Gator Aide by Jessica Speart

smiled as sweetly as possible as I walked out the door.
    I met Santou outside the police precinct, where I hopped into a LeSabre so old that it made my VW look good. A red plastic crawfish and a set of black rosary beads swung from the rearview mirror, to the rhythm of late-afternoon traffic.
    In the daylight, streaks of silver were finger-painted throughout his hair. Having worn a work shirt and jeans last night, he was a different person today in a brown sport jacket, chocolate slacks, and a beige shirt open at the neck to showcase the gold St. Anthony medal that lay against a chest covered with densely matted dark hair. His hooded eyes noticed me checking him out, but Santou was all business as he fought the traffic across Canal.
    Originally the dividing line between the French, who considered the Quarter their own, and upstart Americans who dared to move into the area, the street now belonged to upscale department stores and the harried crowds that frequented them. A newly refurbished downtown, it could have been plunked anywhere in the U.S. and looked right at home.
    We drove out toward the Garden District, passing the St. Charles streetcar on our way. Known in the past as the streetcar named Desire, which Tennessee Williams had made so famous, it slashed its way back and forth through the Garden District, its rails hot, shiny ribbons of steel under a blistering sun.
    Once an exclusive section for the American nouveau riche, the Garden District is lined with one nineteenth-century gingerbread home after another. Each house had been built to surpass the next in an attempt to impress the French, who continued to view American residents as social scum. But Hillard’s house took the proverbial cake. Turning on to Prytania Street, Santou parked outside the high walls of the towering mansion, stained the shade of lemon meringue pie. Walking through the wrought-iron gate, I pulled at the hem of my dress as it clung to my legs in the heat. I had tried to make myself presentable for both Williams and Santou by running home to shower and change. It had been a long time since I’d worn anything besides pants and sneakers, but it seemed the least I could do to meet a character of Hillard’s notoriety.
    Santou rang the doorbell, letting his finger rest on the buzzer for a minute or two. Just as I was beginning to think I’d been duped about any appointment, the door swung open, framing a hulking figure who made Santou look small. Towering at six feet five inches and weighing close to three hundred pounds, stood a man who could easily have been snatched up by any pro football team to play defense. Bearing a boxer’s flattened nose and a pompadour pomaded to perfection, Hillard’s butler was dressed in a red knit polo shirt complete with alligator emblem, white polyester pants, and pointy black shoes with a blinding shine. A thick gold band complete with a large, flashy diamond cut into the soft white flesh of his pinky finger. In the background, the high-pitched yap of a frenzied dog was on automatic, like a machine gun out of control.
    “Yeah? Whadda youse want?”
    I identified it right away as Little Italy, New York, one hundred percent.
    Santou flashed his badge.
    “Let me check on it.” Little Italy began to close the door, but Santou quickly wedged his foot inside.
    “You mind if we step in? It’s awful hot out today.”
    I had already begun to perspire and pushed my way through the open door, urged on by a cool breeze from inside. My brashness caught Little Italy off guard.
    “Yeah. I s’ppose so.”
    As he lumbered off, the air-conditioning took my breath away, along with the three-tiered crystal chandelier that hung in the center of the front hall. I could only guess how many gator skins had gone toward its purchase. A winding staircase stood off to the left. Made of mahogany, the steps led up to a second-floor landing that was bathed in a spectrum of colored light, the domed skylight above a mosaic of stained