Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

by Sara Gran

  "Maybe he was just glad you were okay," I said.

  Jackson wrinkled his brow, thinking about it. "Maybe," he said. "I mean, Vic wasn't the type, so much, you know, concerned with other people like that. But it did seem like that, so who knows. So anyway, he comes over and says Hey Jackson and I say Hey Vic, I'm glad to see you okay, which I was. As bad as that place was, I was happy to see everyone who was there, 'cause I knew they were alive, at least. So I was happy to see him too."

  "Did he say where he'd been?" I asked.

  Jackson thought before he answered. I liked this guy. He thought more in five minutes than most people did in a week.

  "No," he said. "No, he did not. At least not that I remember." He looked at me and I thanked him and then he went on: "So I asked him if he was okay and he said yes, and he asked if I was okay, did I need anything, and I said no, thank you, because frankly I didn't think he had anything. I mean, money's no good if there's nothing to buy. I didn't understand people stealing TVs and things like that—I mean, you can't eat 'em. All we needed was food and water, and there wasn't any. Whole city cleaned out by then—restaurants, stores, everything. Kids went out, kids who knew how to steal, and they broke in to the stores and restaurants and got water and whatever else they could find and brought it back for the babies and the old folks. Some of those kids didn't eat nothing themselves, not one bite. But that was all done by then. There were people's houses but that's not something I would do. Not going in someone's house. Not at that particular point. Anyway. Vic asked if I was okay and I said yes, and then he asked how I got there and I told him. He was acting real concerned, you know, like he cared. He asked where the water was coming from, what was going on and all that. I told him, as far as I knew, the water was everywhere. And he asked which levees had broke and I told him what I knew, which wasn't much. Rumors were flyin' all over. People were saying crazy things, like people eating dogs and babies and things like that. But some of the craziest things turned out to be true, like people on the rooftops in Lakeview and down in the Ninth Ward, and just about all of Arabi and Chalmette being all wiped out. So, you know, I told Vic that. I told him everything I knew. Then we shook hands and he was off. No, actually, he gave me some money first. I told him I didn't need it. Nothing to buy. But he gave it anyway."

  "So when you saw Vic," I said. "You're sure it was Thursday?"

  "I am," Jackson said.

  "How are you so sure?" I said.

  He looked a little offended. "How you sure today's Tuesday?" he asked.

  "Tuesday?" I said. "Tuesday? Are you sure? Because I thought it was Wednesday."

  "Tuesday," Jackson repeated with confidence.

  I looked around. A group of chubby tourists were about ten feet away, taking pictures of the Presbytere.

  "HEY," I called out to them. "Hello."

  They looked around with a little fear and located me as the source of the sound. That did not reassure them. I'd dressed in a hurry and I wasn't at my visual best. I wore boots, jeans, two black sweaters, and a red vintage women's overcoat with an ermine collar that probably should have been retired. I was also suffering from an unfortunate homemade haircut/bleach job that had involved pinking shears. I could see how it didn't inspire confidence.

  "What's the day," I hollered to them. They looked at each other and then turned away. You know how it is in the city. Those fancy slickers could be up to anything with their trick questions and clever tongues.

  Jackson and I looked at each other and shook our heads. Tourists.

  "The day," I yelled at them. "That's all I'm asking."

  Finally one tall brave man in his fifties hollered back. "January ninth," he called.

  "Thanks. But I meant Tuesday or Wednesday," I called out.

  "Oh," the man said. "Tuesday." He gave me a smile full of pity and turned back to his group. Then he thought better of it and turned back around, smiled again, and came over and handed me a folded-up dollar bill before retreating back to his tribe.

  "Bless you," he said.

  "You too," I said, taking the dollar. The man smiled and left. Jackson looked at my new dollar bill. I put it in my pocket. Jackson frowned.

  "Okay. It was Thursday," I said. Jackson nodded.

  "How did you know Vic, anyway?" I asked him.

  Jackson shrugged. "I know everyone around here. And everyone know me too. That's just the way it is. I go all over getting my cans. You see everyone that way."

