by Jack Tunney
Danny shrugged. “I’ve spent time undercover before. You never know if the bad guys know.”
“How do you know I’ve been in the ring?” I asked. This was a question that had been bothering me. I’d never been in a position before where anyone had paid any attention to my fighting. Apparently, the destruction of Solomon King, the subsequent pro fights, and especially the bout against Willy Stevenson had put me in a place where fight fans, at least some of them, recognized me.
“Saw your fight against Willie Stevenson on TV. It was really something. Think you’ll get your shot at Moore.”
“Have to survive this case first,” I said. I felt a heavy sense of foreboding settling upon me. However, as it did the wound on my chest throbbed and I suddenly felt energized. I turned away and rubbed my chest surreptitiously.
The national sports pages had carried photos from the Stevenson fight. Pop Hawks had pinned them up back in the gym until I made him take them down. The fight had also been featured on the Gillette Friday Night Fights. TV was catching on, but they were fairly few and far between. Still, I didn’t like the notoriety. Hopefully, they didn’t get too many newspapers or television reception in the Sauvage.
“Marcello offer you up to take the dive tomorrow?” Tombstone brought things back to point.
“Called me in personally to his house,” Danny said. “The man is sick and desperate. He believes the voodoo is on him and he’ll die if he doesn’t get the Adrieux brothers out of Sauvage.”
I shrugged. Before coming to New Orleans I wouldn’t have giving you a nickel for voodoo. But we were in New Orleans, and my chest was burning, from an insignificant scratch inflicted by a swamp hag. I felt something building inside me. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I felt confident, powerful. I wanted to hit something – or somebody.
***
Danny left Tombstone and me in the morgue. He slipped out a backdoor, returning to the knife edge of his undercover persona. I knew I would see him again soon enough.
“What do you think?” I asked Tombstone.
“I think I’m starving,” Tombstone said. I looked at him and he shook his head slightly.
Then I saw one of the coroner’s ghouls loitering by the doorway leading to the room we were in.
“Let’s find food,” I said, leading the way out of the building.
The St. Phillip Street sidewalk, which we were told was called a banquette, led us down to Decatur. Old oaks lined the street, their branches linked by Spanish moss. Beneath their canopy, brightly colored awnings covered the entries to small shops, and the verandas of open air cafes. The sound of live music, jazz in all its various forms, followed in our wake. It was intoxicating.
Tombstone finally led the way through a somewhat squalid looking doorway into a dark room filled with spicy aromas.
“Why here?” I asked. We had passed several cleaner, glossier looking restaurants.
“Best etoufee in town,” Tombstone said.
“Is that something edible?” I asked. “And just how would you know this place?” There were no other diners occupying the few small tables. Fans turned slowly overhead, making the darkened room marginally cooler than outside.
Tombstone used the entrance of a small black man in a very clean white apron as an excuse not to answer.
The man smiled showing a row of huge white teeth capped by round pink gums. His size didn’t make him a relative, but those teeth sure did.
“Cornel Jones,” the man said, hugging Tombstone. “You a man.”
When he was released, Tombstone turned to me. “This is Uncle Sirus, my mama’s brother. When I knew we were coming, I got mama to give me some contacts to help smooth the way.”
“How is Luella?” Sirus asked.
“Healthy, but mad I came back,” Tombstone said.
Sirus shook his head and tutted. “That woman never did like it here. She hold a grudge against this entire city. She still have the eye?”
Tombstone looked sheepish, an expression I’d never seen him wear before. “If she does, she keeps it hidden.”
“Please, sit,” Sirus said, seeming to remember his role as host. He pulled out a chair from one of the half-dozen small tables. “I bring you food.”
“For three,” Tombstone said, as Sirus scurried away.
“Three?” I asked.
“You didn’t see her?”
“Who?”
There was a shadow in the doorway and then Charlotte Adrieux slid into the chair Tombstone was holding out.
