Fat Tuesday(35)

He stroked her hair."Your sister is young and doesn't know her own mind. It's up to us to me, actually, because you're far too lenient to see that she doesn't make any major mistakes or wrong decisions. I know what's best for her. Just as I knew what was best for you." "She also asked permission to attend our Mardi Gras party." "She's got her gall," he said with a chuckle."That's a very prestigious guest list."

"That's why she wants to come."

"We'll see."

"Be prepared for her to sulk the next few times we're with her." "She'll get over it," he said, dismissing the warning with a chuckle.

As he drifted off to sleep, he was smiling. Thank God that's the end of that.

Burke went to the university library because it stayed open later than the public library, and he knew he had a lot of material to cover.

For hours he scrolled through microfilms of the Times Picayune.

Years back, the newspaper had done a profile on the city's most illustrious lawyer. Patrick Duvall had grown up in a middle-class neighborhood, but his parents worked hard to keep him in parochial schools, where he excelled in contact sports as well as scholastics.

He received a scholarship to university, worked his way through law school and graduated first in his class, apprenticed in an established, firm for nine years before he outgrew it and branched off on his own.

How much was truth and how much was fabrication Burke couldn't guess, but he reasoned that the piece was at least based on fact, because so much of it could be checked out. What came across clearly was that the subject of the piece was an overachiever who had been determined to climb above middle-class mediocrity, and that's what he'd done.

The writer touted Duvall as a philanthropist, but no mention was made of the clubs and topless bars he owned. Listed were the sundry citations he'd received for outstanding citizenship from civic groups and professional associations, but Burke knew of just as many hits Duvall had ordered, including, most recently, Raymond Hahn. Duvall was living the good life while thumbing his nose at the law-abiding public who lauded him.

And therein, Burke realized, lay the mechanism that made him tick.

Drug trafficking wasn't just a means of making money, it was DuvalUs primo head trip. He did it because he could get away with it. To him it was a game, and he was winning. His illegal activities allowed him to demonstrate his superiority, if only to himself.

Pinkie Duvall figured frequently in front-page stories. Aside from that, his name routinely appeared in the society columns. But mention and pictures of his wife were noticeably scarce. When she did appear in a rare candid photo, she was usually standing in her husband's shadow.

Literally.

Was she camera shy? Or was it impossible to upstage a mediasavvy egomaniac like Pinkie Duvall, no matter how gorgeous you were?

What Burke also thought odd was that very little copy had been written about her. She had never been the focus of a write-up. Nor was she ever quoted. So either she didn't have an opinion about anything, or her opinion was so vapid it wasn't newsworthy, or her opinion was never solicited because her verbose husband was always on hand with something printable to tell reporters or columnists.

Mr. and Mrs. Pinkie Duvall were listed on the rosters of several charities, but Remy Duvall didn't hold an office in any of the social or civic women's clubs, nor did she serve on any board or committee or chair any fund-raisers.

Remy Lambeth Duvall was her husband's antithesis. She was a nonentity.

He stayed until the library closed. They literally locked the doors behind him when he left. He realized he was hungry: All he'd consumed today were a stale Twinkie and as much of the banana smoothie as he could stomach. To help curb the roach population, he kept nothing edible in his apartment. He eschewed a restaurant in favor of a convenience store, where he bought two microwave hot dogs and a Big Gulp.

He drove away from the store with no particular destination in mind.

But he knew were he was going. When he got there, the house was dark except for security lights and a second-story window.

The wieners in the hot dogs were rubbery and the buns stale, but he chewed and swallowed mechanically, without tasting, wondering what Mr. and Mrs. Pinkie Duvall were doing on the other side of that shuttered window.

Talking? From what Burke had seen and read, she was no chatterbox.

Was she capable of scintillating conversation only with her husband?

Were her opinions and insights reserved for his ears alone? Did she entertain him in the evenings with her witty observations?

Yeah, right, Burke thought sardonically as he wadded up the hotdog wrappers and threw them to the floorboard. She'd keep ol' Pinkie stimulated, all right, but about a yard south of his brain.

He belched up the taste of bad hot dogs and washed it down with a swig of his overcarbonated cola.

Poor Pinkie. He was obviously *-whipped by this chick and blissfully unaware of the thing she had going with Wayne Bardo. Or maybe not. Maybe Pinkie shared her with his clients. Maybe she was one of the perks he provided for a client when he got away with murder.

The light went out.

Burke continued to stare at the dark window. The graphic images that flickered through his mind bothered him so greatly that he squeezed his eyes shut to try to block them out. His gut felt like lead. He blamed it on the hot dogs.

A half hour passed before he started his car and drove away.