"Hutch, take her away," Ranson overrode me.

Hutch separated from the crowd. It didn't take much, since he alone was about a third of it. He made Milo's goons look puny.

"Michele Knight, this is Hutch MacKenzie," Ranson said in a toneless, going-through-the-motions voice. "Get her out of here and keep her safe. I don't care how. You can take her to jail or to the zoo.

Just keep her out of a body bag."

"You got it, Sergeant Ranson," Hutch answered.

She turned to go, leaving me with this gorilla.

"Wait a second, Ranson, if you think you can just-"

"The hardest part will be shutting her up," Ranson interrupted. To me, she said, "Micky, for once, be a good girl." The anger was gone, replaced by a weariness that wasn't physical.

"Ah, you've found Ms. Knight," said our hero from Washington as he came bounding up the stairs to us. "Of course, we'll want a full statement from you," he continued.

"You want a full statement from me?" I said as I walked by him.

"You guys f.u.c.ked up. That's my full statement."

I caught the barest twitch of a smile on Ranson's face, but she suppressed it. Then I went down the stairs and out the door, Hutch following and soundproofing me from any comments from the law officers.

When we got to the parking lot, Hutch motioned me one way, but I went another. I had to make a stop by a pink limo.

"It was Frankie, wasn't it?" Buddy asked as I approached. He had probably heard rumors; the look on my face must have confirmed them.

"Yeah. Tell Torbin," I said, "tell Torbin to buy another black dress.

He'll need one for the funeral."

Buddy gave me a big bear hug. Torbin probably already had several black dresses. Gay men go to too many funerals these days.

Maybe that's why Buddy knew to hold me. Finally letting go, I just nodded to him, because there was nothing really to say. Then I followed Hutch to his car.

He tried to make small talk on the way back to the city, but I was silent and morose.

"Where are we going?" it finally occurred to me to ask, as we started driving on unfamiliar side streets.

* 187 *

"Home," he answered.

"Yours or mine?"

"Mine. I don't know where you live."

"I could tell you."

"But don't the bad guys know?" He settled it.

We pulled into a parking lot next to his building. Oh, great, I was going to go home with this gorilla who I'd just met and I wasn't even wearing underwear.

He led the way in.

"This is going to be kind of hard to explain," he said from the foyer as I followed behind him. Now what, I wondered. But he wasn't talking to me.

"What is going to be hard to explain?" a female voice answered from the living room. "Ah, I see. Bringing home a strange woman," she said as I entered.

"Following orders. Both of us," I told her as I sat down on a couch.

I was suddenly tired. She arched an eyebrow at him.

"Ranson's orders. This is Micky Knight and she's in protective custody," Hutch explained.

"And I was all prepared to be insanely jealous," she commented.

"Aww, Millie," Hutch said, enjoying the attention.

"No need to worry," I added. "I'm a lesbian." So much for oiling the wheels of social discourse. I figured that would make them leave me alone. If one is going to be an outcast, one might as well be blatant about it.

"Huh?" Hutch asked, a perplexed look on his face.

"It means you should be jealous of me, not me jealous of you,"

Millie explained. Then she plopped down next to me and put her arm around my shoulder for purposes of ill.u.s.tration.

Hutch laughed.

"Oh, you're gay. My brother's gay," he said. "I wasn't listening very well. I thought you said thespian, which didn't make much sense."

"Coffee, tea, bourbon, or all three?" Millie asked, still sitting next to me.

"Coffee and bourbon, hold the tea," I answered.

Somewhere in the last few minutes, the tension had disappeared. I was no longer feeling like such a social outcast.

* 188 *

Millie got up to make the coffee. I followed her to change my order, remembering my still unsettled stomach.

"How about tea and toast?"

"A better idea. You folks have had a rough night," she said, putting on water.

"G.o.d, it's good to be out of that monkey suit," Hutch said, joining us. "I had to go to five different places before I could find one my size."

"I wish I could have gone, to see how the other half lives. How was Dr. James?" Millie said.

"Busy," Hutch answered, explaining about Frankie and Cordelia's grandfather.