ROUND NINE
She smiled at me and I had to blink to keep her in focus. “Sit,” she said, her voice that of a much younger woman, gently commanding. “We will eat.”
I sat. I had no idea why I did whatever this woman asked, yet I didn’t feel threatened by her. All I knew was she was now speaking English.
Sirus reappeared with bowls of what Tombstone had called etoufee. It smelled marvelous.
Tombstone had already dipped his spoon in and was enjoying his first mouthful. He saw me hesitating.
“It’s a thick roux,” he said. “Rice, tender chicken, and vegetables. Spicy stew.”
I dug in. It was amazingly good, but I needed lots of drinking water to go with it. Sweat popped out on my forehead. Spicy wasn’t even close.
Nobody talked until our bowls were empty and Sirus had cleared them away. He left us with glasses filled with a thickened liquid he called acassan.
“Acassan?” I asked Tombstone, no doubt butchering the pronunciation.
“Boiled cornmeal sweetened with highly refined cane juice,” He said, as if that explained anything.
Charlotte Adrieux picked up her glass with a smile.
“What is going on?” I asked Tombstone. “She’s speaking French. How come I can understand her? Why did you call her Mademoiselle Charlotte at the courthouse?”
Tombstone looked straight at me. “Voodoo,” he said, his voice flat, a slight inflection of a dare.
The hag reached out and placed her hand on my chest over the small cut she had inflicted earlier. My organs felt as if they were swelling, but I couldn’t pull away from her.
“Tombstone?” I croaked out.
“Charlotte Adrieux is my mother’s cousin. She has always been a channel for Mademoiselle Charlotte – a loa, a white European voodoo spirit.”
Charlotte chuckled, her hand still on my chest.
She took her hand from my chest, but the feeling of power continued to swell inside me. I felt feverish. My eyes blurred and Charlotte’s features became younger, her skin tone lightening perceptibly. A second passed and the hag was back.
“What dat man tell you ‘bout my sons?”
I assumed she was talking about Banister. “He said they were put in Sauvage for murder.”
“My sons no murder. Trasks ...” she spat on the floor. “They the witnesses. They lie. They fear my sons. Lock them away. Lucas Trask follows Kalfu ... is Kalfu ...” Charlotte Adrieux stopped, then looked at me like what she said made sense.
I turned to Tombstone. Sweat trickled down my cheeks, my whole body felt like a furnace. Tombstone’s face showed concern as well as something I’d never seen in him before – fear.
“Legba and Kalfu are twined.” Tombstone said. “Legba controls the positive spirits of the day. Kalfu controls the malevolent spirits of the night. Kalfu is the grand master of charms and black magic sorceries. He has the ability to change people into animals and control their minds. Legba is the guardian of the forces of the universe, the god of destiny.”
“You believe all this?” I asked, trembling.
“I don’t disbelieve,” Tombstone said.
And then I felt fl
ames stealing my breath and I fell into the sun.
***
I became fully alert the moment I awoke. I snatched away the cool cloth covering my eyes and sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the low bed I was lying on.
“Easy,” Tombstone said. One of his large hands steadied my shoulder.
“Thirsty,” I said.
Tombstone lifted a pitcher from the cabinet next to the bed. He went to pour the contents into a glass, but I took the pitcher from him and drank directly from it.
After a dozen swallows I came up for breath.
“Where are we.”
“Boarding house belongs to another of my mother’s cousins.”
“Big family.”
“You have no idea.”
“How do you feel?”
I took a second and did a mental and physical check. “Fine,” I said. “No. Terrific.”
“What time is it.”
“You’ve been gone all night and most of the morning. It’s coming up on noon.”
“The fight?”
Tombstone smiled. “Plenty of time.”
“What happened last night?”
“You were with Legba.”
“Come on ... Not more voodoo.”
Tombstone sighed. “There are things that can’t be explained, and we are caught in the middle of them. My mother warned me this would happen.”
