“So I stowed away on trains and hitchhiked around the country for several months, tagging along with traveling musicians most of the time. Then in the spring the idea hit me that I wanted to come back home, back to New Orleans, before my eighteenth birthday. And here I am.” She took a long drink from her jar. “Sorry, I guess you didn't ask about all that.”
Tomas shook his head. “No, it's a good story. It's not often I hear about my kind in other cities.”
Mars looked into his eyes, which were so kind and old, even though he only looked to be middle aged. “How old are you?”
He smirked and shook his head. “It doesn't work that way for me.” The train that runs along Press Street blew its whistle as it chugged on by a few blocks away[2]. Taking a drink from his mason jar, he looked out at the rooftops and streetlights. “How old implies a clear beginning, and I just don't have that. How old is the oldest oak tree in the city? That's more real for me than any age I could have.”
“Do you remember the beginning of the city?”
Tomas scratched his cheek. “I remember the first plants that were planted by people – at least the first plants not intended to be used for sustenance, but rather for how they looked, or how they smelled, or because the person who planted them just loved plants.”
“So did you come here with the French, then?”
Tomas snickered. “Do I seem French to you?”
Mars shrugged. “People change.”
“It's a tough question to answer.”
“You don't have to.”
“No, that's alright. I owe you for helping me out. When I think back that far, it's like part of who I am now came with the French and the Africans, and part of me was here with the tribes. Then another part of me came with the Spanish, and with the Americans. Pieces kept being added to me, and also I kept on growing and changing on my own.”
Tomas dug into the front pocket of his overalls and pulled out a daisy. “This is for you. A gift.”
She held out her hand, but instead of putting it in her hand he placed it on her wrist and the stem grew and curled around it. Leaves emerged from the stem and the flower opened more, almost glowing in the starlight.
“Thanks,” she said.
“It just might help you. The city can be dangerous sometimes.”
File 3 :: [The Function]
A city that curves like a scimitar, curves like the waxing or waning moon or like an idea that is bending itself, trying to pry itself from your head and into the real world, yearning to take shape. Everyone knows that the Mississippi runs north to south through the United States. Not everyone knows that it actually runs west to east through the lower half of Louisiana, and that it begins curving up and down in a squiggly line, as if the god in charge of drawing all the rivers onto the world with his or her blue crayon started dozing off when they got to the end of the great Mississippi. Most likely the river assignment was due the next morning and they'd put it off all week, and there they were at three in the morning and it wasn't done yet. But c'est la vie. It is what it is.
So take a city and build it on the squiggly part of the Mississippi. What are the implications?
Well one is that you can throw north, south, east and west out on the sidewalk with the garbage (or the recycling, if you're of the greener sort). Sure they exist, but what if someone says to you, “Which way is the river from here?” and you point them towards the river. If you're standing on Royal Street and Poland Avenue you're pointing Southwest. Yet, a mere eighteen blocks away on the corner of Royal Street and Franklin Avenue, you'd be pointing dead south. Then on Royal and Canal Street on the edge of The French Quarter, you could point east or south east. Further along Royal (which at that point becomes Saint Charles Avenue) you'd be pointing south, and then southwest.
So what's the solution to giving directions in such a city? Well, you get rid of the usual directions and then create a few terms to take their place. One thing to mention here is that there is a gigantic lake above the city called Lake Pontchartrain (which is technically a salt water estuary and not a lake, but nothing is what it claims to be in this city). So when mere pointing isn't sufficient for giving directions, the people of this city will use these four terms in place of north, south, east and west: they will say lake side, meaning towards the lake; river side, meaning towards the river; up river, to imply against the current of the river; and down river, meaning going the direction that the river is flowing. Ok, here's a sample, just like in math book: You're standing on Chartres (pronounced charters – of course it shouldn't be pronounced that way, but just go with it) and Esplanade, on the outskirts of The French Quarter, and you ask someone how to get to a certain antique shop. They point with their thumb and say, “Head upriver to Toulouse Street, take a right and then a left on Royal. Two or three blocks down it'll be on the river side of the street. You can't miss it.”
Now with this knowledge you'll be prepared for the next sentence: Just upriver of The French Quarter he walked on the lake side of Tchoupitoulas Street (how about we give you a rest and skip that pronunciation lesson for now), side-stepping the rushing taxicabs and the people passing to and from hotels with their little rolling suitcases. The buildings towered above him, as buildings sometimes do, and exactly half of them were what one thinks of when one pictures an office building – lots of windows framed by a color that is of no particular interest – the kind of building that merges with the next to create a kind of downtown cityscape that is so common that it blurs in one's memory. The other half of the buildings, though, have the power to stick in the mind, having been adorned long ago with great majestic Greek columns, or with century-old statues of forgotten gods guarding their doorways, or great stone faces peering out from beneath each window at the passerby, judging quietly yet openly.
