Ghost of a Flea

postcards. I didn’t think too much about them.”

“Unsigned.”

“Always. I’d wonder, but how far can you go with nothing to go on?”

“You didn’t save them? Didn’t take any notice of postmarks?”

“Why would I?”

“And these were what-standard post-office issue? Picture postcards?”

“Well … at first a lot of them were like those godawful slick cards from souvenir shops. Antelopes with jackrabbit ears, talking cactus wearing sunglasses, ‘Back to the grind soon’ with the drawing of an office coffeepot, that sort of thing. The messages were just as generic. Wish you were here. Hope you’re well. Missing you.”

“Then at some point they changed?”

“So slowly as to go unremarked.”

From time to time her mother’s speech leapt to the surface in Alouette’s, word choice, cadence, attitude. Fishhooks in the heart.

“After a while I began to have the feeling that the cards were getting selected rather than picked at random. A stunning photo of Alaska with ‘It never gets fully dark here’ written on the back, for instance. There’s some deeper message there, I’m sure. Was sure. Though I had and have absolutely not the barest ghost of an idea what it might be.”

“Nothing directly threatening.”

“Nothing overt. Nor ever, really. More the feel of it all. This presence forever refusing to announce itself but always palpably there.”

Catching a thought on the wing, she pushed back up to the computer to type it in. I remembered LaVerne telling me, You’re never completely here, with me, when you’re working, are you, Lew?

“Sounds like classic paranoia, doesn’t it?” Alouette said.

“Exactly the response a stalker wants to elicit…. I’ve seen your GOK file, you know.”

“I was wondering when you’d bring that up. If you’d bring it up.”

“Everything about it-your taking pains to tuck it away, that it exists at all-suggests you must have taken the whole affair more seriously than you claim.”

From within the dishpan on the floor alongside came the scuttling sound of small legs and arms. “Hungry again,” Alouette said. Fishing little Verne out, she bared a breast and put the baby to it.

“I do have to wonder, though, Lew. How is it you manage to avoid seeing this as a violation of privacy? All those rights and principles you uphold so heartily-what, they just go by the way when it becomes personal? And you have no qualms about the dishonesties involved?”

“Of course I do.”

She shifted the child against her chest. “Of course you do. I’m sorry, Lew. I know it’s not that simple.”

“What is?”

“And I do appreciate your taking time to look into this. Though it’s probably nothing.”

“Probably. But it’s okay with you if I keep poking around, right?”

“Sure it is. But talk to me about it, all right?” The baby kept sliding down; with one arm under, Alouette kept shrugging her back up. “I need to give Deborah a call about getting you guys over here for dinner sometime soon, too. Been way too long. How’s Don, by the way?”

“Doing good. Over the worst of it. Should be home in a day or two.” I told her about Derick, about Don’s latest notion. Then took leave of Alouette to wend my own way homeward-through the thickening hubbub, as Wordsworth has it. By the park to draw from its well, from Lester and his young charge, whatever solace I could, then over sidewalks heaving up like sculpted waves above the roots of ancient trees, Spanish moss overhead, buildings sharecropped into ruin all about. Everything and everyone I knew a casualty. Some of war, but most of us casualties instead of subtler things: ambition, expectation. Of sex, history, our families; of what is within us or therein lacking. Economic casualties, too. Washed away in the floods pushing downhill from America’s scripture of progress and spilling out over the banks of the gospel according to market economy, privilege and special interest, inundating us. Casualties of the system.

Almost home, I passed my favorite statue in all of New Orleans, a Confederate officer astride his horse. Time had not been good to him. His name on the statue’s base was unreadable beneath a century’s mildew, and though protected by the historical society, here he was stuck on a tiny plot of land between a sandwich shop and low-end apartment house. Both front legs of his horse were in the air, signifying that he’d died in battle. One aloft would have meant he died of wounds sustained in battle; all four aground, that he’d died of natural causes. All our statues, all our horses, should have both front legs in the air. Casualties everywhere.

It was, as I said, my day for casualty reports. I got home, found a starving cat and a message to call 528- 1433, took care of the first though perhaps not (and never) to his satisfaction, dialed the second and after two rings had an uptown, quiet-spoken Yes? at the other end. Lew Griffin, I told her. Please hold. Moments later, a heavy breather.

“Thank you for returning my call, Mr. Griffin. I was not at all certain you would do so.”

I waited.

“Perhaps apologies are in order? I had not intended to catch you unaware. I thought you would know to whom you were speaking. That Mrs. Molino had seen to that.”

“I know.”

“Ah. Good, then. It’s been many years since we last spoke. A call much like this one, as I remember. I hope you’ve been well?”

Silence slalomed down the wires.

“I realize that you don’t like me, Mr. Griffin. This is as it should be: I’ve given you no reason to. Nor do I require or particularly desire your approbation.” His sentences fell into place, space and silence between, like bricks being set into a wall. “I do, however, ask that you hear me out now-if that much is possible?”

“Go ahead.”

“Thank you. I am calling … Excuse me.” He turned away from the phone. Four coughs rang out like distant rifle shots. Then he was back. “There is an individual I have need to locate. Purely a personal matter. In the past, I’m told, such searches were a specialty of yours. I wonder if perhaps you might consider, if there were some way I might persuade you to undertake, locating this individual for me.”

“Your sources were correct when they said ‘in the past,’ Dr. Guidry. I don’t do that work anymore.”

“I see…. They told me that as well, of course. Nonetheless I felt it imperative to ask. In which case, perhaps you could recommend me someone else? Another … practitioner?”

I gave him Boudleaux’s name, address, e-mail, phone and fax numbers.

“A moment. Let me … Yes, I have it. Thank you.” Silence in the wires again, that vacuum, that pull.

“I have become, I understand, a grandfather,” he said at length. “Alouette and the child, they are both well?”

“They are.”

“Very good. Then-” Again he turned away, into that chesty coughing. “Mr. Griffin, could you hold a moment, please?” the quiet, uptown voice asked. Moments later Guidry was back, apologizing. “Might you possibly prevail upon the girl to call me, Mr. Griffin? It would mean a great deal to me. I-”

This time he didn’t come back, and after a moment the quiet voice said, “I’m afraid Dr. Guidry has become indisposed. He does appreciate your help, Mr. Griffin.” Voice still there at the other end, waiting.

“I’m not at all sure the doctor would want me to tell you this, Mr. Griffin. Actually, I’m fairly certain that he wouldn’t. But nowadays, with no one else available to take these decisions, I’ve only my own counsel to fall back upon.”

She paused.

“The thing is, Dr. Guidry is dying. An advanced cancer of the prostate, that he seems to have known about for some time yet, whatever his reasons, chose to leave both unremarked and untreated. I have no way of judging whether this might affect your response to his request. I did feel you should know.”

“Thank you-Mrs. Molino, is it?”

“It is. Catherine. And Mr. Griffin?”

“Yes.”

“It is I who answers the phone, on this line, always … should you happen to call again.”