House of Blues (49 page)

She's so pleased with herself, so damn smug, so
thrilled with her little achievement.
 
Skip
remembered her screaming, out of control in front of Maya's, and
thought, What the hell is she thinking? This is never going to last.
She was so out of sorts, her nerves so frayed and raw, that she
blurted it out: "Come on, Tricia, you've done this before. What
makes you think it'll stick?"

And then she thought, She'll go right out and scare
drugs. She'll get strung out and it'll be all my fault.

"
God, Tricia—I'm sorry. I don't know why I
said that."

But Tricia smiled, apparently unoffended. "It's
okay. I ask myself that all the time." She leaned over and
patted Skip's hand. "Don't look so miserable. It's okay.
Really."

Skip was still mortified. "Want another Coke?"

Tricia didn't acknowledge that she'd spoken. "It's
worse than you think, Skip. I've done it twice before. But to answer
your question, I have no idea whether I can make it stick. You know
what we say in my religion—one day at a time."

It's so fucking pat.

"
You want to know what? I'm hanging by a thread
here. But today I'm okay.

"If I get loaded tomorrow, so be it. But today
I'm okay." She shrugged. "And I feel like I've got my life
back."

Skip felt a surge of envy. "You seem . . .
almost happy."

"
I'm delirious. I'm trying to be a writer, but I
don't write because I've been so out of it lately. Instead, I'm a
cocktail waitress. I haven't had a date in two years that you could
actually call ‘a date.' I mean I might have slept with a few guys
whose names I can't remember, but nothing—you know—resembling a
relationship. I've only got a month's sobriety and I'm already a
two-time loser—in short, I'm a mess. But I'm thrilled out of my
mind. I'm beside myself with delight. Life's crazy, huh?"

Skip thought of the night, weeks ago, when Steve had
been with her and they were at dinner with Cindy Lou and Layne and
Jimmy Dee, and she had been so happy she wanted to preserve the
moment in amber. It was the same night Toni had read her palm; the
night before Jim was shot.

"
Yeah. Life's crazy." Skip tried to keep
the bite out of her voice. "Uh-oh. Something's wrong."

"You don't know, do you?" Tricia must have
been in rehab when Skip was front page news. Skip didn't feel like
dancing around it: "Somebody killed my partner, and I ended up
killing him."

Tricia was quiet. Finally, she said, "How are
you handling it?"

"
Poorly. Damn badly." Here was someone
she'd known her whole life, who probably wouldn't think she was nuts
if she mentioned that she herself was hanging by a thread. She told
her everything, ending with the part that was consuming her. "The
worst part is, I feel like it's all a big zero. I can't figure out
what the fuck it means."

''What it means?"

"
Did I have to go through this for nothing?
Isn't there something to be learned from it? There's got to be
something. But so far no. Everyone tells me I'm a hero and I did a
great job. And I know I did a great job. He'd already tried to kill
me by the time I shot. He fired first, and he probably would have got
me if I hadn't seen his reflection—so see, I did a good job, and
not only that, I was lucky. " She threw out her arms in
frustration. "So I'm here and he's not. What the hell does it
mean?"

"Why was he trying to kill you?"

"You know, you're the first person to ask that?
Even Cindy Lou never asked. I don't have the least idea why he was
trying to kill me. I didn't stop to ask him."

Tricia sat back on Skip's striped sofa. "It's
got to give you a different take on things—someone trying to kill
you."

Skip shrugged. "He's not the first one."

"Oh, God, I'd be depressed too."

Skip clasped her hands, sunk once more in despair.
"Yeah."

Tricia said, "I've got to think for a minute."
She closed her eyes and rubbed her head. Then she got up and walked
to the window. When she came back, she said. "Well, there's got
to be something to be learned from this."

"That's my line."

"
Here's the thing: It will come clear. But I
have to warn you of something. It may take years. You can't sit
around waiting for a sign from heaven. You could go to a shrink—or
are you seeing one already?"

Skip shook her head.

"
I thought not. This doesn't feel like it's
something in you. The answer, I mean. In you yet, anyway. When it
comes, it'll come."

"What will come?"

"
The lesson; the justification. I don't know—the
knowledge. The thing that puts it in perspective."

"
What makes you so sure?"

Tricia laughed. "Nobody can prove me wrong, can
they? I love predicting the future—who's going to disagree?"

It's too facile. But her mind began to chew on it.

Even when you're a kid, when you're in school, you
don't get the point of anything. You don't see why you have to learn
to add or know the parts of speech, and then one day you're trying to
balance your checkbook or write some damn case report, and you never
think, "Oh, so that's it." You've just learned it and you
use it. Maybe this is like that.

She was suddenly unbearably tired, couldn't wait for
Tricia to leave. The instant she could, she threw off her clothes and
flung herself down.

The taste of tears warmed her tongue as she fell
asleep.
 
 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The wonderful folks at Arnaud's provided invaluable
expertise on the restaurant world, and Chef Kevin Davis even lent me
his knives. My heartfelt thanks to Chef Kevin, Rick Mayeaux, Ross
Miller, Norman Henry, and especially to jane and Archie Casbarian,
who let me spy on them to my heart's content.

NOPD Captain Linda Buczek gave generously of her
time, energy, and imagination, as did Lieutenant Bob Italiano,
Sergeant Jimmy Keen, and Detectives Wayne Rumore, Tony Caprera, and
Joey Catalanotto.

Help came from many other kind New Orleanians,
including Betsy and Jim Petersen, Kit and Billy Wohl, Janet Plume,
Debbie Faust, Chris Wiltz, and two writers whose excellent books I
relied on: Bethany Bultman, author of New Orleans, my favorite
guidebook; and Carol Flake, author of New Orleans: Behind the Masks
of America's Most Exotic City.

Thanks to them all and to David Ramus, Earl Emerson,
Susan Berman, Becky Light, Steve Holtz, Sandy Pearlman, Jon Carroll,
and Captain Ronnie Jones of the Louisiana State Police Department's
gaming enforcement division.

The fictional restaurant herein—Hebert's—isn't
based on a real restaurant, but the proposed casino is very real. At
this writing, there's no plan for an important restaurant in the
casino and therefore there's been no infighting of the sort described
in the book.

In Louisiana, though, it's never over till it's over.