Surveillance Pelicana Chapter 22: ‘In the Right Place, Must Have Been the Wrong Time’

SURVEILLANCE PELICANA

BY

DAN WEISMAN

The entire book appears at this link with chapters added after appearing online:

Chapters 1-10: https://www.escondidograpevine.com/surveillance-pelicana-full-book-chapters-added-as-they-appear-online/.)

Chapters 11-20: https://www.escondidograpevine.com/surveillance-pelicana-part-ii-chapters-11-to-20-chapters-added-as-they-appear-online/)

Chapters 21-30: https://www.escondidograpevine.com/surveillance-pelicana-part-iii-chapters-21-to-30-chapters-added-as-they-appear-online/

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Unfortunately, Tyger is broke and can’t attend the second Jazz Fest weekend.

He makes the best of it with karmic daydreams at Audubon Park’s lake.

Following this interlude, Tyger is sent on the wrong assignment by Jack LaFleur,

Dorothy’s dipsy husband. Then, Tyger sets up on a case in Gretna and

takes a memorable ferry ride across the river.

Finally, Armor’s pitches in and returns Tyger to the surveillance scene.

The investigator reviews and logs the tape of strange Subject activity.

CHAPTER 22

“IN THE RIGHT PLACE, MUST HAVE BEEN THE WRONG TIME”

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Darn. Back to the same old lame old reality selection. That

is the way it going going goes, apologies to baseball announcers everywhere.

Another day passes and another in alarmingly swift fashion.

Therefore, comrades, put on and take off your easter bonnets.

That sucker is solid gold gone.

Second weekend of Jazz Fest is the same great fun-fess.

However,  Tyger can not participate. He still has not straightened out

his finances, probably never will. He has been working with fair

to good frequency, true; but was so far behind in

earthly expenses he can barely afford to touch the financial ground.

This is an unacceptable Jazz Fest recusal to the big Mac

attack, but not much a poor boy can do about a world

uninspired. Mac rounds up another batch of suspects doing his

thing during the second weekend almost same as the first.

A Jazz Fest exile sits at home watching Cubs and

Braves games as consolation prizes. Actually, the stay at home

lofestyle is not half bad. Uptown seems devoid of personality

disorders, thereby making living easier.

Tyger busies himself after baseball viewing by going to

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places usually prohibited by weekend laws. P.J’s on Maple Street

apparently has been evacuated. He sits in front drinking coffee,

watching the stray vehicle or two mistakenly rolling around Uptown.

An evidential pleasant diversion swears terrific testimony.

Strolling along Maple Street likewise becomes a positive

experience this late dog day afternoon. No assholes being walked

by brain dead pets. No kids. No noise. A peaceful vacuum fills spring void.

Finally, the ultimate of amazing occurrences. Tyger goes

shopping, shopping until he is dropping which does not take long.

A jaunt to Langenstein’s to make overpriced groceries. A joust

with the windows Allons-y upper Magazine Street.

Rather predictable results. Like at Lake Forest Mall, try as

Tyger might to shop, there seems to be nothing material he wants.

Tyger promises himself a special low-priced purchase to

take the edge off of missing Jazz Fest. No sale. Cha-ching not.

Nor ba-da-bing, babies. Nada nada nada.

Everything displayed in the bookstore, antique store, art

gallery, knick-knack store, hobby shop, is the same old made in

America cheesy junk product. What else would one expect from the

Age of Ray-Gun crap factory?

Where are some well made Japanese goods when one wants them?

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Tyger laughs when he thinks of that. Take that, trade

deficit. No making it wider, this holiday from holiday non Jazz

Fest personal celebration.

Tyger surveys the scene natural; blue skies, no crows,

beautiful lake at Audubon Park by the botanical garden, just off

the golf course ripe for the solitary dreamer. “Fore!” Tyger

yells as he flips rocks into dazzling aquamarine waters.

Rippling circles widen like the universe expanding after a

deity’s intervention. Tyger is in charge here and now. Don’t

the sitting ducks on the pond know it. They quack crackle hop to

the far side of the moon.

Tyger represents a benevolent presence this quiet dog day

afternoon. He lays back laid back while sitting at a picnic table

by the park gazebo, scene of the 1884 Cotton Exposition, now a

sightseeing shore. It is a great day to have a great day.

On to Kinderhook, O.K.

Amazing colors are like space-time prisms relatively astral

projecting to another galaxy resplendent where they have yet to

hear of Star Dreck.

