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“Whaaaa?” mumbled Glory, rolling her head. Neither eye seemed to be able to focus on the same thing. With her head sunk on her chest and her eyes looking wonky and rolling out to the sides, Carmela thought Glory resembled a Mississippi channel catfish.

“Now mind you,” said Baby, “not that I know this
first-hand.
But I
did
attend college in the late sixties.”

Ava gave an encouraging nod. “Lots of psychedelics back then. Powerful stuff.”

“And I did hear
rumors
. . . realize, these were
only
rumors,” said Baby, “that several spoonfuls of sugar dissolved in a glass of orange juice could bring a person down from a nasty high. Something about increasing glucose and balancing blood sugar levels.”

“Kind of like a diabetic,” breathed Ava. “That's
good.
”

“Shamus, go tell Monroe Payne to hold off on that Founder's Award presentation,” announced Carmela. She narrowed her eyes, appraising Glory like she was a science project. “Let's go ahead and try Baby's sugar and orange juice suggestion. Glory's in no condition to walk out on a stage. Let alone stumble through an acceptance speech.”

“I don't know,” said Baby, “I've seen lots of men do it.”

“But that's men, honey,” interjected Ava. “In the South men are
expected
to get a little tipsy at social occasions. It's their birthright.”

“Hear, hear,” said Baby's husband, Del, grinning.

“
C
ARMELA,” said Gabby, her face scrunched into a worried grimace, “I think Stuart's havin' one of his low blood sugar attacks.”

“Um . . . didn't Stuart just eat, Gabby?” Carmela had just poured glass after glass of sugar-enhanced orange juice down Glory Meechum's gullet to revive her, and now Gabby was pressing her about yet
another
health crisis.
What am I? An ER doc?

Gabby gestured helplessly at her husband, who was sprawled in his chair, staring up at Ava with a foolish grin. “He didn't eat that much,” explained Gabby. “He was pretty busy jumping up and down, gallivanting around to neighboring tables, and saying how-do to folks.”

“Uh-huh,” said Carmela. “Trying to sell cars?”

“Lester Dorian
did
mention that he might be trading in his Cadillac, and Stuart was trying to get him to go for the big Toyota.”

“With the luxury package,” said Carmela.

“Of course,” said Gabby. “And the GPS. Anyway,” she continued, “the food's all cleared away and since you're
personally
acquainted with the caterer and his head chef, I thought maybe you could . . . you know . . .”

“Get some food for Stuart,” said Carmela.

“Could you do that?” asked Gabby. “I really hate to leave Stuart sitting here all by himself. He's so shaky and rambling. You never know
what
could happen.”

Right, thought Carmela. Stuart might get spirited off by forest elves. Or, worse yet, rival car dealers. “Okay, Gabby, but just hold on a minute, okay?”

“How come everybody's droppin' like flies?” asked Ava as she dug in her evening bag for a packet of Clorets. “It's like we're on one of those big cruise ships or something.”

“That's right,” said Carmela, “the
Voyage of the Damned.
Now, for the pièce de résistance all we need is a rousing case of Legionnaires' disease.”

“Chew this,” Ava instructed Stuart as she shook a Cloret out of the package and handed it to him. “No, honey, don't just
swallow
it in one gulp, it's not a
pill.”
Ava sighed mightily as she passed him another Cloret. “Here. Try it again. And this time
chew!
”

Carmela checked her watch as she sped across the ballroom. Five minutes to nine. Where had the evening gone? Had she even had a few moments to relax and have a bit of fun? Hell no.

In fact, she was beginning to feel like some poor shlub in a Marx Brothers comedy where everything was spiraling out of control. Not only did she have to find a couple bites of food for Stuart, preferably something sweet and chewy, she had to surreptitiously meet Billy Cobb at the side door, try to locate Lt. Edgar Babcock, and
then
see if she could engineer some sort of truce between Billy and the New Orleans Police Department. Could she really pull all that off? Only if she was suddenly brandishing a bright blue Superwoman cape and a pair of silver bracelets.

As Carmela breezed down the corridor that led toward the employee lunchroom and administrative offices, she thought about how she'd been forced to abandon her original plan.

Carmela turned into the small kitchen. Two women were beginning the daunting task of washing dishes and stacking plates.

“Is there any bread pudding left?” Carmela asked.

One of the women shrugged. “Check next door.” Carmela popped next door to the employee lunchroom. The long tables were piled with a jumble of boxes, food platters covered with plastic wrap, and half-empty silver serving platters. Waiters rushed in and out, depositing empty wine decanters, serving utensils, and bread baskets. Nobody seemed to notice her.

Poking through the debris on one table, Carmela found a large cake pan that still contained a few lemon bars sprinkled generously with powdered sugar. She searched around, found a small china dessert plate, and scooped two of the lemon bars onto the plate. They were a little squishy by now, but Carmela decided Stuart would just have to rough it.

Glancing at her watch, Carmela saw it was almost time to meet Billy at the Perrier Street door.

Clutching her plate of lemon bars, Carmela slipped out of the lunchroom and made her way farther down the corridor, away from the bright lights and clatter into semi-darkness and quiet. Natalie Chastain's office was down this way. So was Monroe Payne's office and those of the various curators.

Carmela's plan was simple if not simplistic: Put Billy at ease, try to get him to come inside with her, then quietly reason with him. And then, at the magic moment, Lt. Edgar Babcock would appear. Helpful and rational. An honest, forthright representative of the New Orleans Police Department who would help straighten things out.

Good heavens,
she thought to herself,
isn't this a grand fantasy? I'm really making this guy Babcock into a regular Dudley Do-Right.

