Swamp gas

by Nicole Paolini

"If you happen to be driving on I-10 not too far from New Orleans, there's a billboard where you can see for yourself what attorney Lana Pulaski looks like. Towering hairdo. Clothes bedecked with feathers and/or sequins, straining to contain her. Her entire being seems ready to erupt like a Texas oil gusher. Lana was first in her law school class and has built a thriving if unconventional practice in New Orleans. Now she's running for State's Attorney General.". "Lana's campaign strategy recognizes the importance of trolling for votes in Cajun country, and a fortuitous case makes it necessary that she go there anyhow. After one look, the judge involved, an octogenarian named Odile L'Enfant from an old be exhausted Cajun family, is bewitched. For her part, Lana sees in him the opportunity to inject a local angle into her campaign. And if she were to marry him, it would add a touch of class, however decaying, to her image.". "Before you can say "Do you take this woman?" the wedding plans