“Hollywood!” Ray spat, his smile no longer holding any trace of humor. “Forget all the stories you think you know. Matrisse, he has ways an’ means to do more than you can imagine, boy. An’ one of those things …well, he can open a door to the past. Maybe get a message through.”
His chin tilted down, so his eyes were lost in shadow. “Maybe get a man through. It ain't easy, and he don't do it too much …but he'll do it for you.”
“For Gabrielle, you mean?”
“Yeah, for Gabrielle. He don't even know you.”
“Why?”
“I told you why. ’Cos she could have been special.” Ray drank more whiskey and filled his glass again, no longer topping up Max's.
It was a hell of a fantasy. Send a message back to Gabrielle, warn her what was coming. But fantasy couldn't raise the dead.
Max stared at Ray. “Even if I believed any of this, how would I find this Matrisse?”
“He'll find you. First, though, there's a map you have to follow. You got no magic about you. No aura. You're from outta town, but in cases like this that can be good. An advantage. You're a clean slate.”
So sincere, and already talking like Max had agreed to go along with this bullshit. Max almost scoffed, but stopped himself. He was asking the questions, wasn't he? Maybe it was the whiskey talking, but he couldn't prevent his mind from following where Ray's words led, and wondering.
“Clean slate for what?” Perhaps it was their surroundings, lending that honest power to everything the old man said. Or maybe it was just the deadly combination of grief and Jack Daniel's.
“For gatherin’ magic to you. I can give you the map, if you commit to following it. Follow it, magic yourself up, like runnin’ your feet along a carpet to build up static, and at the end of the map you'll find Matrisse. Then maybe he'll help you through.”
“And I can get a message to Gabrielle, back before any of this happened?”
“Or maybe you bring it yourself.” Ray raised his glass and looked into the liquor again, hypnotized by the candlelight refracting gold and amber. “Right place, right time…”
Max wanted to laugh. He wanted to mock this old fool, tip the table over, and storm from the bar. But he could not. And he knew it wasn't just the whiskey keeping him in his plastic chair. It was something about the old man and his words, and the fact that he obviously believed every one of them.
“Why are you telling me all this?” Max said. “You knew Gabrielle. You obviously cared about her. Why don't you do it?”
“ ’Cos it's dangerous, and I'm old, and I doubt this body could take it,” Ray said. “You want to see the map?”
“Yeah. But …won't it all be changed?”
Ray grinned. “This ain't a map of places, boy. It's a map of moments.” He took an envelope from inside his jacket, extracted a folded sheet of paper, and spread it across the table. He glanced around just once, and for an instant Max saw something like danger in his eyes. Ray had smiled, and grinned, and looked serious …but now Max sensed that he could be deadly as well, if the time and need called for it.
Max took another long swig of whiskey. This is crazy, he thought. But hadn't his love for Gabrielle been a kind of craziness as well? Back in New Orleans now, why not let that insanity continue, just for a while …?
He leaned over the table and looked down at the map. “That's just a tourist map of the city.”
“Look closer.”
Max did so. Wavering candlelight seemed to make the Mississippi flex like a sleeping snake, and Lake Pontchar-train loomed across the top of the map, dark blue and menacing. He started by trying to locate exactly where they were now, with Holt Cemetery, and Greenwood and Metairie Cemeteries, close by. Then he moved farther out, tracing roads with his finger, until he came to a marking he did not recognize across City Park:
The First Moment:
Even Before the City,
the City Shows Its Heart
July 15, 1699
“What's this?”
“One of New Orleans’ most magical moments,” Ray said. “You can see it, sense it, feel it. You can watch it, and gather some of the dregs of its magic to you. Moments like this echo through history, 'cos time don't bow down much to magic.”
“How can I see something that happened—?” Max began, but Ray cut in, an element of impatience in his voice.
