P.I. on a Hot Tin Roof: A Talba Wallis Novel - Hardcover

CHAPTER
ONE
It was one of those robot voices, a male one: “You have a collect call from Orleans Parish Prison.”
Uh-uh. She didn’t.
Talba Wallis was already crying and she didn’t need any more grief, but she didn’t give it a thought. This one wasn’t for her. She got those calls about every three months. Something happened to people’s dialing fingers in Central Lockup, maybe from the drugs or alcohol that got them in there in the first place. She clicked off her cell phone and went back to chopping onions. Her mama, Miz Clara, was slow-cooking ribs in the oven, and Talba was making potato salad for a family meal: Her brother Corey, his wife Michelle, and the adorable Sophia Pontalba (partially named for her aunt, and now talking a blue streak) were coming over soon. Talba still had to make greens, too—her way, not Miz Clara’s. Her mother was inclined to cook them for hours, with lots of pork. Talba and Michelle liked them just barely wilted. Dessert was king cake, a present from one of Miz Clara’s housecleaning clients, so no worries there.
She had time, if she put her mind to it.
By the time the phone rang again, she had the salad together and had begun washing the greens. The same voice again. She sighed. May as well tell the poor bastard he had the wrong number. She reached for the phone, nearly tripping over two cats currently trying to wrap themselves around her legs to get her mind off her cooking and on their dinner. She waited for the prisoner’s name.
“Talba, it’s Angie. I need you.”
Angie? Angela Valentino? Angie was about as likely to be in Central Lockup as Sister Helen Prejean. Angie neither relieved herself on the street nor smoked pot in public. She avoided bar fights and had no domestic partner to chase with a cleaver. She was a lawyer in good standing. What the hell was this?
“Angie, hang on; I’ve got to dry my hands.” Talba set the phone down for a moment and found a paper towel. “What the hell did you do?”
“Listen, I’m not the problem, they popped Alabama, too—planted drugs on us.”
Big Chief Alabama Bandana, one of Angie’s most celebrated clients, a musician and Mardi Gras personality famous for his drug problem.
Somebody could have planted drugs on him—or maybe that was just what Angie wanted to believe. “But . . . but . . . your parents . . . ,” Talba said. She couldn’t figure out why Angie was calling her instead of them. Talba’s boss was Angela’s father, Eddie Valentino, one of the best-connected people in town. If anyone could spring his daughter, Eddie could.
“They went to the Gulf Coast for the weekend. Dad’s got his cell phone off.”
I’ll just bet he has, Talba thought. Eddie was nothing if not discreet, but you didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that the Gulf Coast had an aphrodisiac effect on his wife, Audrey. He took her there whenever he could and was always unavailable until they got back.
“You know what it’s like in Central Lockup? God forbid you should ever find out. You get access to a phone, but no phone book. You can only call numbers you know by heart.”
“Oh. Maybe that’s why I get so many wrong numbers.” Talba heard herself babbling, aware that she was in shock.
Angie said, “Huh? Listen, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got to get us out of here.”
“Obviously. Where do I start?”
“We’ve got to find a judge who’ll set bond on a Saturday night.”
“Give me a name and I’ll call it.”
“No, let my lawyer do it. Jimmy Houlihan. Problem is, I don’t know his home number. See if he’s in the book, will you?”
“Your lawyer? Lawyers have lawyers?”
“Jimmy’s a friend.”
Uh-huh, Talba thought. Ex-boyfriend. Fingers shaking, she looked him up. “Not here—only his office. But I could call his answering service. Or better yet, let me go online. I can’t call you back, right?”
“No, but I can call you next time the phone’s free.”
“Forget it. You’ve made contact—I’ll do the rest. You okay, by the way?”
“I’m making lots of new friends, none of them deputies. No problem, I’ll live. I’m just worried about Al.”
“Want me to call his family?”
“You can try, but I don’t know his number by heart. His real name’s Albert Brazil; he might be in the phone book.”
“Okay, I’ll take it from here. Hang in there, okay?”
“Thanks.” Talba heard the relief in her voice. “Listen, one last thing. Tell Jimmy it can’t be Buddy Champagne.”
“What can’t be?”
“The judge. Anybody but Buddy. Whatever happens, not Buddy. Even if we have to spend a week in jail.”
