

'I found a nineteen fifty-six States-Item story on Jon Matthew Buchalter's death in the files at The Times-Picayune . When The States-Item folded, all its records were kept by The Picayune . But I was careless and missed the story the first time around. I have a feeling it's the one you took from the public library.'

'So you tripped over some big revelation from a rag of thirty-five years ago?'

'Not really. Jon Buchalter was raving on his deathbed about a large gold swastika on board a downed U-boat. Is that the secret you've been keeping from me?'

He considered for a moment and scratched at his neck with one finger. 'Yeah, that's about it. You satisfied?'

'No.'

'It's supposed to weigh forty-two pounds. It's got a gold wreath around it, and the wreath is set with jewels. Big fucking deal, huh?'

'You were willing to let me get involved with Nazis so you could salvage the gold in a World War II wreck?'

'You got some kind of malfunction with your thought processes, Dave. You keep forgetting it was you tried to squeeze every spendolie you could from a finder's fee.'

'I don't let my friends hang their butts in the breeze for money, either, Hippo.' I picked up a roll of mints from the counter and set a half-dollar down on the glass. 'Thanks for your time. See you around.'

I turned to go. Outside, the streetcar rattled down the neutral ground in the sunshine.

'You righteous cocksucker,' he said behind me. A woman with a magazine cupped in her hand replaced it on the rack and walked away.

'Excuse me?' I said.

'When you guys got nothing to support your own argument against a Jew, you always take your shot about money. It takes a while, but you always get to it.'

'You set me up, Hippo.'

'Fuck you I did.' He came around the edge of the counter. He touched his finger against my breastbone. 'You want the rest-of the story? The gold in that swastika was pried out of the mouths of Polish Jews. It was a gift from Heinrich Himmler himself. You know what else's supposed to be in that sub? Hitler's plan for the United States. I don't let any man talk down to me because I'm a Jew, Dave. I don't want you in my store.'

'I'll try my best to stay out of your life.' He went back behind the counter and began knocking open rolls of change and shaking them into the cash drawer. Then he stopped and slammed the drawer shut with the flat of his pudgy hand. I walked outside, my face burning, the eyes of a half dozen people fastened upon me.

Lucinda Bergeron was sanding the wood steps on the back of her house. The air was sunny and warm, and her hair looked damp and full with the heat from her body and her work. She wore flip-flops and a denim shirt that hung over her pink shorts, and blades of grass stuck to the tops of her feet. She kept glancing up at me while she sanded. The tiny gold chain and cross around her neck were haloed with perspiration against her black skin.

'You go back on duty tomorrow?' I said.

'That's right. All sins forgiven.'

'How do you feel?'

'You know, one foot in front of the other, a day at a time, all that jazz.'

I brushed off a step where she had already sanded and sat down. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and wrapped a fresh piece of sandpaper around a block of wood. She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger and smoothed the paper against the grain.

'I want you to be careful, Lucinda.'

'Worry about yourself, hotshot.'

'It's a mistake to be cavalier about Buchalter, or Schwert, or whatever his name is. There's nothing predictable about this guy or the woman working with him.'

She raised her eyes to mine while her arm and hand kept a steady motion against the step, 'I can't tell you how much I'd love the opportunity,' she said.

'When you're forced to… to pop a cap in the line of duty, something happens to you, at least if you're not a sociopath yourself. The next time it goes down, you get sweaty, you hesitate, you doubt your motivations. It's a dangerous moment.'

'You think I'll freeze up?'

'You tell me.'

'I don't have doubts about the man who hurt my child, believe me.'

'When are you going to quit calling Zoot a child?'

'When I feel like it, Mr. Smart-ass.' She smiled, then worked the nozzle loose from the hose, turned on the faucet, and drank, with her body bent over, the backs of her thighs tight against her shorts, the water arching bright across her mouth. She wet a paper towel and wiped her face and neck and dropped it into a paper sack filled with garden cuttings.