Louisiana Bigshot: A Talba Wallis Novel

“Can’t wait for the next Evanovich? Check out Louisiana Hotshot . It’s Stephanie Plum with Tabasco, dawlin’.”— The Clarion Ledger , Jackson, MS“Julie Smith writes like jazz should sound—cool, complex and penetratingright to the heart.”—Val McDermid, bestselling author of The Last Temptation “Julie Smith has created many wonderful characters, and private investigator Talba Wallis is the most complex and fascinating of them all. A lively supporting cast, a vibrant portrait of New Orleans, and a plot that’s sure to baffle make Louisiana Bigshot a standout. If you haven’t read Smith before, this is the time to start. If you’re a fan, you’re in for yet another treat.”—Marcia Muller, bestselling author of Dead Midnight Julie Smith currently lives and writes in the Faubourg Marigny district of New Orleans, a neighborhood of nightclubs, restaurants and coffee shops where shady characters mix with artists. The author of nineteen novels, she was born and raised in Savannah before escaping to the University of Mississippi. After graduation, Smith became a reporter, first for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and later the San Francisco Chronicle . She lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years before returning to New Orleans. Smith abandoned reporting for writing mysteries in the early 1980s, writing a series featuring attorney Rebecca Schwartz and a second series starring Paul McDonald, a reporter turned mystery writer whose fate you wouldn't wish on a dog. A few years later, she launched a third series featuring New Orleans police detective Skip Langdon with New Orleans Mourning, which won the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel in 1991. She currently alternates between writing about Skip Langdon and Talba Wallis, an African-American poet/private eye who debuted in "Louisiana Hotshot." Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One Under normal circumstances, getting a Louisiana PI license is so routine as to be boring--you take a course, you pass a test, and you pay your money. Usually, there's only one slight catch--you can't be issued a license unless you're already hired. But Talba Wallis seemed to have found another one.She was already hired, and she'd made ninety-seven on the test. For nearly five months she'd worked as an apprentice for Mr. Eddie Valentino of E. V. Anthony Investigations.And still, she almost didn't get her license.You have to submit a few little things with your application-a copy of your driver's license, five-by-seven-inch photo, and fingerprints. For the last the State Board of Private Investigator Examiners provides official FBI cards. All you have to do is take them to law enforcement agency that offers a fingerprinting service and plunk down a few small bucks."Piece o'cake," Eddie said. "Take ya ten minutes, max." So one gorgeous September day on her lunch hour, Talba drove out to 715 South Broad Street, headquarters of the New Orleans Police Department. A good thing it's close , she thought. She had a client coming in at one, and at three, she had to resume her surveillance of a suspected errant wife. The woman was a college professor whose last class was over then, and Talba was in a hurry to wrap up the case. Eddie's jokes about "extracurricular activities" were getting tedious.Nonetheless, she was in a great mood. She sailed in feeling buoyant and powerful. Finally, she was getting the damned license. She liked the job a lot. A whole lot. And a funny thing, it was a great way to make friends. It wasn't something anyone ever thought about on career day at school, but once you said the words private investigator it was amazing how many people blurted, "I'd love to do that!"They wouldn't, of course. For one thing, there was the tedium--of records searches, surveillance, online research, court appearances, intake interviews, half a dozen other things. For another, most people thought divorce cases were sleazy, and these were a good chunk of the work. Actually, Talba liked them--she liked catching scumbags (of either sex) and, though originally hired for her computer skills, she'd turned out to be good at it.It wasn't a job for everybody, but despite the fact that she was such a computer wiz she impressed even herself, a sensitive and talented poet (in her opinion), and a baroness(she'd decided), it suited her.So she was in an excellent mood as she entered the building. A female functionary sporting two-inch purple nails with a tiny picture on each of them pointed to a door on the right. No stairs, no elevator. Couldn't be more convenient.Talba stepped through to a nearly dark, closet-sized anteroom opening onto a large, light, comfortable-looking room, which was populated by two people--an enormous seated woman in a black dress and a smallish, wiry-looking man in uniform. Both were and African-American, as was Talba herself. The well-padded woman had a motherly look to her. Pencil in hand, she was poring over something in which she seemed to have a deep and abiding interest.She may or not have heard Talba enter, but either way, she didn't look up. The man was talking on the phone. Talba stood politely for a few minutes, curious as to what was so important the woman couldn't take time out to serve a customer. And finally, she got tired of it. "Excuse me," she said.The woman looked at her over nondescript glasses that couldn't hide a pair of bulging eyes. A thyroid thing Talba thought, figuring it was causing the weight problem."I'm here to get fingerprinted.""Whatcha need prints for?""I'm applying for my PI license.""That'll cost ya thirty dollars. You can get it done for fifteen dollars at the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.""Here's fine. I don't mind the charge."The woman raised an eyebrow, as if she disapproved of spendthrifts. "Ya filled out ya cards?""No, do