When Carmela was halfway down the corridor, hurrying to meet Billy, one of the lemon bars slipped off the plate. Tumbled end over end and landed with a
splotch,
the white powdered sugar spilling out around it.

Carmela wrinkled her nose and stared down at the mess.

 

 

AT FIRST CARMELA THOUGHT BILLY HAD STOOD her up. She pushed open the heavy metal door, leaned out, peered into swirling darkness as rain pelted down and lightning strobed in the sky overhead.

Then she saw him. Walking swiftly toward her, splashing haphazardly through puddles of standing water. Billy's head was tucked down and the collar of his dark blue pea coat was turned up against the battering wind and rain.

“Billy, over here,” Carmela called, waving to him.

Billy ducked through the doorway in a cold wash of rain, then the door snicked shut behind him.

Carmela put a hand on Billy's shoulder and exhaled slowly. The boy looked cold and drenched, his youthful face tired and drawn. “I was worried you wouldn't show up,” she told him. Now that he was actually here, she wasn't sure exactly how to proceed.

Billy faced her as he slowly dripped water on the marble floor. “Do you have the money?” he asked tiredly. His eyes sought out the plate she was clutching. “What's that?”

“Lemon bar,” said Carmela, thrusting the plate into his hands. “Listen, Billy, did you know about Barty's storage space across the river?”

Billy accepted the plate and frowned. “I knew about it, yeah.”

“You used to go over there with him?” she asked.

The boy shook his head. “Nope.”

“But you talked to Barty about it?”

Billy gave a shrug. “Not really. I just heard him mention it a couple times.”

“To people in the store?” Carmela asked.

Billy thought for a minute. “More like on the phone, I think.”

“On the phone,” repeated Carmela.

“Yeah,” said Billy. “He was probably talkin' to the delivery guys. I think that's where Barty had 'em take the really crappy stuff.”

“You're sure?” asked Carmela as, around the corner, she heard a sudden shuffle of footsteps.

Carmela touched a warning finger to her lips . . .
Shhhh
. . . as she and Billy flattened against the wall.

The footsteps stopped, then there was the distinct jingle of keys. Someone must be letting themselves into one of the offices, Carmela decided. Maybe Natalie?

She peeked around the corner, caught a flash of rich red silk. No, that had to be Monroe Payne in his Peking Opera costume. Probably come to fetch Glory's Founder's Award. The presentation was probably going to kick off fairly soon and Glory would receive her fancy engraved trophy now that she was back on her feet.

There was a sudden cry of dismay, then Monroe uttered a single low word:
“Damn.”

Oops,
thought Carmela,
I think Monroe Payne just stepped in that lemon bar.

She poked her head out slightly to take a look. In the dim light she could see Monroe hopping along, trying to scrape something off the bottom of his shoe. Yellow goop, no doubt.

As Carmela and Billy stood there in silence, someone else came clattering down the hallway. There was a low exchange of voices, something about a disgruntled donor, and Carmela also heard Monroe mutter, “Idiot food-service people.” Then Monroe and whoever it was that had spoken to him hurried back down the hallway, away from them.

Now it was Billy's turn to stick his head around the corner for a quick peek.

“Are they gone?” hissed Carmela.

Billy nodded.

“Come on, then,” said Carmela, plucking at his jacket. “Let's go.”

But Billy was suspicious. “Go where?”

“Uh . . . just down the hall a little. We've got to talk.”

Reluctantly, Billy allowed Carmela to pull him down the corridor in the direction Monroe Payne had just retreated.

When they got to the now-decimated lemon bar, Carmela glanced down at the mess, then paused.
What the . . .?

“What's wrong?” asked Billy.

“Got to get more light,” she muttered. “Take a closer look at something.”

Monroe Payne's office door was open a couple inches. Voilà. Perfect. In his haste, Monroe had left his office unlocked.

Pushing the door open, Carmela's eyes searched the darkness. A small lamp burned on Monroe's expansive mahogany desk. But not enough candlepower for her purposes. Carmela searched around the door frame for a light switch, finally found it, hit it with her hand.

Yellow light spilled into the hallway and Carmela was finally able to get a good look at the splotched lemon bar.

“What?” asked Billy, shifting nervously from one foot to the other, obviously aching to get the hell out of there.

But Carmela's eyes had traveled to the wide arc of powdered sugar that was spread out around the mess in the corridor.

“Oh no,” she breathed.

Carmela bent down on one knee, staring, not quite believing. And like a cartographer reading the latitude and longitude of a map, her index finger traced above a faint gridlike pattern that was imprinted in the spill of powdered sugar.

“What?” asked Billy, picking up on her radical shift in attitude. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“Close,” said Carmela hoarsely. She grabbed Billy by the lapels, pulled him into Monroe's office. “We've got to check something out,” she told him.

“What?” he asked.

“
Shhh
,” she said as her eyes flicked around his office, taking everything in.

Monroe Payne's office was twice the size of Natalie Chastain's. He had a large executive desk, two leather club chairs facing it, and, over by the window, a nice-looking round wooden conference table with four chairs pulled in around it. Two of his walls had floor-to-ceiling bookcases stacked with oversized art books, Chinese ceramics, pre-Columbian vases, Greek urns, and some rolled-up Japanese hand scrolls. Exactly the mishmash of objects you'd expect to find in a museum director's office.

Carmela's eyes fell on a closet door.

She pulled at the closet door, grimaced as it swung open with a loud
creak.

And found . . . clothes. Thud.

There was a khaki raincoat, a couple light blue shirts, a gray tweed sport coat, a couple striped rep ties tossed carelessly over a wooden hanger.

Carmela stared at these items, bit her lower lip, exhaled slowly. And wondered if her snap assumption about Monroe Payne had been
that
off base.