  I asked him if he remembered anything else and he said no. I asked if I could come back and see him again if I had more questions and he said yes. I gave him twenty dollars and left.

  I believed Jackson. Vic Willing had been alive on September first. He hadn't died in the flood.

  One cause of death ruled out. Only an infinite number of possibilities to go.

  18

  LALI VALENTINE WAS the only decent alibi Andray had given me. Ms. Valentine's last known address was on Baronne Street in Central City, a few blocks away from the Garden District. This was where Andray was from, right on the other side of St. Charles Avenue from the District, like two sides of the same coin. Even the floodwaters seemed to have known the difference, slowing to a trickle by the time they reached St. Charles and coming to a gentle stop at Prytania Street.

  When I got to Lali's address it was gone. A big pile of lavender painted wood shards lay where the house had stood. In between the shards I could see little bits and pieces of a home: a pink sock, a can of tomato soup, a Lil Wayne CD, a White Hawks record.

  Two men were hauling everything out of a house down the block, and I went over and asked them if they knew Lali.

  The men were filthy, covered in plaster dust and mold. One of the men took off his dust mask and frowned.

  "Lali," he said. "Lali. I think she's staying with her cousins on Magnolia Street. I don't know the number. It's a blue house, right across from the projects. You can't miss it 'cause it's, like, folding."

  "Folding?" I said.

  "You'll see what I mean," he said. He went back to work.

  I thanked him and went back to my truck, but then I stopped. On the corner was the truck with a cherry picker. In the cherry picker was a man doing something to a transformer—one of the little power boxes on top of a pole, twenty-five or so feet up. In some cities they were underground; in New Orleans they were above ground, wires strung around the city like a cat's cradle.

  The man wasn't from Entergy, the idiotically named power company. Their people had blue uniforms. This man was in white. Another man was in the truck, operating the crane.

  "Hey," I said to the man operating the cherry picker. "Hi."

  He either didn't hear me or pretended not to hear me.

  "Hey. Hello."

  No answer. I saw he had earmuffs on, the kind men use when they tear up the sidewalks.

  I went back to the man who'd given me directions to Lali. This time his smile was less genuine.

  "Excuse me," I said. "Sorry to bother you again. But I was wondering. Do you know what those men are doing over there?"

  The man shook his head. "It's funny, I been wondering the same thing. They're not Entergy. And the phone company got nothing to do with the power, and that's what's up there—transformers. So no, I got no idea. What do you think?"

  We looked at the men in white and then back at each other.

  "I don't know," I said.

  "I don't think it's anything good," the man said.

  "No," I said. "Me either."

  I thanked him again and went back to the corner. I watched the man in the cherry picker for a few minutes, but I couldn't quite see what he was doing up there. It looked like he was fixing something. But the power was still off for the whole block. Maybe he was trying to fix it.

  Maybe. But no one was trying to fix the power anywhere else. And I doubted that one little transformer was why it was down.

  Mysteries never end. But you can't solve them all. Not in one day, at least.

  ***

/>   I drove toward the Magnolia Projects. The projects were closed. I didn't know if they'd been closed before or after the storm—like a lot of cities, New Orleans was shutting down its projects and sending people out into the world with Section 8 vouchers. Across the street was a blue shotgun house. The shotgun was missing its back wall. The side walls folded in where the back wall was missing.

  On the porch was a young girl of maybe seventeen with a pretty face and black hair in a ponytail. Her legs dangled where stairs used to be. Next to her was a boy about twelve, just as pretty. The girl was smoking a cigarette, or a joint, passing it to the boy, who had a few drags before handing it back.

  I parked the truck and got out and walked toward them. The girl watched me and the boy watched a tree on the street. The tree lay on its side, roots sticking out like arms. The girl smoked the cigarette. Up close I saw it was long and thin like a hand-rolled joint, but brown and wrinkled, as if it had been wet. Whatever they were smoking, it smelled sour. It wasn't pot. The girl handed it to the boy, ignoring me.

  "Are you Lali?" I asked the girl.

  She looked at me.

  "Lali?" I asked again.

