Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

by Sara Gran

  DeShawn nodded. "You know him?" he asked.

  "No," I said. "He died not long after that. Sometime during the storm. We don't know exactly when. That's what we're trying to figure out."

  "Oh my God," DeShawn said. He looked devastated. "Jesus. That's so fucked up."

  "Did you see him again after that?" I asked after a while. "Do you know what happened to him after he dropped you off?"

  "Well," he said. "I think—I think he didn't make it back the next time. I think he drowned."

  "Why do you think that?" I asked.

  "Because I saw my neighbor later," DeShawn said. "In Houston. And we talked about it, traded stories. And he told me that man never came back for him. No one came for them till the next day."

  We sat at the table and didn't look at each other.

  "I always thought," DeShawn said, "thought I'd find him. I wanted to thank him or something."

  "You still can," I said.

  He looked at me. "You think he hear me?"

  "I don't know," I said. "But it's a no-lose bet."

  We sat for a minute and didn't say anything.

  And then I remembered what Tracy had told me.

  The very first clue.

  Suddenly my hangover was gone.

  Mick looked at me.

  "What?" he said.

  "Nothing," I said.

  "What?" DeShawn said.

  "I gotta go," I told them. "I gotta go somewhere right now."

  I thanked DeShawn and paid the bill and Mick and DeShawn made promises to keep in touch and work on DeShawn's mother. Mick drove me back downtown. He still thought my truck was dead. He parked in front of my hotel.

  "So I guess that's it," he finally said. "I guess we know what happened to Vic Willing."

  I looked at Mick. He looked almost kind of happy. If Vic could be redeemed, anyone could be redeemed—even Mick, with his survivor's guilt and imagined list of sins. Even the kids he worked with, with their misdemeanor murders and resolute uninterest in the future. Even me, with my bad habits and louche ways.

  I knew he wanted that to be true. Maybe he needed it to be true.

  But it wasn't.

  Maybe we could all be redeemed. But it wouldn't happen today.

  Mick looked at me. "DeShawn just said" he said. "He just told us. Vic drowned. He went out rescuing people and he never came back."

  I didn't say anything.

  "Claire," Mick said. Disappointment spread across his face. "Claire. You can't be serious."

  I didn't say anything.

  "This is the answer," Mick said. "This is the solution. The one you've been looking for. This is it."

  I still didn't know exactly what had happened to Vic Willing. But I had a pretty good idea, and I knew where I would find the rest of the story.

  "Mick," I began, gently, "I know you think the clue is the story DeShawn just told. And that—that means a lot. It really does. But that's not the end. That's not the clue."

  "Then what is the clue?" Mick said, pissed off.

  "The same clue it's always been," I said. "The same clue you didn't see from the beginning. That's the same clue you're not seeing now."

  We sat and didn't look at each other.

  "Jesus, Claire," Mick began. "Can't you ever just—"

  "No," I said. "Never."

  Mick shook his head and didn't look at me. I got out of the car.

  "Of course, anyone may be saved," Silette said in his 1978 Interview interview. "No matter the crime. What they don't understand is that it is just like solving a crime; one must do it oneself, for one's own reasons, each on one's own time, and not for some stupid ideal of what the world can be or some childish notions of good and bad. The only way is to dive into oneself completely, which of course is the very last thing most of us will ever do. You must dive all the way to the bottom. Then, really, life can begin anew."

  In my room, on my bed, I turned up the heater and threw the I Ching.

  Hexagram 4: Clouds over fire. The clouds surround the fire but do not put it out. Some fires burn true and some burn false. True fire warms the hands. False fire burns but never warms. The best fires burn everything in their wake, and only leave behind perfect nothingness. The wise man knows this is best place.

  I got in my truck and drove to the perfect nothingness.

  52

  THE STREETS OF the Lower Ninth Ward were caked in grayish-brown dried mud. So was everything else. Nothing had been cleaned. Little bits of people's lives were scattered around in between the piles of rubble: a shoe, a book, a bra. The smell was bad: garbage and mold and death. Some houses had been pushed into each other, making indistinguishable piles of rubble. Some had boats or cars or trailers or pieces of other houses on top of them or stuck into them, forced into strange angles by the strength of the water. There were boats on top of roofs and cars on top of houses. Some houses had been pushed blocks from their foundations: you could tell because someone had spray-painted their former addresses on them, as if they were lost puppies someone could pick up and take back home. Oh, look, here's our house. I was wondering where we left it.

  It would be a miracle if anyone lived around here.

  I drove to the address on the card. The lots on either side were piles of broken wood. But the house at the address was still there. Two sides of it were blue plastic tarp, but it was definitely a house. It was a classic Creole cottage. The grass was high but the yard was picked up. The mud had been hosed off the remaining sides of the house. The sides were pink.

  Sometimes miracles happen.

  Jutting from one of the sides of the house was a metal plant hanger. Hanging from it by one broken chain and one slender intact one was a sign:

  Ninth Ward Construction

  We Can Do It!

  Next to the letters was a poorly drawn sketch of a green parrot, wings outstretched.