The man walked across the six lanes of Poydras Street, cars rushing past him on one side and sitting like caged lions on the other. His long jacket was once dark blue but had faded beyond the point of fading, now a complete mixture of grays and blacks and blues all bleeding into one another. At one point the buttons must have matched, but now the only thing similar about them was that they were each brown – not the same brown, but brown none the less. The cut of the jacket suggested some old military uniform, yet the coat was so frayed that one would have to guess blindly at its origin. His brown hair ruffled and his pants a bit frayed at the ends, he wandered across the cobblestone path that stretched across the Piazza d'Italia – a feat of architecture and fountains which looked like a courtyard you'd find just outside the Emerald City – multicolored arches and columns with chubby-cheeked mustached faces blowing water into pools. A series of steps with gentle waterfalls pouring from them led up the center of the pools, up to a great archway with giant columns, the steps themselves creating the shape of Italy.
Having seen the Piazza many times, he hardly glanced as he passed by, though he could feel the mustache-faced water blowers watching him as he passed – they'd been upset with him for many years over a mere misunderstanding involving a three-legged cat, a World War II veteran and a jar of very old marbles. He walked underneath the 20-foot-tall stone archway with the giant clock atop it that served as one of the entries to the Piazza, then down the sidewalk of a thin cobblestone street and up to the little pastry shop with tables adorned with customers and red umbrellas. He passed underneath the hanging sign that read, Le Croissant Cité and stepped inside.
File 4 :: [Edith Downs]
Edith was working behind the counter making a couple of lattes and frankly didn't notice him at all. Sure he had some old war coat on, but it's New Orleans, so one in ten people are either dressed like they're from at least a century ago or from another dimension entirely. She drew little foam-hearts on the tops of the lattes and her assistant manager Jason told her there was a man who wanted to talk to her about catering.
“The Civil War guy,” said Jason. “Sitting over at the corner table.”
When the line died down she walked
over and took a seat across from the man. He looked to be around forty, his hair was short, brown and unkempt and he had on a pair of tinted blue spectacles. It had been a slow winter and Edith needed the business, so she said nothing of the spectacles even though she considered wearing sunglasses while talking to someone, especially inside, to be one of the rudest acts in human history.
She smiled and held out her hand. “Hi, my name's Edith. Jason tells me you want to talk about catering?”
He shook her hand and nodded. “That's a very nice apron you have on.”
“Oh, thanks.” She glanced down at the baby blue apron with flowers sown onto it – splattered, as it always was come afternoon, with generous amounts of coffee and flour. “It's kind of an antique, if you can believe it.”
“I can believe it.”
The quickness of his words made her stop. Something wasn't right – he was lying about the catering, Edith just knew it.
“You have an event coming up?” she said. “When is it?”
He cocked his head to the side. “You don't believe me.”
“Should I? You haven't even told me your name.”
“My name wouldn't be of much interest. What would interest you is that I know about your apron. I know what it does for you.”
She tried to stay calm as a cage of butterflies was loosed in her stomach and her heart started dancing loudly in her chest. No one knew about her apron. Not a soul. Well, maybe Maurice, but she didn't think he'd care enough to tell anyone.
The man glanced around at all the customers sitting at the tables, the prints of Michealopolis and the originals of Dr. Bob hanging on the walls. “You're a very good – is 'pastry chef' the correct term?”
Edith nodded, her fingers pressing into the wooden arm rests of the chair. She tried to stop biting the inside of her lip but her teeth just weren't going to cooperate.
The man leaned forward. “You're a very good pastry chef, but you're not that good, are you? And I'll bet it's not just the apron, is it?”
“I've done nothing wrong,” she said, her fear beginning to sway into anger. “And I will throw you out of here if you don't get straight with me very quickly.”
He shook his head. “No, you've done nothing wrong. And even if you had, I'm not here as an angel of justice. I'm here as a messenger – a middle-man.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a dull, metallic sphere the size of a golf ball and set it on the table. He twisted it with a click, and Edith felt her apron shifting against her chest. Then one by one the tiny three-inch tall blue creatures she'd come to call mems each jumped out of her apron, onto the table and sprung for the metallic ball. There were six in total. Just as they were about to reach it, the man twisted it closed. When it clicked, the mems jumped back, turned and dove back into the apron – all except one, who lunged for the sphere. The man tried to swat it away and it grabbed his hand.
“Ouch!” he yelled and flung it away. The mem tumbled off the table and onto the floor, then ran up to Edith, scurried up her dress and dove into her apron. She'd never met anyone who could see them like she could.
The man tried to look serious, but she could tell he was trying not to grimace from the pain.
“That was very impressive,” she said.
“Thanks.” He put the sphere back into his coat.
“Right up until it bit you.” She'd never seen one do anything mean before.
“The device was meant to show you that there are other powers at play, there are things you don't know about the side of the world that you dabble in.”
“So you're saying that I could have a little metal golf ball that makes mems bite me?”
He smirked, then went on: “Mems, huh? Cute name.”
She shrugged.
