Distraction

“Don’t take it badly. None of your people ever counted. Senator Dougal, he was your player. Your player is gone now, so you have nothing left on the game board. That’s political reality.”

“I see.”

“You can vote, you know. You’re a citizen. You have one vote. That’s important.”

“Right.” They laughed.

They had consomme. Then the waiter brought the main dish. “Smells wonderful,” Oscar said. “Got a lobster bib? Claw cracker? Hammer, maybe?” He had a closer look at the dish. “Wait a minute. What’s wrong with my lobster?”

“That’s your йcrevisse.” “What is it, exactly?”

“Crayfish. Crawdad. A freshwater lobster.”

“What’s with these claws? The tail’s all wrong.”

“It’s domestic. Natural crawdads are only three inches long. They stitched its genetics. That’s a local specialty.”

Oscar stared at the boiled crustacean in its bed of yellow rice. His di

“Smells delicious,” he said. Greta’s phone rang.

“Look, can’t we eat in peace?” Oscar said.

She swallowed a forkful of vinegar-gleaming chicken salad. “I’ll shut my phone off,” she said.

Oscar prodded experimentally at one of the crawdad’s many anciliary legs. The boiled limb snapped off as cleanly as a twig, revealing a white wedge of flesh.

“Don’t be shy,” she told him, “this is Louisiana, okay? Just stick the head right in your mouth and suck the juice out.”

The music from the band stopped suddenly, in mid-quartet. Os-car looked up. The doorway was full of cops.

They were Louisiana state troopers, men in flat-brimmed hats with headphones and holstered capture guns. They were filtering into the restaurant. Oscar looked hastily for Fontenot and saw the security man discreetly punching at his phone, with a look of a

“Sorry,” Oscar said, “may I borrow your phone a minute?”

He turned Greta’s phone back on and engaged in the surpris-ingly complex procedure of reinstalling its presence in the Louisiana net. The cops had permeated through the now-hushed crowd, and had blocked all the exits. There were cops in the bar, a cop with the maitre d’, cops quietly vanishing into the kitchen, two pairs of cops going upstairs. Cops with laptops, cops with video. Three cops were having a private conference with the manager.

Then came the thudding racket of a helicopter, landing outside. When the rotors shut off, the entire crowd found themselves suddenly shouting. The sudden silence afterward was deeply impressive.

Two mountainous bodyguards in civilian dress entered the res-taurant, followed immediately by a short, red-faced man in house shoes and purple pajamas.

The red-faced man bustled headlong into the restaurant, his furry house slippers slithering across the tiles. “HEY, Y’ALL!” he shouted, his voice booming like a kettledrum. “It’s ME!” He waved both arms, pajamas flying open to reveal a hairy belly. “Sorry for the mess! Offi-cial business! Y’ all relax! Ever’thing under control.”

“Hello, Governor!” someone shouted. “Hey, Huey!” yelled an-other diner, as if it were something he’d been longing to say all his life. The diners were all gri

“See what the boys in the back room’ll have!” screeched the Governor. “We’re go

“Yessir,” said Boozoo, who was one of the bodyguards.

“Gimme a COFFEE!” boomed Huey. He was short, but he had shoulders like a linebacker. “Gimme a double coffee! It’s late, so put a shot of something in it. Gimme a demitasse. Hell, gimme a whole goddamn tasse. Somebody go

There was a ragged yell of public approval.

“Y’all don’t mind me now,” screamed Huey, casually hitching his pajama bottoms. “Couldn’t get myself a decent meal in Baton Rouge, had to fly down here to take the edge off. Gotta take a big meeting tonight.” He strode unerringly into the depths of the restau-rant, approaching Oscar’s table like a battleship. He stopped short, looming suddenly before them, hands twitching, forehead dotted with sweat. “Clifton, gimme a chair.”

“Yessir,” said the remaining bodyguard. Clifton yanked a chair from a nearby table like a man picking up a breadstick, and deftly slid it beneath his boss’s rump.

Suddenly the three of them were sitting face-to-face. At close range the Governor’s head was like a full moon, swollen, glowing, and lightly cratered. “Hello, Etie

“Hallo, petite!” To Oscar’s intense a

Oscar glanced over to catch Fontenot’s eye. There was a two-volume lesson in good sense in Fontenot’s level gaze. Oscar looked away.

A waiter arrived on the trot with coffee, a tall glass, whipped cream, a shot of bourbon. “I’m starvin’,” Huey a

Oscar nodded.

“I dote on mudbugs,” Huey said. “Gimme some butter dip.” He pulled his pajama sleeves up, reached out with nutcracker hands, and wrenched the tail from the carapace with a loud bursting of gristle and meat. He flexed the tail, everting a chunk of white steaming flesh. “C’ est bon, son!” He stuffed it into his mouth, set his teeth, and tore. “That GOOD or what! Go

Their table was now densely crowded with waiters. They were materializing through the ranks of state cops, bringing water, cream, napkins, butter, hot bread, pa

“Get this boy a jambalaya,” Huey commanded, waving the menu away with a flick of his dense red fingers. “Get him two shrimp jam-balayas. Big ol’ shrimp. We need some jumbo shrimp here, the Child Star looks mighty peaked. Girl, you gotta eat something more than them salads. Woman can’t live on chicken salad. Tell me somethiri’. You. Oscar. Man’s gotta eat, don’t he?”

“Yes, Governor,” Oscar said.

“This boy of yours ain’t eatin’!” Huey crushed the crawdad’s boiled red claw between his pinching thumbs. “Mr. Bombast. Mr. Architecture Boy. I cain’t have a thing like that on my conscience! Thinkin’ of him, and his pretty wife, just wasting away up north there on goddamn apple juice. It’s got me so I cain’t sleep nights!”

“I’m sorry to hear that you’re troubled, Your Excellency.”

“You tell your boy to stop frettin’ so much. You don’t see me neglectin’ life and limb because the common man can’t get a decent break up in Boston. We get Yankees like y’all down here all the time. They get a taste of the sweet life, and they forget all about your goddamn muddy water. Hungry Boy needs to lighten up.”

“He’ll eat when those soldiers eat, sir.”

Huey stared at him, chewing deliberately. “Well, you can tell him from me — you tell him tonight — that I’m go