I need to?""Use black ink and be sure ya print,"In the anteroom, there was an and table she could probably write on but not enough light to see. "May I come in to fill them out?" There were at least five empty desks."This room's part of the police department." The woman went back to her paperwork, leaving Talba rummaging for a pen and hoping if she found one, it would be black.She ended up going outside to fill out the card.When she returned the large woman seemed almost cordial. "Come on in," she said, with a near-smile, and Talba opened the dutch door separating the spaces.The other woman came forward to sit at the front desk. "Let me have the cards and ya driver's license." The instructions on the application had been explicit--the fingerprinter must see the applicant's license. The woman studied the documents for almost five minutes before she finally raised her head, face outraged, suddenly a different person."You got different names on these things!"It was true.Talba's birth name was an embarrassment to all concerned-to herself, to Miz Clara, and the human race in general. A white obstetrics who thought he was funny had named her. However the state required the same name on your driver's license that appeared on your birth certificate."Talba" was her own name, the name she'd given herself and always used except when performing her poems, at which times she used its ceremonial form, "the Baroness de Pontalba."She pointed out where she'd written her official name on the FBI card, in the space asking for aliases and AKAs. "I'd prefer to use 'Talba' on my license" she said."You can't do that. Ya name's Urethra." It took all Talba' strength not to wince.Damn! Something was severely off here. The license was issued by a state board--what right did a city functionary have even to express an opinion on the subject?But the fat lady wasn't the sort you argued with. Talba said, "The board might agree, I don't know. can't know till I apply."The woman wasn't listening. She'd begun paging through a copy of the yellow Pages, holding Talba's license and FBI cards tightly in the hand that also held the book. "There's no Eddie Valentino in here."The card had asked for her employer's name and address. "I work for E. V. Anthony Investigations. Eddie's the 'E. V.' part" She pointed out the agency ad."I'm gon' call the state board." The woman got up and waddled to a glass cubicle in the back of the room. Talba heard her dial and say, "This is Sergeant Rouselle."This woman was a cop? That was a shocker. She wasn't in uniform and she wore no badge. Besides that, she seemed not to have either the personality or the build for it. Minor bureaurcrat was the way Talba'd pegged her. The sort who got off on running people's days.Cop or no, she suddenly realized, she was about to become snarled in a bureaucratic snafu that was going to make her miss her one o'clock.She walked back to the cubicle and held out her hand. "Sgt. Rouselle, I think I'll go over to Jefferson Parish, after all. May I have my license, please?"The sergeant turned on her, shouting, bulging eyes blazing behind dirty lenses. "You're going to jail if you snatch this out my hand!"Tabla backed away, "I wasn't going to--"The other officer got off the phone quick and strode over to the cubicle, patting air as if to a calm a child. "Now, ma'am, just calm down. Just take it easy now.""But I didn't…look, all I want to do is go. I'm on my lunch hour.""I get the feeling you're worried you're going to get your boss in trouble. This is nothing to do with you and nothing to do with him."What language was he speaking?Who cared?"Look, Officer, I'm on a schedule.""Just take it easy and nobody's going to get in any trouble."It suddenly got through to Tabla exactly what the situation was: He was telling her the sergeant really could throw her in jail if she wanted to. All she'd have to do was say Talba assaulted her to get her license; or had pot breath; or anything she wanted to. In a word, she was trapped.She sat and streamed. After about twenty minutes, Officer Rouselle waddled on out. "All right. You want to get fingerprinted?"Talba looked at her watch, considering. There was still time to make her one o'clock--barely--if the show could just get on the road. "Can we do it now?" "Now? " the sergeant shouted. "Can we do it now ? You don't respect my title or my position, do you? I need a little more respect out of you, missy. Hear me: you must use the same name on these cards as is on your driver's license.…"Talba was desperate to scream at the woman: It's not up to you, Fat Stuff! It's up to the state board . But that was definitely going to get her arrested.It developed the sergeant could read her mind. She just stared, heaving a huge sigh. And then, still clutching Talba's license, she picked up the phone."Captain Regilio, please. Well, then, the lieutenant." Talba's heart thumped in a way it hadn't since she'd gotten in a shootout the previous spring. It's the adrenaline , she realized. Damn! This petty bureaucrat has me scared to death .That pissed her off almost more than the rest of it.Then there was the problem of how the hell she was going to explain to Eddie (or her mother or even her boyfriend) that she was innocent--whatever the charge. The fact was, she did have a mouth on her. The irony was, for once she was keeping it shut.Eventually, two uniformed male officers and one white woman in shorts arrived to receive another ten minutes of Sgt. Rouselle's rants. "I called y'all in because this woman's trying to provoke me." Take it , Talba told herself. Keep your mouth shut or you're going to jail .Her teeth hurt from gritting them. Finally one of the other officers gently pried the license from Sgt. Rouselle's grasp and handed it back to Talba, who once again held out her hand. "May I have my fingerprint cards?""I'm gon' confiscate those. They're not... Read more