  She nodded.

  I gave her my spiel of who I was and what I was doing and what I wanted. She looked down at the ground beneath the porch while I talked. She didn't seem to be listening. They passed the cigarette back and forth.

  "I ain't feel good," she said when I was done. "I think I'm sick."

  Her accent was so thick I had to translate in my head as she spoke. She looked sick. She looked listless and her hair was dull and broken. If she was in Westchester she'd be on thirty different meds and seeing three kinds of therapists. Here, she got a folding house.

  I asked her if she remembered seeing Andray that night.

  "I dunno," she said. She didn't look at me. "Andray? Shit, I ain't seen him in, I don't know. Long time. During the storm? I see Terrell. That's who I see during the storm. Terrell and Trey. And Peanut too. I seen him."

  I pulled myself up on the porch and sat down next to her.

  "Andray might be in trouble," I said. "You might be his only alibi."

  She laughed. It sounded like nothing was funny and nothing ever had been.

  "Andray" she said. "That mothafucka."

  The boy reached into his pants and pulled out a .44 Magnum. I watched him. He didn't point the gun at me or Lali. He pointed it at the tree. Lali seemed not to notice.

  "Shit," she said. "I ain't remember nothing. That was fucked up. I ain't remember seeing Andray nowhere."

  "I'm not a cop," I said to her. "I'm trying to keep Andray out of jail, not put him in."

  I explained the situation to her again. She didn't listen. She took a big hit off her cigarette and exhaled toward my face. It smelled sour and acidic.

  "What is that, anyway?" I asked.

  The boy shot the tree.

  Lali and I both jumped in place. When the shot hit the tree a bunch of living things rushed out of it: squirrels ran in a panic across the street, pigeons flew away in terror. The boy fell back from the blast and a quick smile flashed across his face.

  I reached over and grabbed the gun from the boy.

  "Fuck," he said. "I need that."

  He looked at me. He looked scared. I gave him back his gun.

  "Them fuckers was laughing at me," he said.

  "The fuckers in the tree?" I said.

  He nodded.

  "Maybe," I said, "they were just laughing."

  The boy furrowed his brow, weighing the possibilities.

  I wrote down my phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to Lali.

  "Call me," I said. "Please. If you remember anything."

  I gave her and the boy five twenties each. The boy laughed and looked something like happy for a second. Lali folded the bills up tight and put them in her pocket without looking.

  I turned to look at her as I got in my car. She saw me looking and took the piece of paper with my name and number on it out of her pocket. Her eyes looked empty. It was like no one was home.

  She crumpled the piece of paper into a ball and threw it into the tree. The boy cocked his gun and shot it.

  That was it for Andray's alibi. I went back to my truck and drove back to where I'd seen the cherry picker. He was gone, but those things do about forty with a tailwind and I knew he hadn't gone far.

  I drove around in wide figure eights, weaving in and out of Dryades Street, now called Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, the main artery of the neighborhood and near the geographical center of the city. Central City was the heart of the intermediate zone. Dryades used to be a busy commercial street, where blacks and Jews and Asians and everyone else who wasn't white enough for Canal Street shopped. It was hard to believe now. Almost every storefront was shuttered and sealed. The only spots open on the long strip were a credit union, a dirty grocery store, a few art galleries drawn by the cheap rent, daycare joints that looked like nightmares, and places with names like COMMUNITY POWER! and THRIVE! and FOOD ALLIANCE PROGRAM. In front of the latter was a long line, snaking down the block and around the corner, men and women and children trying to be patient. It's hard to be patient when you're hungry. Boys hung out in threes and fours and fives on street corners, people in big trucks like mine stopping to buy what they were selling. Some of the boys laughed, being boys despite it all. Some looked somber and serious, trying to send a message.

  Dryades had been named for the nymphs that lived in trees, sisters to the Muse streets a few blocks downtown. But even the nymphs were gone now, off to the Quarter to have fun, or at least have a drink.

