Private Eyes in Public Places
by Bill Delaune

Editor’s Note- After last month’s scathing editorial on steroids, and the accompanying incriminating photo, our regular writer has been summoned to Washington D.C. to testify before a Congressional Steroids Committee. Instead of his normal column, we present an excerpt from his latest book- a mystery which takes place in South Louisiana featuring famed Cajun detective Dollar Bill. Our apologies…From “Private Eyes in Public Places”

When I woke up Super Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt, I was vaguely aware of a ringing in my left ear. Not the right organ of auditory that had been ringing since that unfortunate seating placement that put me next to Jimi Hendrix’s amplifier in 1968.

But being a private detective whose deductive skills had been sometimes compared to Sherlock Holmes, I correctly surmised that the ringing must be the telephone. It was.

“Dollar Bill’s- the only detective agency that makes sense,” I mumbled through a mouth with more cotton than a Huddie Ledbetter prison song. 

The voice on the other end was a sexy version of Demi- more or less- and her message was a familiar one. “I need help finding a missing male person.”

I didn’t have the heart to inform that voice, a bit husky but as soft as a mother’s kiss, that this was fairly common on those rare years when the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras and National NCAA Signing Day lined up in a 4-day super nova that caused usually sane men to start chasing tails and howling at the moon.

But I’ve always had a weakness for women and whine so I caved in like and LSU Men’s Basketball team with a second half lead. 

“Meet me in half-an-hour at the old Gonzales Country Club Clubhouse.”

“I thought it was closed.”

“It is. I have a key in my pocket.”

“I have a lid in my purse,” she replied. I liked her already.

At the old dinosaur of a building thirty minutes later, I pulled my ’69 El Camino into the parking lot and watched legs that should have been running in the derby emerge from a ’75 Corvette. The rest of the package didn’t disappoint either as a willowy blonde unfolded from the car like a long, cool woman in the black dress that the Hollies were so fond of.

“I’m Trudy Snow,” she started. “My significant other Dash disappeared a couple of days ago. He’d been acting strangely since our Christmas store went under, a little place we used to call ‘Yule Love Dash and Trudy Snow.’” 

I was still shoving my eyes back into their sockets when I heard myself say, “Your husband ma’m, what were some of his hobbies?”

“Watching football, playing cards, gambling, you know, the usual guy stuff. But he’s never been gone this long.” 

“We’ll find him, kid,” I assured her. “I know where degenerates like him hang out.”

We got a Bloody Mary to take that toothpaste taste out of our mouths and headed for Ronnie Gaudin’s early morning Super Bowl party. I knew from experience that the card playing, trash talking and prop betting often started on Sunday morning and lasted until sometime on the AM side of Monday. 

When we arrived, those two banking magnates, Scott and Gregg, were outside playing a game where one tries to throw a coin-shaped object into a hole on the opposite platform.

“Didn’t think you money lenders liked to go in the hole with your money,” I dead panned. But they had already lost interest. 

We moved inside the garage where all eyes fell upon my blonde companion. “I suppose this is another one of your ‘cousins’,” came the sarcasm thicker than thaw A-Rod’s wallet. I ignored the barbs from this wired-up group and got down to business.

“Any of you losers seen Dash Snow?” There was Sound of Silence that Paul Simon would have been proud of.

“Yeah, he’s been here,” 
admitted Lance. “He reneged in the bourée game, flopped in Texas Hold’em and…”

“What about gin?”

“That man can neither play nor hold his gin. We can’t abide a man like that at this party,” said Lance, a former poster child for Tangeruay. 

“Try Mike Lee’s house,” Ronnie suggested. “They don’t play cards over there.”

The jovial mood at the Lee residence turned sour at the mention of Dash’s name. “He didn’t last long here,” informed Casey. “He parked on Mike’s wet grass and got run off right away.”

We didn’t stay for an explanation. I knew from experience that driving on Mike’s lawn was comparable to dropping a cigarette butt at Augusta National.

“But the girl’s welcome to stay. Who is that anyway, Bill?”

“We were in school together,” I shot back dropping the cousin routine for the time being. We swung back by GCC to get our number on the $1,000 “last digit” board and picked up an eight.

“That means if the game ends 27-21 or 24-14 we take home and easy grand,” I informed Trudy.

“Dash didn’t like that number,” she burst my bubble. “He used to say, ‘Eight, skate, and donate.’” So much for lucky numbers.

Our last stop was at Ricky and Pat Mouton’s party where the house was divided into Manning and Anti-Manning factions. “The number 8,” she replied. “That was Archie’s jersey with the Saints.” That seemed to satisfy everyone and as we left she made another revelation. “I don’t think Dash has been here. These people are too nice.”