So close and yet so far. A tugboat wails along the river.

Birds squeak nearby in the oak trees accompanied by squirrels

scurrying for higher cover. Crooked men float above the nearby

neutral ground in neutral moods.

Tyger’s endless tape loop wraps around the world at large.

Comrades of the sacred moment, Tyger is a collection of molecules

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splitting and reforming each moment with force exploded.

The detective might seem like a walking neutron bomb to the

likes of Dill Pickle and the myriad other insurance frauds.

He resembles force at rest at this particular juncture

in the never-ending story.

Thusly, Tyger continues his special mind’s eye surveillance of

poor lost thoughts sunk in a brain not as nice as Audubon Park to

know. Grant him a moment of introspection before he resumes the

natural progression of existential information.

A dreamer dreams beyond the ever-more. It goes, sings Patti

Smith at CBGB’s-OMFUG, like this:

Comrades have washed upon these unkempt shores only to be

consumed completely.

Here lies land’s end where one can fall off

or be saved, depending

on random intervention by fate, undertow,

whatever force acknowledged.

 

Hail to the valiant comrades who have suffered and lost,

never suffered, never lost;

dastardly piggies, great thinkers through time.

All the same, all dissolving

into circles on the lake,

covered by time.

 

Hidden by the same blanket of darkness;

illuminated by a most beautiful sunset,

or not,

all alone at empty picnic tables.

Here comes the untergang, the plague, the cessation of being,

a Caesarian section.

 

It’s all the same.

Snap your fingers, snap crackle pop your

cereal; leave the surveillance of nothingness

to experts.

Leave it to those who expect, deliver,

and receive nothing.

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Drop two dissimilar rocks into the lake,

smile as they dissolve into nothingness.

We are bound even in the most bountiful of lands

by such a nothingness.

Cry wolf. Cry enough.

Cry nothing.

Good grief. Ruminations of a foolish inmate in this

coming hothouse of universal disorder. Tyger tyres of his

grid-locked diversion. He is a foolish sack of dreams whiling away

the future with hopes unhinged.

Therefore, Tyger person leaves the park sleep-walking

while theoretically awake, passing this way for a sacred

monumental moment, then dissolving into a hallowed differential

of space-time.

Take another hit, baby, of sweet air filled with blunt reefer.

Tyger huffs, he puffs, and blows the joint down. No one is

available to question his absolute authority.

Feel better? Time has stopped. Tyger feels small, then tall,

then small again and ever so silly. Groovy white rabbit.

Good shit like this makes a person feel as good as President

Ray-Gun when one of his buddies knocks over a couple of million

saving and loans institutions. (Dynamite stuff, by the way obtained

from Ray-Gun’s personal psychic connection.

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Bonzo’s buddy must get high constantly to act

the way he does screwing the nation if he actually wields

power, highly theoretical at this point — while Nancy screws

the real boss, Sinatra, according to tabloid and memoir accounts.

Later Iran-Contra testimony definitively shows Ray-Gun

had no control over any governmental function not dictated

by sphincter muscle. He seems convincing, claiming to

remember nothing about his presidency. He never would have left

Hollywood if he were that good an actor.)

What does it matter? The greedy era of Ray-Gun and his

buddies is best left like the terror of the Khmer Rouge for

history to judge. They form equal and opposite reactions of the same equation.

Therefore, in his best dialectical rationale, Tyger flips

the album to something more amenable. He falls captive to that

beautiful Spanish dancer, fawn brown eyes, slender buttocks,

light dress flowing in waves down to the brown ground.

She glides like a dinky dark moth becoming madame butterfly

tapping at Tygertown’s right temple. Then naked, just say yes

baby! Poosh, implosion, gone. Tyger’s dream disintigrates

like the El Avion plane of future terrorist targets disappearing

from a radar screen.

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Strange voice leaps on the picnic table like a dispossessed bunny

rabbit-sized squirrel, Professor Irwin Corey style mocking

startled subject, Tyger Williams. “Follow me, m’kinder.

Follow me home,” it cries.

Whoa poppa. Tyger slaps himself with the awful truth

no beautiful dancer in sight, just a poor boy whose

limited attention span is wandering and wondering.

Tyger chills as Francois Truffuat might, magically turning

day to night. Mere trifle for a “genius” mind.

A higher force turns night back to day. So forth and so

on until the working week begins again in earnest.

A few days later, Tyger finds himself on the road to the LSU

Dentistry School at 1100 Florida Boulevard. Sorry comrades, not

for a much needed dental check-up, but on yet another

silly surveillance assignment.