"Poor lady. She's a very good doctor. I'm a nurse. That's how I know her," Millie explained for my sake.

"Yeah, I'm afraid Joanne was right. Sergeant Ranson," Hutch added, catching himself.

"Don't worry. You can call Ranson whatever you want. I certainly have," I said. "What was she right about?"

"The kind of idiots those Federal guys were. They were more interested in having their first Mardi Gras ball than doing their job.

They marched us out and told us not to worry, that they had everything under control. They didn't," he added bitterly. "That's why I was there tonight, because Joanne wanted me there."

Millie put some tea and toast in front of me and a mug of hot chocolate before Hutch. She joined me in tea.

"Do you think it was deliberate?" I asked.

"Somebody knew and took advantage of our sloppiness," Hutch answered.

"Frankie said there was an informer on the force," I volunteered, to see what reaction it got. "Do you think he or she was there?"

"Had to be. It happened too quickly."

"Supposedly only Ranson knew I was bringing Frankie tonight."

"And Lafitte. It was his idea in the first place. Boy, does he feel bad about that. And Captain Renaud, of course. And the people from Washington," Hutch rolled his eyes as he recited the list.

"d.a.m.n," I said softly. He nodded.

"It's bedtime, boys and girls," Millie broke in. "I have to work tomorrow."

* 189 *

I explained about my lack of suitable attire. Millie was several sizes too small for me, so I ended up in a T-shirt of Hutch's. I didn't need underwear with it because it ended below my knees.

I lay awake for a long time, feeling patches of blood I knew I had washed off.

* 190 *

CHAPTER 19.

Ranson arrived the next morning for baby-sitting duty. She commandeered Hutch for a reconnaissance mission to my apartment so I could get some clothes and my own toothbrush.

We were attacked by an enraged cat made vicious by starvation.

Other than that, my abode was as it always was. A mess. But my mess.

Hutch was sent out for cat food while I packed a suitcase. Ranson stayed near the door and kept a nervous watch on the stairs. I wondered if she had gotten any sleep the night before. I put in a bottle of Scotch while she wasn't looking.

After I was packed and food had soothed Hepplewhite, the savage beast, we left. Hutch followed behind us to make sure no one else did.

Ranson took me to her apartment and, after Hutch had checked out the neighborhood, she waved him off for half a Sunday of rest.

"You had breakfast yet?" she asked, the perfect host.

"You know me, I never have breakfast until after lunch."

"Smarta.s.s. I'm in the mood for French toast. I'll make enough for both of us, in case you change your mind."

"I always eat French toast for lunch."

Halfway through our brunch, Danny showed up. She was carrying a briefcase, so I knew this visit wasn't purely social. She gave each of us a long hug, declining Ranson's offer of food.

"Micky, you're tromping around where sane people fear to tread,"

she told me. She and Ranson discussed the possibility of having me committed to keep me out of trouble. I was not amused.

Then Danny got down to business. She placed a tape recorder in * 191 *

front of me, then questioned me in painstaking detail about Frankie.

How I had met him, kept him undercover, the whole bit.

"Anything else?" she asked, her final question.

There was. What Frankie had told me before he died.

It couldn't be Ranson, I told myself. I was thinking of sleeping with this woman; she couldn't be a killer. Then again, I had slept with Karen Holloway, I remembered. And a lot of other women I didn't want to remember. No, I f.u.c.ked Karen, I wanted to make love to Ranson.

There was a difference. There had to be.

"Frankie recognized a voice. The real leader of the drug ring. He was there."

"Three hundred invited guests. A number of those with dates and the like not on any list. Plus close to two hundred workers," Ranson informed us. "Pick a voice out of that," she finished tersely. She looked at me, I looked down.

My silence hung in the air.

"What?" Ranson asked, knowing I was holding back.

"Before he died, Frankie couldn't tell me the name of the informer, but he gave me a few identifying clues," I said. No one said anything. I continued, "He likes jazz, Billie Holiday. Was wounded in action and...

his (I put too much emphasis on his) name has an R in it."