“It's your choice now, boy. I've told you enough, and I can't hold you down an’ make you do this. I ask one thing, though.” He smiled at the empty bottle of whiskey. “You owe me half a bottle, so do this one thing for me. Go to the first place, an’ the first moment. You'll know where an’ when that is when you study the map. Drink this beforehand, an’ it'll help you.”
Now Max did scoff, too loudly, fueled by whiskey. “Magic potions? You're shitting me.” Every head turned to look at them.
Ray paused, hand holding a small clay bottle halfway to the table. He spoke quietly. “Don't believe in them?”
The other patrons turned away again, and Max sensed a tension in the room now. Maybe they did all recognize Ray. Maybe he had been drinking here for thirty years.
“Just humor an old man,” Ray said. “Ain't nothin’ in this bottle to hurt you. And you know I ain't lying, just like you know the rest of it's true.”
Max frowned. Somehow he did believe it when Ray told him nothing in that bottle would harm him, but he couldn't avoid the suspicion that the old man's words only sounded like the truth because Ray himself believed them.
“You're crazy.”
“Thank you.” And Ray chuckled, an infectious laugh that came from somewhere deep and shook his whole body.
Max stood, and the whiskey hit him hard. His legs shook and his head seemed to sway atop his neck, and he wasn't sure whether everyone was looking at him, or everyone was looking away. He grabbed the map from the table and folded it, then snatched up the small clay bottle. It seemed the right thing to do.
“This…” he said, waving the bottle before Ray's face. But the old man was still chuckling, and he watched as Max edged his way across the bar.
Standing by the front door, conscious of the poor light inside and the harsh sun without, Max glanced back at the old man. There was a fresh bottle of whiskey on his table, his glass was full, and he was talking at the chair Max had just vacated. He gestured with his hands, nodded, and gave that annoying, dismissive shrug once again. Talking to himself, Max thought. Now I know he's nuts.
Then Ray did a curious thing. He reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a small glass vial. Carefully, he poured a few drops into the glass Max had just left behind, and followed it with a dash of whiskey. He slid the glass across the table, toward the empty seat, and smiled.
Nutjob.
Max tugged at the door and stumbled outside. The stark autumn sun blinded him for a moment, and he slid down the wall and sat on a sidewalk strewn with litter and grit. He shaded his eyes to try to see, and a shadow passed before him. It seemed too large to belong to just one man.
Ray chuckled again and started the coupe, the engine seeming to match its owner's laughter.
As the car moved away, Max's sight returned, and he was just another midday drunk, washed up on the shores of New Orleans.
He sat there for a while, dazed, trying to go over what Ray had said but finding no sense there. It felt like a dream. Several times he turned to stare at the front façade of Cooper's Bar, listening for voices from inside, almost convincing himself that the place was empty and he'd imagined it all. But then the door would burst open and someone would stumble out, or a lonely shadow would walk along the street and enter, and he knew that the place was real. No one spoke to him, and no one paused to see if he was all right.
He dozed, the drink befuddling his senses and confusing him every time he woke. Was the sun really farther back than it had been when he'd nodded off? Was the tide mark across the street really three feet higher?
At last the need to urinate brought him around. He got s
lowly to his feet, holding his head in case his brains leaked out. He had not drunk so much in a long time, and certainly not so quickly.
He heard Gabrielle giggle at his hangover, and he spun around in case she was there. His head throbbed even more. He was alone.
Walking along the street, looking for somewhere to piss, Max at last noticed the small bottle grasped in his hand. He'd been holding it all along, like some kind of talisman. It was gray and bare of markings, and it had a corked top. He paused on the sidewalk, staring at the bottle, and the silence crowded in to stare with him.
A pack of dogs trotted up the street from where the ground was lower. A couple wore collars, others bore open wounds on their muzzles and necks, and they all looked mean. They passed him by without a glance. Their presence only brought home just how deserted this street, and this neighborhood, really was.
He went to throw the bottle away, but his arm refused to obey the command. He thought about pulling the cork and sniffing the insides—not drinking, just taking a slight whiff to get the measure of what it contained—but something about that did not feel right, either. He had no idea what was in there. He was alone, and vulnerable, and the only person in the city who had offered to help had left him alone with a crazy old man.