This time Tyger is supposed to sit in the large main waiting

area and wait for the subject, Pearly Mae Spencer,

African-American, 46 years old, married, four children, 5’2″, 230 pounds.

Stop. She should not be too hard to pick up, so to speak,

because that is one large Marge of a — Jerry Lewis voice —

laid-eeeeee…

Here are the grim details of the investigation.

Tyger sets up the black box system, recently remanded back

into custody, in his vehicle at the outside parking lot with

close-up lens zoomed on the large building’s front door and

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immediate asphalt vicinity. This should provide the proper

picture of Mrs. Spencer as she buffalo soldiers into the phacility.

The where is the beef Ms. Spencer is reported to be

suffering the pain and agony of a bad knee injured in a terrible

tumble outside a neighborhood grocery store.

Maybe it is true. Sure. Then again, who knows? Tyger is

being paid to discover, Paul Harvey voice, the rest of the story .

Tyger Tyger burning bright takes a still camera

which he slides under his plastic seat. He pretends to be

engrossed in the latest lying issue of the Slimes-Picayune.

Now, there is a good joke.

Looky, looky gumshoedrop, the Slimes mongers have the

wrong date on the top of the front page. No, guys, ’tis not

May 5, 1899. It is May 5, 1988. Get a clue. You would think they

could at least get the century right.

Of course, the next day they will run a retraction buried in

the metro section beneath the obituaries. Class act, these

deadheads.

Hurry up and wait. Hurry up and wait. Tick tick tock tock.

Tyger lingers past the 1 p.m. appointment Ms. Spencer

allegedly has at the dentist’s building.

Dorothy has taken the day off to conduct personal business.

The location was passed down the line to Tyger by her husband,

Jack LeFleur, who is home alone. How could anything go wrong, ugh.

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Hmmm. More tick, more tock, not; nothing, neither way Laertes breath.

Phat lady hasn’t sung this soap opera over. Maybe someone screwed up

the surveillance location. Could it be …

“Ahh, yeah dude. I”m the middle-man today. Dorothy had to go

off with her mother to do some baby stuff shopping. What’s the

good word.”

“Well Jack,” Tyger news flashes, “The subject is supposed to

be at a 1 p.m. orthopedic surgeon”s office. But I happen to be

waiting for the subject at the LSU Dentistry Building. What is

wrong with this picture?”

“Ahhh, wait a second dude. Let me look up something,” Jack

says as da voice disappears from their pay umbilical chord. It

is 2 p.m., time for the soap opera “General Hospital,”

not this tired waste of time.

Finally, Jack returns to the line, hooking a big one.

“Ahhh, dude. Dude. Know what. Thought it was the

orthodontist. l’m such an idiot sometimes.

“What do you know,” Tyger says. “LSU Medical Center at 1 p.m. for the

Orthopedic surgeon. Not LSU Dentistry Center. It’s right here in

black and white.”

“Aw man,” Jack, flat as a hat, continues.

“Medical Center is all the way Downtown.”

“I know.”

“Sorry, my man. You can see how I mixed it up.”

“Right.”

“You don’t think she is still down there? Do you, dude? Do you?”

“Not in this lifetime.”

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“Damn. Dotty is going to be all over me like red beans on rice.”

“Right.”

“I guess we better call it a day.”

“Guess so. I’ll check in with Dorothy later.”

“Damn.” (Dumb.)

End of Assignment.

Next up, the following Monday bright and early, Waldo B.

Utley Gretna insurance scam scum lifestyle. He has a bad back

allegedly resulting from a spill off a motorcycle. But he was

wearing a helmet, so there. Safety first and all that jazz.

Tyger drives by the Utley pad about 8 a.m. checking it

out for camera angles. It is a small blue with yellow trim house

in a lower middle class area just southwest of the Gretna Ferry.

Looks like the same old same old.

In this case, Tyger has been instructed to leave the system

running while keeping a sharp eye on it, and the Utley abode, for

about an hour. That way he can assume an active follow by car

maneuver should the subject leave for,

(Thanks, Maynard G. Krebs brain.)

heaven forfend — WORK! WORK!.

The presumption will be Utley is unemployed if he has not

moved by about 9:15 a.m. or 9:30 a.m. at the latest.

Then, Tyger is to to leave the area, retrieving the system

after five, or so, hours. Dorothy wants him to review the tape

before submitting it, and his report, the following day.