“Smart woman,” I said.
Tombstone gave one of his throaty chuckles. “Don’t I know it. Voodoo is why my mother left New Orleans. She is a strict Catholic and hated the way it had become syncretized with voodoo in Louisiana and elsewhere.”
“So, she didn’t believe in voodoo?”
“She believed it took my father. Our family was rife with it. My father was an Adrieux.”
“But your last name is Jones.”
“My mother left the Adrieux name behind when she left the swamp.”
I thought for a second then said, not unkindly, “You’re saying your mother can take the boy out of the swamp, but she can’t take the swamp out of the boy?”
“I’m saying, something stinks about this whole scheme of Banister’s.”
“He says he has the power of the FBI waiting to descend on the Sauvage Penitentiary for violations of federal law. He wants me to go in to protect the Adrieux brothers because he thinks Lucas Trask will kill them rather than see them released.”
Tombstone nodded. “And how does that sound in the light of day without that carpetbagger’s oily sales pitch?”
He was right, but after a beat, I still said, “I have to go in.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“Marcus de Trod,” Tombstone acknowledged.
I shook my head. “Yes, but ...”
“But what?”
I could see in his eyes that Tombstone knew the answer. I felt the life heat in my body. I was a fighter. A strong fighter. I’d fought in the worst spots the world had to offer. I had never backed down from a fight. I was Patrick Felony Flynn, the giant killer. But now, inside, I was also something more ...
“Legba,” I said. “Destiny.”
ROUND TEN
The Chateau Lobrano d'Arce was a four-story frame mansion rising up alongside similar residences on North Basin Street, but distinguished by an onion-domed cupola. It was nearing midnight, and the brothel housed inside the residence was heaving with customers, sight-seers, button men, and what Father Tim back at the orphanage called bawdy women.
Adele LeDoux, the owner of the brothel, was a tightly-corseted, light-skinned black woman. Her sausage-like arms sprouted from beneath the cap sleeves of her red velvet dress, matching the equally jiggling display of flesh making up her décolletage.
Tombstone had told me prostitution had been legal at one time in the Storyville area of downtown New Orleans. It had been controlled, licensed, and very profitable ... until the federal government enforced a stop. What the federal government couldn’t stop, of course, was the corrupt politicians. Prostitution still flourished in New Orleans with politicians, police, and prosecutors all paid to turn a blind eye. There were always occasional police raids designed to garner headlines, but these came with advance warnings – much like tonight’s planned fiasco.
I wasn’t paying much attention to the surroundings as I had my hands full in the makeshift ring, which had been erected in the main parlor.
We were in the third round, and Danny Romani was obviously more of a local favorite than he’d let on. He was also a better fighter than I’d expected. I outweighed him and had a lot more experience, but he was quick and could take a punch. I knew it was going to hurt his pride to take this dive. It was clear, however, he planned to make a good showing for himself before hitting the canvas.
The audience surrounding the ring had actually come to see the fight. I was surprised at first, but then remembered the animosity between the Italians and Irish in New Orleans ran deep. The most violent of the encounters took place in sixty years earlier when the Irish chief of police, David C. Hennessy, was assassinated. A sensational trial followed, resulting in not guilty verdicts for the nineteen Italian men on trial. The fury of an enormous Irish mob was ignited. They rioted in the streets, forcing open the prison doors, and lynching eleven of the men who had been indicted for Hennessy's murder.
The Irish called the lynching justice. The Italians called it vendetta.
Judging by the animosity of the two main ethnicities of the crowd tonight, the incident might have occurred yesterday. While I was keeping on my toes handling Danny, brothel bouncers were doing even more fighting in order to keep the Italian and Irish spectators separated.
The huge parlor covered almost the entire first floor of the structure. A bar ran the length of one wall, and there was a small kitchen annex off to one side. On a jerry-rigged platform above the bar, a six piece band was cranking out Dixieland like their lives depended upon keeping the music going.