“Got it. Not Buddy.”
When Talba put down the phone, she noticed that her palm was damp, along with her temples. Whew. This was a blow.
Well, so much for Michelle’s health-food greens. She went in search of Miz Clara, who was taking a preprandial snooze, secure in the knowledge that her daughter had dinner under control. “Mama? Can you wake up?”
Miz Clara started. She was wearing a pair of old sweats and a T-shirt, the kind of thing she wore to work; no wig, and she probably wouldn’t put one on, either—this was just family. “Sandra, whassup, for heaven’s sake? I jus’ barely drop off and you come in here shakin’ me like somethin’ on fire.” She called her daughter a different name from the one Talba called herself, and thereon hung a tale—no one in the family ever mentioned Talba’s birth name, which was neither Sandra nor Talba.
“Mama, Angie’s in jail.”
“Angie? What she do, insult a judge?”
“Says she was framed. Listen, I’ve got to get her out. The potato salad’s done; you mind fixing the greens?”
Miz Clara looked at her watch. “Take two hours to make greens—I got thirty minutes.”
“Mama, it doesn’t. Just put them in a steamer for awhile.”
“Mmph.”
“Michelle likes them that way.”
“She would.” Michelle came from a much fancier family than the Wallises ever thought about being.
Talba could feel the minutes ticking away. Every second she wasn’t working on the problem was a second Angie and Alabama would have to spend in jail. “Go on,” Miz Clara said. “Do what ya gotta do. I’ll feed ya rats.” Cats, she meant. Blanche and Koko were more her cats than Talba’s.
First, Talba thought, the musician’s family. An Albert Brazil was listed on Villere Street. That would be him. Most Mardi Gras Indians lived in Tremé. A woman answered. “Mrs. Brazil?”
“Ain’ no Miz Brazil.”
“I’m looking for the family of Albert Brazil.”
The woman’s voice changed. “Somethin’ happen to Albert? Yeah, I’m Miz Brazil.” Just not legally, Talba thought.
“Listen, Albert’s fine. But there’s been a mix-up, and I’m working on it. I work with his lawyer, Angela Valentino. . . .”
“Oh, Lord, don’t tell me he in jail again!”
“Not for long, if I can help it.”
“Who you? Why you callin’ ’steada Miss Angela? I ain’ know who you is.”
“My name’s Talba Wallis. I’m a P.I. who works with her father, Eddie Valentino. We do a lot of work for Angie’s firm.”
“Well, why ain’t Miss Angela callin’?”
“She’s—uh—” Something told Talba to dissemble. “We’re both working on it. She’s trying to get a judge to set bond. Asked me to call you; set your mind at ease.”
“Swear to God, this the last time! Albert done swore on the Big Book he clean, he stayin’ clean. He barely out of jail, and now he back in. You get him out, tell him he better not come home.”
Talba knew she shouldn’t give out any more information than she had to, but she wanted to ease the woman’s pain if she could. “Angela says the drugs were planted.”
“Oh, yeah! Uh-huh. That what he always say. They all say that; don’t you know nothin’?” She hung up in a fury, leaving Talba with uncomfortable nigglings. Everybody in jail said they were framed. She was well aware of that. She knew Angie well enough to know she wasn’t a druggie, but surely the lawyer was being naïve where the Chief was concerned. Talba was inclined to agree with the self-styled Mrs. Brazil—there were probably very few innocent people moldering in Central Lockup.
Finding Jimmy Houlihan’s number was a piece of cake, given Talba’s computer skills. And after no more than twelve or thirteen rings, a man answered. “Mr. Houlihan?” Talba asked.
“Jimmy? You want Jimmy?” The man sounded as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. In the background she could hear the buzz of conversation, the clinking of glasses, and two different kinds of loud music, one involving drums. “Think he went to the parade.”
Talba thanked him and hung up, surmising that since Houlihan lived on St. Charles Avenue itself—the main artery of almost every parade of Carnival—a parade party was in progress. Technically speaking, it wasn’t the first weekend of parades—Krewe Du Vieux had rolled the weekend before in the French Quarter.
But it was the second day of the twelve days of almost constant parading that mesmerized the city while paralyzing its traffic every year at this time. The only break would come on the following Mond...