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walked out of the building into the bright sunshine on Tulane Avenue. A beggar tossing peanut shells at a horde of shuffling pigeons scowled at him from a bus stop bench. The lawyer sat down next to the man. He waved his foot to keep a bird from pecking on it, and he put his head to work.
    The reference to his daughter’s extramarital affairs had to be to his oldest girl, Debbie, who had been about five months pregnant when she walked down the aisle last summer. He prayed the DA was not talking about Debbie’s younger sisters. The wedding had resolved the issue of her pregnancy, most people would agree, so all Tubby could figure was that the DA, in his zeal to crucify everybody, had missed the fact that there had been a ceremony. And yes, Debbie did have a connection with a church-type outfit over in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, so it must be her. Tubby was vague about the details, but Debbie had asked the head man of the place, the Reverend Buddy Holly, to read the vows in her wedding. The Dubonnets’ old church pastor had generously agreed to share the pulpit, and everything had gone off without a hitch. So what was so suspicious about that? How would Marcus Dementhe know about Buddy Holly’s little mission?
    There was another angle here, too, if you were truly paranoid. Tubby had been quietly fantasizing about Buddy Holly’s chief-cook-and-bottle-washer, Faye Sylvester, for the past month. It had begun like this.

CHAPTER VII
    Tubby’s new self-improvement regimen involved more than staying off the bottle. He had also started playing softball on Saturday mornings. It was basically a church and bar league, and coed, which was why they sometimes let Tubby play. He had met Faye when the season was three games old. At that time he had yet to get a hit. It did not matter. Dressed in cutoffs and a couple of mismatched T-shirts, he was happy sitting on the bench cheering for the guys who actually had some ability. Just one more step toward a cleaner, more positive, lifestyle, he told himself, watching the Gulf Coast Lost Sheep, a ragtag assortment of sexes and ages, warm up on the field. His own team didn’t even have a name, so far as he knew.
    Something about the sandy-haired pitcher for the Lost Sheep had struck him as familiar, and Tubby craned his neck to study the fellow better. Sure, it was the Reverend Buddy Holly, half of the minister duo who had performed the wedding for Tubby’s daughter. He knew only that Holly ran some sort of mission for misguided youth near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, fifty miles away.
    “Howya doin’, Reverend?” Tubby yelled, poking his nose through the wire mesh backstop.
    The young preacher recognized the lawyer, despite his bright, out-of-uniform attire, and waved back. After a couple more practice pitches he trotted over to the fence and they shook hands.
    “Nice to see you, Mr. Dubonnet,” he said, socking his glove. “I didn’t know you played softball.”
    “In a manner of speaking, Pastor. You guys sure traveled a long way for this game.”
    “It’s just an excuse to get to New Orleans. We all go out to lunch afterwards. Some of the girls like to go shopping, you know….”
    Tubby didn’t hear the rest of the reverend’s sentence. Walking toward them on the third-base path was a gangling, touchingly awkward woman about five foot nine with short black hair, outfitted in blue shorts and a crisp white T-shirt, who reminded Tubby of a lost puppy and, better, an old flame from high school.
    Her aura of helplessness was quickly dispelled when she cried, “You want me to bat leadoff or cleanup today?”
    While her captain considered, she said, “You’re Tubby Dubonnet, right?” Her drawl was thick with syrup.
    “Sure,” he replied, flattered. “How did you know?”
    “Oh, somebody mentioned your name to me. And I remembered reading about your victories in the Sonny Dan case and, what’s the name of the man they tried to nail for beheading one of the doctors at the