Danny tried to work over my midsection, but I pulled him into a clinch. We waltzed around until the referee, a short, round, muscle of a man with a fussy mustache and soft pink hands, forced us apart.
“Fight,” he said, but forced around the stub of a cold cigar clenched in his teeth, it came out sounding like an explicative.
Banister had assured me the fight had been easy to arrange. Boxing matches were a regular Thursday night feature of the Chateau Lobrano d'Arce. Both of the scheduled opponents for tonight’s bout had apparently been sick or injured and unable to toe the line. Danny, a known and liked commodity who had fought in these bouts before, was an acceptable replacement. On the other hand, under the name Irish Mike Brophy, I was the villain of the piece – an Irish outsider on Italian turf. I hoped Banister knew what he was doing and would control the mob when Danny went down, or I might not survive to go to prison.
Danny took a quick swipe at me as we parted, but I pushed the punch aside and delivered a rabbit punch to his kidneys. He grimaced and danced away. I’d let him know who the pro was here, and he was beginning to catch on. This was all to the good. If he realized I could put him down any time I wanted, it would take the edge off his ego and make his eventual role easier to take.
Boxing is not about simply delivering punishment. It is equally about avoiding or absorbing punishment. An untrained street fighter stands little chance against a conditioned boxer. From the backstreets of Chicago and LA to every military dive bar in far off places around the world, I’d learned to avoid and absorb punishment. I was not afraid of being hit. I’d allow myself to get tagged in order to create an opening to deliver double the punishment to my opponent.
However, tonight, I was amazed at the strength in my legs, the power in my arms, and the speed of my reactions when Danny came at me. I shouldn’t have been this sharp. I’d been working out in the gym and running, but all the sparring I’d done since my wrist healed had been ashamedly half-hearted.
But the enlivening burning in my chest was a constant presence, and
since the start of the fight, I’d also been feeling it in my right wrist. In fact, my whole right fist inside the cheap boxing glove was tingling with fiery pins-and-needles. Every time I hit Danny with it, it felt stronger, felt like it couldn’t wait to hit again. I’d never been this clearheaded.
A bell clanged, sending Danny and me to our respective corners. Tombstone was waiting with my stool, water, and a towel. He was not the only negro man in the establishment, but he was getting a number of fierce looks.
There were a few other negro men in the crowd, and there were others amongst the musicians and kitchen workers, but they were all subdued and watchful. While the house was run by a black madam and there were a number of Creole working girls, Tombstone had made it clear negro men were expected to satiate their lust elsewhere in negro only establishments.
“How are you holding up?” Tombstone asked. “You’re looking sharp.”
“Feel sharp,” I said. “Feel amazing actually.”
“Legba in you,” he said.
“If so, I hope he never leaves.”
Tombstone toweled me down, got me to spit the water I’d rinsed my mouth with into a bucket.
“This round, you put him down,” Tombstone said. “You know I still don’t like this plan.”
I nodded. “I know, but it’s going to happen. Can’t stop it now.”
“Yes, we can ...”
I shook my head this time. “Just get yourself clear and be there when I need you, because we both know we can’t rely on Banister. This whole thing is a farce, but Marcus is still dead and I will get to those responsible.”
Tombstone shrugged. He knew me all too well. “As soon as Danny goes down, I going into the swamp with Charlotte,” he said. “I don’t want to get tied up with Banister if he has a plan to neutralize me.”
I smiled at Tombstone. “Neutralize you? He’d have a better chance of petting an enraged wildcat. Don’t get lost out there in voodoo land.”
The clang of the bell overrode Tombstone’s laugh.
ROUND ELEVEN
I came out of my corner raging. I felt strong and powerful. Archie Moore wouldn’t have stood a chance against me tonight, let alone Danny Romani – a kid fighting way above his weight with delusions of grandeur.
