Gator Aide by Jessica Speart

thud.
    “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t eat this crap? I’m on a diet!”
    “And how many times I gotta tell ya this stuff ain’t fattening? And where’d ya get a mouth like that on ya anyhow? All youse women down here are supposed ta be ladies.”
    Dolores grabbed her drink. “All I have to do is take one look at you to see how low-cal this crap is. Get this stuff out of my face and get me another drink. I’m going upstairs.”
    Dolores pushed herself away from the table, knocking her chair backwards. Spinning around, she swooped Fifi up in one deft motion and reeled toward the stairs.
    “What that broad wants ya could transfuse her with. She don’t need no food ta get fat.” Vinnie shook his head in disgust as he lifted the bowl from the table.
    My stomach growled loudly at the thought of another candy bar in place of real food for lunch. “Too bad. It smells great.”
    The bowl froze in midair. “Ya like Italian?”
    I remembered Vinnie’s words from the other day. “I love it. The trouble is, you can’t find any good Italian food around this town.”
    Vinnie put the bowl back down and began to heap pasta onto my plate. “This ya could die for. It’s my mama’s own recipe. Takes me three hours just ta make the sauce. I shuck my own clams. That’s the secret. I also got garlic bread in the oven. Hold on a minute.”
    The meal was the best Italian I’d had since coming south. Even better, Vinnie sat down and joined me.
    “This is a good Chianti. Ya gonna like it.”
    Vinnie wound a huge ball of linguine onto his fork and popped it into his mouth. “You a cop?”
    I suspected it was a question that Vinnie would be particularly interested in. “No. I’m an agent with the Fish and Wildlife Service. I was called in on the Vaughn case because of the dead gator found in her apartment.”
    Vinnie grunted as he kept on eating.
    “By the way, I thought nobody was allowed to call you Vincent except your mother.”
    Vinnie stuffed a piece of garlic bread in his mouth. “The old broad reminds me of her. She was a pain in the butt, too.” Vinnie pushed the garlic bread toward me. “You ain’t on no diet. Here, have a hunk ta wipe up the sauce with. So, all that really concerns ya is dead animals. I got that right?”
    “More or less.”
    “Well, if ya looking for dead animals, it’s too bad there ain’t one around here. Maybe we could fix that for ya.” Vinnie burst into a high-pitched silly giggle that could have belonged to a young high-school girl. “I’m only kidding ya. I love animals. In fact, I like ’em better than most people. Here, look.”
    Vinnie pulled out a medal dangling from a heavy gold chain inside his shirt. “See, this here’s my patron saint. St. Francis of Assisi. He helped all them little animals.” Vinnie poured me some more wine. “So where ya from?”
    “New York. In fact, I used to live on Mott Street.”
    Vinnie stopped eating. “No shit. What number?”
    “Seventy-eight. Apartment 2B.”
    “Hey, my cousin owns half that block. Ya probably seen him. Fat guy with a cigar always stuck in his mouth.”
    Looking at Vinnie’s girth, I could only imagine. Still, it was possible to detect that at one time he had been a good-looking man. But that had long ago been buried beneath a mound of heavy pasta, thick steaks, and too many rich desserts.
    “So, what are you doing down here, Vinnie?”
    Vinnie didn’t look up as he demolished the mound of linguine in front of him.
    “I wanted a change of pace, if ya know what I mean, and New Orleans is better these days than Miami. Too many spies down there. Here ya just got coonasses.” Vinnie broke into a giggle again. “I love that word. Coonasses.”
    “So you’re sort of a ‘Man Friday’ around here for the Williamses?”
    Vinnie giggled some more until tears formed in his eyes. “Man Friday. Yeah, that’s what I am. I gotta remember that. That’s a good one.”
    “You wouldn’t know Frank Sabino