“Fuck it,” Max said. “Fuck it all.” He popped the cork and sniffed the bottle, and it smelled of nothing. He'd been hoping for more whiskey, at least. “Magic potion.” He tried to laugh, but could not, and then he tipped his head back and upended the bottle.
He readied himself to gulp and swallow, but what came out barely touched his tongue, light and insubstantial as a lover's gasp. He closed his mouth and staggered a little, head spinning again. The bottle still smelled of nothing, but now it felt much lighter. He tipped it up again, felt nothing, and then threw it as hard as he could across the road. It bounced once on the concrete, hit the opposite curb, and shattered, a dozen parts losing themselves amidst the muck and shit already there.
“Crazy old bastard,” Max muttered, and was answered by the sound of a motorcycle roaring somewhere far away.
He slipped between two buildings, stumbling over a pile of refuse from a gutted dwelling. Someone's refrigerator leaned against one wall, its edges taped shut and several fridge magnets still exhorting the wonders of Six Flags and Joyce's Gumbo. He passed the fridge and pissed with his head resting against the wall.
Turning back to the road, he noticed the bicycle. It was rusty, single speed, and it had the remains of a kid's seat on the back, foam and straps long since rotted away. He looked around, natural guilt pricking at him as he pulled the bike upright. This had to belong to someone, but there was no one here. The buildings were empty, and felt as if they'd been deserted for some time. Cooper's Bar was full, but he had no idea where any of its patrons lived. Maybe they now only truly existed in Cooper's.
It could have been noon or three in the afternoon; he'd lost all track of time. His head throbbed, his mouth was dry and demanded water, and his insides roiled with the effects of too much whiskey; he knew he had to find his way back to the hotel. He had left Gabrielle's funeral and lost himself for a moment, and he needed to center his thoughts again, handle the grief, and look forward to the time when he could move on.
He could not believe how quiet it was. Even inside the bar—he now struggled to remember the sound of voices other than his and Ray's. Had anyone been speaking in there? Or had they all been listening?
He started cycling on the soft tires, heading back to Orleans Avenue. But when he reached there he turned left, not right toward the French Quarter, steering without really thinking, and the presence of other people again was good enough for him. A few cars came by, then an army Humvee, and some trucks towing trailers stacked high with filthy kitchen appliances. Other people were using bikes to negotiate their way around town. A couple of cop cars zipped past him, lights off but obviously going somewhere in a hurry. Someone's day ruined, he thought, and he was glad he was moving in the opposite direction.
The exercise was painful at first, but then Max started to enjoy it. He felt the alcohol's effects leveling off to simple drunkenness—an improvement over his previous state of totally shitfaced—and he could handle that just fine. His muscles started to ache, but that was okay, that was right, because he'd let himself go. Since fleeing New Orleans six months earlier, he'd been wallowing in despair. He'd never wanted to admit to himself that he was depressed, but retrospect was a clearer, more honest glass through which to view what had happened.
He pedaled harder, because it was starting to feel good.
These past few months in Boston he'd stopped exercising, preferring instead to sit in front of the TV and lose his way in mindlessness. His diet had also suffered, and slowly he'd been piling on the pounds; not a fat man yet, but heavier than he'd ever been. His strength had faded, and tiredness was always close by.
Now he had the wind whipping at his face and sweat beading on his brow, and though the smell of this place was like nothing he had ever imagined, there were sights around each corner that he had only ever seen with…
“Gabrielle.” He whispered her name and it was lost to the breeze, along with her memory. He had just buried his Gabrielle. She'd felt too young to love, but her eyes had sometimes looked so old.
Somewhere in the distance he heard a gunshot. He braked, and the bike's old wheels squealed in protest. He came to a stop behind an abandoned car, mud and filth dried in a thick coating and obscuring its color and make. Listening, head tilted to one side, he began to doubt what he'd heard, when two more shots came. It was from somewhere to his left, a rapid crack-crack that echoed quickly away between buildings.