On Monday, or Lundi Gras as it’s called in New Orleans, I had planned a couch day. But an early call from Trudy changed all that. “I think I know where he is,” she panted excitedly. “There’s a horse at the Fairgrounds running today named Dash for Cash. He always went to the track when that horse was entered.” 

Three hours later we found ourselves in a clubhouse box with a couple of puke beers in front of us that neither of us needed. Trudy had ditched the black dress for a pair of tight-fitting jeans and an even tighter T-shirt that read, “Jesus is Coming- Look Busy.” Dash for Cash danced onto the track at 10-1 for the second race but Dash Snow was nowhere to be found.

“I’m going to box your horse in and exacta, “I tried to get her mind off the absent spouse. It did no good. 

“Dash used to box in the Golden Gloves,” she wandered off. “He said that boxing advice like ‘Don’t hook with a hooker’ had helped him out in the real world.” She was a hopeless case. So was the horse. He ran a badly-beaten eighth. 

“Hey, that was our number yesterday,” she suddenly perked up.

Mardi Gras Day showed up with the wind howling hard enough to blow Dorothy, Toto, and Lester Earl back to Kansas. At lest, that’s what it felt like as we crossed the Sunshine Bridge en route to a Fat Tuesday in Donalsonville, where Trudy was certain we’d find her missing husband. 

“He always liked the small town Mardi Gras- New Roads, Mamou, Ville Platte,” she said. 

That was odd I thought for a guy who had won over an uptown girl that Billy Joel would have traded his piano for. She was decked out on this muggy day in a pair of shorts- shorter than a Hillary Clinton concession speech and a halter top that would have halted any Carnival parade in its tracks.

“I used to live on the West Bank with my grandmother before I got married,” she added. 

“What was your maiden name?” I asked taking the bait like and eight pound brass on a Hula Popper.

“Woods,” she responded. “When guys would ask for my name and address I just say, ‘Over the river, Trudy Woods, at Grandmother’s house.’”

I evoked my right to remain silent until we arrived at Cliff Ourso and Pegram Mire’s Mardi Gras party at the former’s palacio where we began to sniff around for Dash. 

“Were looking for a male, chauvinist pig,” began Trudy.

“That may be the only kind of pig that’s not here,” answered Peg Pointing to Snook cooking cracklins, Pete and Myles slaving over a couchon de lait and Cliff basting pork ribs with his special sauce. “All of this looks delicious, but I wasn’t the baby back, babyback…” she sobbed the last repetition.

“Was that a political party?” Trudy asked on the way back home.

“NO, it was a Mardi Gras party but Peg does have some political aspirations.”

“Don’t some political parties use pet pork projects to try and persuade prospective patrons?”

“I’ll see you Ash Wednesday,” she said. 

Turned out she was correct. We found no Dash but lots of Bash at the LSU recruiting party affectionately known as the Bayou Bash. Thanks in no small part to Trudy’s purple and gold outfit that appeared to be painted on, we were jostled over, under, sideways, and down by a throng of grown men who had gathered to watch 18-year-old kids decide where they wanted to go to school.  We made it through the mob and onto the Belle of Baton Rouge when Trudy exclaimed, “There he is. There’s that scumbag.”

She strode purposely up to a disheveled confusing looking gent at the three card poker table and announced in a voice loud enough to wake the dead, “I just want you to know that we’re through!” Then she whirled around, grabbed my arm and sprinted me off the boat somewhat faster than Dash for Cash had run the day before. “That’s it?” I asked incredulously. “We look four days for a guy so you can break up with him?”

“Well, I got my money’s worth,” she smiled. “I got an escort to four Super Bowl parties, a day at the track, a political pig roast and a gathering of old drunks watching teenagers sign a piece of paper. I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy it.”

I took that as a signal to make my move. “I don’t suppose, sweetheart, there’s a chance that you and I…”

“No, Dollar. You and Dash are too much alike. I’m throwing my bait in another direction.”

And with that she climbed into a mini-van driven by a geek-looking guy in a Tulane sweatshirt and playing Barry Manilow’s “Greatest Hits” on the CD player.

“Good bye, Bill,” she said as they drove off. “We’ll always have Galvez.”

I have a friend and fellow detective Kinky Friedman who once told me that women have a great deal in common with racehorses. Both breeds are expensive, excitable, fun to watch, and there isn’t a man alive, regardless of experience, who can tell you which ones will come through for you. Those words weighed heavily on my mind as I headed back home looking for my next long shot...