  I was on Danneel Street when a Crown Victoria, painted in brilliant electric blue metalflake and raised on double-size wheels, turned a corner behind me. I saw it in my rearview mirror as it came quickly around the corner and slowed down in front of four or five boys working on the corner. A boy leaned out of the car window on the sidewalk side.

  In his hands was an AK-47.

  By the time I realized what was going on it was too late to do anything about it.

  I stepped on the gas as gunfire rang out from behind me. Everyone screamed. In the rearview mirror I watched as everyone ran or ducked or hid. The boys who had been on the corner—the targets, presumably—ran in every direction. No one was hit, as far as I saw—it seemed like an easy shot but in reality the driver was going too fast and the shooter didn't know how to handle his weapon.

  I stopped about a block away. I knew I should keep driving away. I didn't. I heard a ding as a bullet nicked my fender. But I wasn't a target. The Crown Vic pulled up beside me on the right and quickly passed me, ignoring me and making a right turn.

  They weren't running away. They were coming back for another pass. I looked behind me. The boys who hadn't run too far were coming back to life on the corner, laughing and enjoying their good luck.

  I put the truck in reverse. I stopped thinking and backed up to the kids, rolling down my window as I did.

  Three of the boys were back on the corner, laughing like you do when you're happy not to be dead. The boys saw me driving backwards down the street and looked at me, confused. One ran off, yelling "FIVE-OH" as he did, the universal call for cops.

  There were two boys left, watching me speed down the street toward them in reverse. I stopped in front of them and put the car back into gear.

  One of the boys was Andray Fairview. The other was the kid who'd been to see him in jail, the boy with the dreadlocks. For all I knew he was the one who'd peed on my truck.

  I rolled down my window.

  "They're coming back," I called to Andray. "Get in the truck. They're coming back around."

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth the Crown Victoria turned the far corner.

  I opened the door to the truck.

  "GET IN," I yelled at Andray. He looked around and saw that all the boys had run away except him and his friend. Andray and the other boy looked at each other. Andray looked at me and back at the bo
y. In his look was a plea.

  Andray wouldn't leave the other boy.

  "Both of you!" I screamed. "NOW!"

  I felt cold on the back of my neck. Someone was going to die any second now.

  Andray and the other boy ran the few steps to the truck and dove in the passenger window, pulling each other in behind them. I hit the gas and made a screeching left and drove toward St. Charles.

  The boys panted in a tumbled heap beside me, limbs and trunks tied up in a pile. They pulled themselves apart and sat up. The boy who wasn't Andray pulled a nine millimeter out from his waistband and leaned out the window, gun in hand. I checked the rearview mirror. The Crown Victoria was a good block behind us.

  "Get him back in the car," I said to Andray. "NOW."

  Andray tugged at his friend's waistband and muttered something to him. The boy came back inside the car.

  "Gimme your gun," I said. The boy made a face like I was crazy. I checked the rearview again; the Crown Victoria was gaining on us. Soon we'd be in the Garden District, the one part of the city where some kind of peace was enforced—but it was only a matter of time before people started shooting each other there too, and today might be the day.

  "GIVE IT TO ME!" I screamed.

  Andray's eyes opened wide. He took the gun from the boy and gave it to me.

  "Take the wheel," I said to Andray. I suppose I should have asked if he knew how to drive, but I didn't. He didn't. He took the wheel nonetheless and replaced my foot on the gas when we switched seats and the truck moved straight-ish-ly forward.

  "Move," I said to his friend, and we switched too, until I was all the way to the right.

  Andray tried to drive. I tried to shoot. Carefully, keeping my head low, I steeled myself and as quickly as I could, raised up, leaned out the window, aimed at the Crown Victoria, and shot and kept shooting. As soon as the shots were out I pulled myself back into the truck and covered my head with my arms, and just in time: a bullet hit the side-view mirror, sending shattered plastic and glass on my hair and arms.

  But I'd hit my mark. The front tires of the Crown Vic were blown, and fluids were leaking from the underside of the motor. The car skidded out and hit a parked car along the right side of the street. The driver slammed on the brakes and got out of the car, but it was too late. He wasn't catching up with us now. And no way was the shooter good enough to get us from a block away.