Like the usual case of flu, therefore, Tyger flutters in the

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neighborhood’s lungs. He waits for a while at a nearby corner bus

stop. Hey, one never knows who might pass by the Jefferson Parish

psychic swamp this fresh spring day.

Maybe Ann Margaret, Princess Margaret, or Jane Snowden an

obscure and smashing British actress who played the ingenue in an

equally obscure movie “French Lesson” and for whom Tyger has a

passionate crush will stop, notice the mysterious stranger,

and give him a lift. (Yeah, right. Dream on. Get a life. Etc.)

A couple of busses pass. Drivers open doors. Tyger

politely declines their indifferent invites. Diverse drivers depart

the scene looking perplexed.

Seeking to avoid further suspicion, Tyger wanders

about the neighborhood for a while enjoying the healthful

benefits of physical exercise. Surveillance continues with

negative subject activity.

Tyger looks inside his mother the car to confirm all

systems are operating effectively. That is a big a-go-go,

mission control. Investigative capsule blasts off like the

Space Shuttle Discovery. He wishes himself a hardy bon voyage,

and a fat g’day to Mr. Utley.

Irony is but a literary affectation, so therefore shall we

say coincidentally, Tyger decides to take public transportation,

returning Uptown to home base. He wanders in wonder past empty fields

littered with garbage and who knows what faded memories, crossing

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railroad tracks on Gretna’s always less than fashionable

lower than sea level east side.

Quick jaunt over to the Gretna Ferry, running on a

non-specific schedule across the Mississippi River below the

crescent to Jackson Avenue in the emerald city.

No ferry in sight, not even close.

Nothing in New Orleans ever runs efficiently. That is part

of the charm of being the only resident Third World Banana

Republic of the United States.

(Rebublic? Not when Edwin Edwards was governor.)

Deserted ferry terminal absolutely reeks of piss and

human excrement. Cochon. Yet, nary a pig in sight.

Tyger returns outside, sits on the grassy knoll, waiting

10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes…

Geez, what is the story already?

A thin reed of a black man, around 50, 60, or 70 years old,

dealer’s choice, take youse pick, stops by.

s”Yeah. They said there wasn’t no boat today.”

“What?” Tyger asks fairly pissed off. “The ferry always runs.

What do you mean not running today?”

“That’s what the. man said,” the ancient — mariner? —

replies. “He said river too high. Ain’t no running.” Ohhh-key.

“Thanks for the upfake,” Tyger replies.

A skeptical soul by design, as well as recent potty training, and

having no alternative, Tyger hangs around another 15 minutes.

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Then, a loud horn blow, and sure enough, hear that ferry

coming, coming around the riverbend, turning into view,

backing into the dock. That old guy was just like the dirty terminal inside,

full of piss and no vinegar. What else is new, que sera? Trust but

verify, possibly the only reasonable saying ever uttered by Ray-Gun.

Uniformed ferry worker ropes the boat dockside.

Snatches back the long steel chain preventing potential

passengers from jumping in the river and being swept away.

He accomplishes that task with studied nonchalance.

Hasn’t lost a passenger yet. At least that he knows of.

Ah, hubris, always a first time.

Vehicles on board roll off the deck on to the

wooden planks leading to West Bank River Road wrapping like

a water moccasin around the protection levee.

They are rolling rolling rolling rawhide.

Look out below.

A few dirty dozen passengers, mainly African-Americans

although a white college student-aged bicyclist counts among

their number, amble off as if they have just completed a scenic

cruise through the Caribbean. How sweet, cue the Love Boat theme.

All aboard who are going to be bored once outgoing traffic

dissipates. Again, same verse just like the first,

the orange jump suit crowd of blase’ ferry employees wave

along vehicles and their river crossing slaves Aye aye sirs.

This nondemoninational procession of Ford, Chevy Blazer,

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Toyota Camry, indeterminate makes and models of decrepit wrecks

still salvageable, proceed en masse until the ferry has been

circled by a veritable bonanza of wagons, car, and vans.

Banzai, y’all.

Tyger embarks along with three black women who have

magically materialized despite the ancient one’s warning. In

other words, the savvy ferry crowd have assumed their rightful

place in historical perspective.

No need to reach into those shallow pockets either, comrades

in water transportation. The ferry is one of the few items in New

Orleans that is free. At least at that point in time.

A free ride takes the edge off of hard wooden benches on

which these earthbound birds perch. Brian Ferry swings back

to conform to the river currents, darting across thick brown

soupy sales waters.

