Pied Piper

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.”

CHAPTER 55

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.

“Hey,” LaMoia said.

“Not now, sweetie. I got two thousand to go for the bonus.”

“Got all the time in the world,” he lied.

Alarms sounded, announcing she had crossed into bonus territory and sending her into a blinding frenzy of bumps and flipper thrusts. She kept the ball alive for three full minutes, having cleared the next bonus as well. He had never thought of pinball as sexy. The ball died on a bad left flipper.

“You could be here all day,” he said.

“Unless I had a better offer.” Her voice gave away her age, perhaps still a minor, although her equipment suggested otherwise.

“There’s a guy works here name of Jimmy.”

“So? Am I going to play this next ball or not?”

Before he could explain the twenty dollars he proffered onto the machine’s glass surface, she advised him, “That won’t even buy you a hummer, sweetie.” She drew back the springed metal ram preparing to launch another ball, but LaMoia grabbed her hand, stopping her.

“Need a little face to face with Jim-bo, sweetie. The twenty’s just to keep the meter running.”

The twenty disappeared into the bib of the overalls. There wasn’t a lot of room left up there.

“A location where I might find him would be nice.”

She pointed to the ceiling. “He goes on in an hour. His is the first room on this side,” she said. Eyeing LaMoia actively, she added, “Another twenty you go home with a smile on your face.”

He offered her a big, toothy smile. “I’m smiling just thinking about it.”

“You got a car with a backseat? Pull it around back. Lemme know.”

“We’ll talk,” he said.

“No we won’t,” she corrected. She released the plunger and launched the steel ball into the flashing lights, bells and buzzers.

LaMoia found the stairs and climbed them to the second story. From the far side of the first door Oprah played loudly. He thought she had given him the wrong room-one of Smiling John’s active employees, he thought. He knocked carefully.

“Yeah?” came a male smoker’s voice.

LaMoia fished two twenties under the crack in the door. Probably a night’s wage in a dump like this. The twenties disappeared. LaMoia stood there for a full minute expecting an inquiry or the door to open. “Hey!” LaMoia spoke to the door.

Oprah went louder.

LaMoia knocked for a second time. He teased a hundred under the door, but brought it back to his side. He teased it through again. The information he sought could not be valued-nothing less than the Pied Piper’s identity.

“I think you got the wrong room.”

“Jimmy?”

“Heat?”

“Was once. Not anymore. Repo now. Don’t want you. My thing is with an individual from your last known address.”