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When you kill people for a living you gotta know you ain't gonna die of natural causes, still Bobby lay there with his eyes wide open like he was surprised, his mouth twisted in shock. He was shot a few times more than what would have been necessary to kill him; it looked as though his suit had been chewed up by bunny rabbits. This wasn't the first time I'd seen something like this but definitely the most morbidly comical. I bent down to check his pockets and see if he was even armed. He had $23 dollars in his pocket, a picture of the Virgin Mary and keys to an old Packard that was parked outside. No gun; Bobby never traveled anywherenot even the basementwithout a gun. The only thing that would explain it would be that someone took it after they shot him. Yeah, Bobby wasn't the type to go down without a fight; he would have gotten off a round or two before he went down.

"What you got there Miss Alison?" Jimmy asked coming down the rickety wooden steps to the rotted basement area where Bobby's body lay among a heap of crawfish and steaming water. "Whewdid he spill those crawfish when he went down?" he said pointing about. Jimmy pulled out a pack of Nat Sherman cigarettes and offered me one. I waved my hand no' and went on staring. Some people, most people would be thinking poor Bobby right about then, but not me and I don't think Jimmy was thinking that either.
"Jimmy, I think we ought to get the police in on this." I shifted my weight from foot to foot as I stood up.
"The police?" He sounded as surprised as Bobby looked.
"The police." I sighed. Neither one of us particularly like getting the cops involved in anything really, they tended to bust heads out here for no reason and look the other way when there was a reason to bust heads. I picked up his left hand and sniffed at it and then dropped it with all the carelessness of shrimp shells on the floor in the summer. It smelled like fresh fired gun powder.
Jimmy rather reluctantly went back up the rickety stairs to the kitchen and I thought I heard him pick up the phone. It was to be a long, long day.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Allison Hanks sat on the splintered and wet steps of the basement of Bobby Monsoau's house not smoking, not with a look of shock, just sitting. Her long black hair was braided down her back and there was blood on her old worn shoes. Unlike most dames she wasn't rattled by the twisted scalded corpse lying only a few feet away. Of course, Al's pop had been a cop and she was a Private detective

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