He remembered Corinne speaking to him on the phone, during those brief but frequent calls when he'd been organizing his trip. This isn't a good place right now, she'd said. You won't recognize it anymore.
Max had never owned a gun, and never would. Now, though…
“Where the fuck am I going?” he mumbled. He'd left the area where there had been a few people and vehicles, and his surroundings looked as though someone had fought a war here and lost.
His impending hangover was already seeding itself, thrumming in his head and sending pain stabbing into his eyes.
There were no more gunshots.
He waited there for a while, sweating, craving a drink of water, when a pickup screeched out of a driveway several hundred yards along the road, coughed dirt across the street, then came his way.
Max edged closer to the curb behind the abandoned car.
The vehicle streaking toward him was old, rusted, and ruined, and it trailed clouds of thick gray smoke behind it. The sun reflected from the windshield, and he could not see who was driving, nor how many others were inside.
He'd heard about the looting and lawlessness, the attacks and burglaries, and the more extreme crimes that rumor dragged out of the water and laid bare for the tabloid press to relish.
The pickup truck sped by, and the passenger glanced at him, then down at the bike. Guilt hit Max, sobering him with images of the vehicle screeching to a stop, the passenger climbing out and pulling a gun, asking, Where the fuck did you get that bike?
But the truck went on and so did Max, and he knew exactly where he was going. Lakeview. The house, the attic where Corinne had found Gabrielle's body. The last place Max had seen her alive.
It had been hot and airless that day, the heat lying slumped in the bowl of New Orleans like a sleeping thing. Gabrielle had not called him for four days, and when he tried her cell, she never answered. He'd felt cast adrift, and the only person he'd felt able to speak to was Corinne.
Not my business, Corinne had told him on the phone. But, baby, if she's sending you a message, listen to it and stay away.
But he couldn't stay away. So he'd driven down here, down the very street he was cycling along now, to the place where he thought he might find her. Back then there had been trees lining the sidewalks; now there were only stumps. Back then th
e cars had looked at least serviceable, as opposed to the heaps of mud and rust that were here now. And they had been parked, not slewed across the street, and front lawns had been neat, flower beds planted, porches painted and manned with people content to watch the world go by. Now everything was a uniform gray, the color of dried silt, and there were few people other than Max. Some walkers, a couple of bike riders, and the occasional car full of the dispossessed and lost, curb-crawling for trouble.
Once upon a time, Lakeview had been a quiet, upper-middle-class neighborhood. Now it was a crumbling ghost town, like so much of what had once been New Orleans. The silence of a place so used to noise and bustle, the immobility of somewhere always on the move, was shocking. A pall of emotional dread coated the whole area, as thick and noticeable as the dirt.
If I were sober, I'd get the fuck out, he thought. But there was a comfort zone in alcohol, a numbing of the sense of danger …or perhaps an acceptance of it. Either way, he was too far gone to turn around now.
As if to confirm this, he came upon a street sign, one of the few still intact, and saw he'd arrived at Landry Street. As he cycled toward Gabrielle's aunt's house, he seemed to be seeing two views of the same scene. One had Gabrielle waiting for him up in that sweaty attic, wearing nothing but her socks and a welcoming smile. The other gave him nothing but death.
There was a house blocking half of the street. It had been lifted from its foundation and dumped here, gushing its insides across the concrete. Nobody had come to clear it away, and cars and trucks had driven across spilled furniture and memories. As Max moved around the remains of the house, he tried not to look inside; that would be intruding.
He had to go slowly so that he did not miss the address. Everything was different. The place next door to Gabrielle's always had a rainbow explosion of flowerpots hanging and standing on the front porch and garden, and it was only as he passed that he realized there was nothing left. No flowers. No porch. No house at all.
Max slipped from the bike and let it fall in the street. Its impact was a lonely sound.
The Map of Moments Page 4