A grand view of the greater New Orleans Metropolitan Area in

the bright distance sticks in place like a glossy postcard image

shimmering in the mid-morning sun. White skyline holds a

pretty picture Kodak moment contrasting favorably with the

slow as a tortoise barge traffic and more upscale riverboats

floating on the Big Muddy.

Sweet river air, too, breezily blows past a reflective

Tyger. Life at such a moment becomes a calm collection of

collective imagery.

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Tyger loses himself in momentary contemplation. N’awlins as

concrete inanimate object of affectionate smiles, touching

an observer like a lover longing for small pleasures. The place

might be on to something if they could just get rid of those darn people.

The women of the ferry’s far dark corner are yap yak yatting

away far too loudly, mitigating Tyger’s blissful meditation.

Ah well, what ya gonna do? He tries to lift and

separate their idle chatter from delightful observation

like a bra off a pornographic image.

Same tyred story repeats along the river’s East Bank.

Vehicles depart followed by a few stragglers ejected into the

urban blight bordering on Jackson Avenue and Tchopitoulas Street.

A recently completed concrete sea wall lines the street

towards Uptown thereby blocking the once beautiful view of the

docks and river environment. They think of everything in this

half-baked excuse for a City That Care Forgot. No stopping,

shall we say, progress.

(Funny thing is the wall seems useless for actual protection

from flooding. It floods just the same anyway. A more likely

explanation for its construction is that somebody lined their

pockets. Welcome to politics as unfortunately usual in the Pig Sleazy.)

Tyger gets along little doggy walking the ever unpleasant

length of Jackson Avenue to Magazine Street where a bus will pass

along eventually. He steps lively over the endless accumulation

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of dog shit further blighting the sort of sidewalk.

The wandering detective glides by that ever radioactively retroactive

wasteland of broken glass and discarded rubble by the projects

that makes this part of the city look more like war-torn Beirut or the

moon than a quaint local tourist attraction. Just as well for any

tourists here would definitely be shot and mugged,

and we are not talking travel photography.

Tyger feels safety in daylight, walking over to the

scenic “Checks Cashed” and “Hard Liquor” corner of Magazine

Street hopping on a waiting bus. What do you know, convenience

for a change. He hands the bus driver 60 cents in return for safe passage.

Usual collection of bus riders, a gay mixture of old men

and women with a few youngsters thrown in for good measure. It is

a trip in another way too. Tyger is on the giving rather than

receiving end of the RTA black fume spewing society.

Finally, Tyger has returned to his lair . It is about noon so

he lights up a big one, settles back at the home television

fires, relaxes, observing the passing soap opera.

Aw shit on it. They recycled that damn amnesia plot for

the billionth time. Yeah right, amnesia is a very

common occurrence in modern day society.

Soapsuds who are impersonating writers of those shows should

be taken out in the countryside Khmer Rouge Sendero Luminoso

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fashion and, shall we say, re-educated. Tyger passes the time by

watching the show anyway. It is in his anti-social contract.

That is to say watches between lousy stinking

stupid commercials for which Tyger must always mute the sound.

Who do they think they are fooling anyway?

Wouldn’t have to advertise if the products were any good.

Even a moron like Roots Badburns must know that. Then

again … as Emily Litella is saying on the Comedy Channel’s

Saturday Night Live “encore presentation” at this precise

intersection of space-time, “neeeever mind.”

Tyger hangs around the home liars burning for a while until

“General Hospital.” He telephones Armor’s, who thankfully is

available, in order to finagle the currently underemployed artist

into giving him a lift to the West Bank.

Screw this public transportation stuff. Tyger has had about

his annual fill of that type of pilgrim’s progress.

Armor’s is a lot like a Louisiana politician in this regard.

He definitely can be bought, and not even for the right price.

The “for sale” sign always hangs prominently outside his

outstretched loafstyle.

The promise of two thick joints cinches the deal.That is a

bit below the going rate. Armor’s is being a good guy apparently.

“Hey hey hey, working a case are we?” Armor’s chimes in as

he breaks down the front door. Another parish heard from.

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“Here, take this,” Tyger replies handing the dear boy

a marijuana mutah cigarette.

Armor”s grabs a lung full of joy. “Thanks. I needed that.

Sure glad I gave up tobacco. Now I can really enjoy pot. Let me

know when you want to go. I am right on it baby.”