“Look, I'll level with you. I speak on behalf of someone who is able to pull many strings in this city. One of the strings they can pull is to make your little pastry shop very well known in a relatively short amount of time. Another string they could pull would add another... item... to your arsenal.”
“Arsenal?”
“If I were to walk into the kitchen, I'm sure that there are at least a couple more items with your little mem friends crawling all over them. A wooden spoon, maybe? A measuring cup? But what about an oven? I really, really doubt that you have an oven used by one of the greatest pastry chefs to live at the turn of the last century.”
Edith found herself crouching forward, listening to each word he said very carefully.
The man raised a hand. “But if you already have one back there in the kitchen, I suppose I can be on my way.”
“Shut up and lay out your offer.”
He glanced up behind her. Edith turned and looked, and the mailman was walking in. The mailman caught her eye and walked over and handed her a stack of mail. “Here you are, Miss Edith. Have a good one, ya hear?”
“You too, Mr. Morris.”
When Mr. Morris had left, the man across the table nodded down to the mail. “You should open that.”
Edith looked down at the envelope on top. “The Entergy bill?”
“Um, no. I meant the package.”
At the bottom of the stack was a thin brown box the size of a text book. There was a return address but no name. The address was on Royal Street, in The French Quarter. Edith shook it and held it up to her ear, because that's what people always do in movies with a suspicious package. Only after the fact did she realize how stupid that was. But in doing so she heard the whispers of memories, and suddenly the idea that this was a cooking utensil from the past that had little memories crawling all over it caused her curiosity to overrule her caution, so she ripped one side of the box open and let the contents slide out onto the table. There before her was an old, tarnished revolver. She could see it shimmering with memory, yet she didn't see any actual mems on the gun.
“A stove that will revolutionize your pastries,” said the man. “A promise that the entire city will adore your little pastry shop.”
She looked from his ridiculous blue spectacles down to the antique gun on the table. “What exactly are you asking me to do?”
He folded his hands on the table and licked his lips. “In exchange for what I already mentioned, namely the stove and grand financial success, I'm asking you to take that gun and to rob a bank.”
“Any bank?” She chuckled. “Or do you have a preference?”
“The Wellington down on Poydras. It's not far, you can walk from here.”
“I know the Wellington.” It was one of the oldest banks in the city. Edith couldn't stop smirking, but the man looked serious. She set the empty shipping box on top of the gun, as if it would somehow hide it from her customers. At least it was an antique, so no one would think it was still functioning. If it was still functioning. She felt like if she refused this man's offer, she'd never see him or anyone else who could see mems again in her life. Maybe she could get some answers from him.
“When?” she asked.
“Today. At about three o'clock. That gives you a little less than an hour. You won't even be missed.”
“A few years in prison and I won't be missed.”
“You won't go to prison. I give you my word.”
She smiled. “The nameless middleman gives me his word.”
He looked at her over-dramatically from above his blue tinted spectacles. “I don't give my word lightly.”
“Or your name.”
The man sighed. “Look, my name has been peeled and whittled down to such a degree that it is more or less indecipherable. When people speak of me, or to me, they tend to call me The Function.”
“The Function? That's not a name.”
“I completely agree, but for some reason it stuck.” He pulled a metal flask from the inside of his jacket, unscrewed the top and took a swig. The series of movements was so quick as to meld into one singular movement – something performed so many times that, like his supposed name, it had been whittled down until a series of actions had become one action
.
Suddenly liquid memory reached out of the gun, squirming in the air like a snake, then struck Edith's hand and burrowed into her skin. She yanked her hand away, but the memories were already swarming up through her arm. A flood of foreign images and feelings flittered towards her mind like a host of florescent dragonflies. Her eyes clenched shut and she caged her own mind, not letting the dragonflies in. The glowing insects repelled against the cage, became smoke and then wafted over to a darkened corner (inside her head but just outside her mind) where they solidified into a singular shadow.
Edith sat at a table in her mind, a nearly identical table to the one she was sitting at in the real world (which may sound easy to do, but in a rush it's actually quite a feat). Across the table from her was a long wall of black metal bars that ran from floor to ceiling, separating her from the shadowed intruder. It was dark, and only the flickering lantern on the table gave off any light. She kept it dark so that the intruder couldn't get a good look around.
On the other side of the bars, in the shadows, a match was struck. The match briefly lit up the hand that held it along with the thin cigar that it was lighting. “Not very hospitable of you,” said a man's voice from the dark. The voice had a southern drawl, but wasn't from New Orleans – at least not from current day New Orleans. The words melted in the air like clocks in a Dali painting, or like anything on a hot New Orleans summer day.
“Am I expected to be hospitable to an intruder?” she asked.
“Why, ma'am, you seem to have me misconstrued with some other fellow. I've never done harm to any woman and I never will.”
“I see. So I take it you rob banks?”
“I have been known to on occasion. Though I am no petty bank robber.”
“What are you, then?”
“A man of opportunity.”
“Do you know the man who delivered you to me? The one who calls himself The Function?”
The Axeboy's Blues (The Agents Of Book 1) Page 3
