Read The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do for Free Online Page B

snappy Buddy Rich drumrolls about his head and shoulders before his seeking fist could hit anything solid. So he could not stop the advent of the new name.
    Soon he was known only as How, his real name filed away with his lackluster childhood. Eventually he grew to accept his sobriquet after he found out that most great athletes became famous by a name other than the one they were born under. Even presidents were like that, and now so was he.
    Shade sat in the dark car, watching headlights glare by on Clay Street, chuckling as he remembered minor histories.
    Blanchette returned with a grinder in white wax paper, the red sauce dripping down his overaggressive fingers. He slid behind the steering wheel, then had to retrieve a meatball that he’d popped loose. He found it under the seat and slipped it back into the bun.
    “If you didn’t wring it like it was a chicken’s neck it wouldn’t goo all over you, How.”
    Blanchette bit into the grinder, a large, passionate bite, and chewed it with his mouth writhing in pleasureful smacks.
    “Then I might drop it,” he said.
    “You dropped it anyway.”
    “Hey, man—I paid for it.”
    Shade grunted. “That’s the crucial fact,” he said.
    After taking another bite that was a meal in itself, Blanchette nodded.
    “I always thought so,” he said.
    At the corner near the station Shade hopped out of the car and walked while Blanchette pulled around to the parking lot. There were several cars parked illegally in front of the station and a gaggle of murmuring forms were flocked around the main entrance. Shade bounced his fist off the hood of a gray sedan and gestured to the man inside.
    “Park it somewhere else,” Shade said.
    The man inside yawned at Shade, then flipped his press badge at him.
    “I’m from the Daily Banner, ” he said, as if the words were armor.
    Shade objected to his tone.
    “They pay your tickets for you? Or are you too rich to care?”
    “I’m here on a story, officer. You’re a detective, right?”
    Shade walked to the driver’s window and leaned down. He thumped his fist against the car door and wondered why he had chosen this car to enforce the rules on.
    “Mister,” Shade said. “I’d hate to have to ticket a conduit to the people, but you might make me do it. See, I don’t like being a prick, there, friend.” A jab of a smile crossed Shade’s face. “But it’s my job.”
    The reporter nodded with resignation.
    “We could go on with this dialogue for quite a while, couldn’t we?”
    “And then I’d ticket you.”
    “I get it,” said the reporter, then turned the key in the ignition.
    Shade started up the steps to the station.
    There was a collection of newsmen, gore seekers, and minor officials gathered on the steps. A coolly appraising ballgame crowd, their hands jerked to swat the bugs that rendezvoused below the archaic globes of light mounted on either side of the entrance, redundant with hand-painted POLICE . The word of the murder was spreading fast and morepeople were arriving to loiter on the smooth stone steps that led up to the white rock building.
    At the door a hangdog college boy reporter named Voigt, with a cowlick and too many Izod shirts, began to close in on Shade.
    “Rene,” Voigt said, sidling up with a hand-slapping attempt at familiarity. Then, “Detective Shade, I mean. Any comment on the Rankin murder?”
    Shade slowed down, rubbing his hair, and shook his head.
    “Who’s the other guy from the Banner ?” he asked, then nodded toward the street.
    “What other guy?”
    “The guy I just made move his car. Salt-and-pepper hair, skin like wilted lettuce.”
    Voigt grimaced with understanding.
    “Braverman! Damn!” Voigt threw his notepad to the ground. As Shade walked on he heard Voigt say, “I’m fine for covering kids who spray-paint bridges, or old ladies who smack muggers with umbrellas, but when a good story comes along…”
    In the entrails of the building, on a floor waxed to approximate