They return downstream about 3 p.m. This time the ferry

must be forsaken for the seemingly faster route across the

Greater New Orleans Bridge, steel span glistening in

mid-afternoon’s bright glare.

“Hey hey. You know what man?” Armor’s broaches a subject

beside the usual dissection of daily details. “I would like to

work on a case one of these days. The detectives ever have any openings?”

Ah, so that is his angle. “Sometimes, they need extra help

to be a ghost or something,” Tyger confirms. “They use someone on

a case and then they disappear like Casper. (Weinberger?)

“You never know. I’ll tell them about you when something like that comes up.”

“Alright man. I’m gonna get to be a detective just like Tyger. Outasight.”

Wafting like a zephyr across the West Bank Expressway and

down Manhattan Boulevard, Armor’s spots the Pho Tau Bay

Restaurant and Expressway Lanes.

“Hey man. Let’s get some Cafe Sua Da to go.”

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“Better not man,” Tyger replies. “I have to pull the car out

of the neighborhood. Maybe next time.”

Tyger instructs Armor’s to navigate around the choppy waters

determining the coast be clear; no nosy neighbors or subject

activity to interfere with retrieving the secret surveillance unit.

Or so it seems.

“Let me off down the block,” requests Tyger passing off the

Altoids box. “Thanks for the reef man,” Armor’s notes.

“No problem.”

“See you later alligator. I’m history.”

“Thanks again for the lift, Casper.”

Tyger wades into the Utley zone, recovering what is Tyger’s;

no more, no less. All quiet on the West Bank front.

He removes the towel covering the video recorder. The

machine is off, tape run to conclusion. Six sickly

hours of heaven knows what Mr. Allison to watch.

Tyger checks Slimes-Picayune television listings when he

returns home. Guess what’s on tap this evening before the daily

baseball game from the Left Coast at 9:30 p.m.

Why, the Utley family television special, of course.

Tyger considers this special must see TV. That’s entertainment.

Usual pre-game functions transpire. Tyger rewinds tape,

and ready, steady, go. Here is hoping a black cat hops

across Utley·s path, making him bend over, and not in the good way.

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The following is the log of Waldo Utley’s experiences for

bad luck Friday May 13, 1988:

At 9:42 a.m. the Subject carries large plastic garbage bags

stuffed with laundry to wife’s vehicle. She leaves.

At 10:51 a.m. until 11:06 a.m. an elderly white female

arrives by car and speaks with the Subject who crouches on

the porch.

At 11:06 a.m. until 11:12 a.m. Clear identifying picture of

the Subject sitting on his porch.

At 11:55 a.m. two white males, in their twenties, arrive in

a green car with white roof.

At 12:14 p.m. brief shot of the Subject retrieving mail.

At 12:17 p.m. the Subject’s wife returns with the laundry.

The Subject carries the laundry bag from the car to the

porch.

At 12:55 p.m. the white males leave. The Subject picks up

the child with one hand then lifts him up to the porch.

At 2:35 p.m. two black males, late twenties or early

thirties, arrive at the house by car and speak with the

Subject. The Subject jumps off the porch and joins them

in their vehicle.

At 2:40 p.m. the Subject and the black males walk in the yard,

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At 2:49 p.m. the Subject hops into his vehicle and backs

it into his driveway.

At 2:56 p.m. the black males leave area.

End of tape.

Hmm. Firstly, Waldo B. Utley is in fine condition.

As usual, bad back, his bad ass. He is in better shape than Tyger,

Armor’s or anyone. That part of the case seems easily resolved.

Secondly, however, Utley appears to be engaged in another

activity with which Tyger is acquainted somewhat. He seems to be

dealing drugs. Not much question about that.

Tyger labels the tape. He writes up the final report,

leaving off the drug business. Dorothy can pick that out for

herself, comment to the client or not.

All the same to Tyger Williams. He has bigger fish to fry.

Thus concludes the day’s surveillance. Friday night and all

is as always was in and around the Crescent City. They are probably

partying the house down at the Utley residence. Tourists walking

mindlessly up and down Bourbon Street.

Tyger watches the Cubs-Dodgers game, falling asleep at half

past one in the morning. Nothing else to do that night.

“SURVEILLANCE PELICANA”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Weisman

438

Another day, another 9.5 hours investigative time, 27 miles

and $5.89 for videotape for a total of $106.29 in billable costs.

Another night, restful and blissful ignorance knowing

that at least one American worker did a good job today.

Sleep tight, dear Tyger, for tomorrow is another day.

That much, the future always promises and delivers.