  That was the clue. That was the first clue and it would be the last.

  "The detective who wishes a rapid conclusion to his case," Silette wrote, "need do no more than examine every thing he was absolutely sure would not lead to the truth, and need only connect those facts he was entirely sure had no relation at all. Because this, for better or worse, is exactly where the truth lies—at the intersection of the forgotten and the ignored, in the neighborhood of all we have tried to forget."

  I parked the car and walked up to the door and knocked.

  And then I heard someone pump a shotgun behind me and I thought maybe I had made a mistake.

  I turned around slowly, hands up and open, face relaxed.

  A man stood behind me, in between me and my truck. Next to him was a honey-colored pit bull standing at attention, eyes on my face. The man was holding a twelve-gauge shotgun pointed toward my head. He was about forty-five, thin, not tall. He wore a T-shirt tucked into neat blue jeans and white sneakers, sealed with a brown leather belt. He tried to look mean, or at least stern. It worked pretty well. Especially with the gun.

  "If you from the CNN," he said with a thick accent, "you might as well tell me, so I can shoot you and get it over with."

  "I'm not," I said. "I'm—"

  "And if you with the hippies, I'll shoot you faster," he said. "So whatever it is you want, you might as well go on and get the fuck away from here before I shoot you."

  Slowly I reached into my pocket and took out his card. I'd found it in Napoleon House on my first day back in New Orleans.

  Ninth Ward Construction.

  We can do it!

  Frank

  555–1111.

  CALL ME I CAN HELP!

  Frank frowned and looked at the little piece of paper I held out to him. When he saw what it was he shook his head like he'd seen a ghost.

  "I tried to call you," I said.

  "Phone's been down," Frank said. "We had ... we had a storm."

  "I know," I said. "But you can still do it. You can still help."

  He put down the gun. When he did, the dog settled down on the ground, sticking
her legs in front of her and settling her head in between. She looked like a carpet.

  I reached slowly into my purse and took out my picture of Vic Willing. I handed it to Frank.

  Frank took the picture of Vic and looked at it. Then his face crumpled, every soft point closing in.

  "Holy shit," he said. He looked like I'd punched him. He stumbled over to the steps to his house and sat down.

  The dog came and sat next to him and looked at him. Frank scratched the top of the dog's head.

  "You come on in," he said finally. "I don't know if I can help you. I don't know if I can do it. But I'll try."

  Inside the house the walls were gone behind the blue tarp, but the supporting beams were in place. I heard the hum of a generator. A few shop lamps were hung up here and there, and a big TV was in the corner. The light coming through the tarp tinted everything blue.

  Frank sat on a cable spool and gestured for me to sit on another. I did. The dog sat at Frank's feet. I explained that I was a private eye and I was investigating what had happened to the man in the picture.

  "What do you need to know?" Frank asked.

  "Everything," I said. "Everything you remember."

  Frank nodded his head and collected his thoughts before he began. I had the feeling he didn't get many guests.

  "That man," Frank began. "He saved so many. I don't even know how many wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. Boatload after boatload."

  I nodded. I didn't see any reason to tell Frank about the rest of Vic's life. I figured he'd seen more than enough vice and squalor for one lifetime.

  "What happened after that?" I asked. "After he rescued all those people?"

  Frank looked at me. "You don't know?"

  "I don't know," I said. I thought I knew, but I wasn't sure.

  "I thought—" Frank said. "I thought you knew. I thought you were here to find out who did it. Like a murder mystery on the TV."

  "Who did what?" I asked.

  "Who shot him," Frank said. "That man was shot dead. Saw it with my own eyes. I thought you here to find out who shot him."

  "I am," I said. "That's exactly it. I'm here to find out who shot Vic Willing."

  I didn't tell him I had only just learned that myself.

  Frank made us some tea—tea crystals mixed in bottled water—and he started from the beginning.

  "It started with this woman, this fat lady. She gets off a boat—see, there was like this little kind of shoreline where we was getting people off boats and sending the boats back out. So this lady gets off a boat. And she's crying, 'Claude, Claude, Claude.' And this guy—your guy—he says, 'Who's Claude? Who's Claude?' You know it's all dark, and it's just crazy out there. Just people all over the place. Just crazy. Like hell. So this guy, your guy, he says, 'Who's Claude? Where'd you leave him?' I don't know where he came from, or how he got there. That, I can't tell you about. I mean, it was just chaos down there—dark, hot. People dropping like—

  "Anyway. So this lady, she says"—Frank imitated the woman's voice—"'My bird. My bird, I left him on the roof in his cage. My little bird, I gotta go back for him. He's my baby. They forced me into the fucking boat without my baby, but I ain't going anywhere without him. I'm not leavin' him.'

  "And everyone else is just ignoring her. But that guy, he says, 'A bird? You left your bird?' And she says, 'Yeah, my bird. I had him for thirty years. I love him so much.' She's crying and wailing. She says, 'He needs me. He needs me. I can't leave him. I can't leave him like this.' So your guy, he gets in a boat—there's boats all over, washed up from wherever—and he goes and then he comes back with that bird, a little parrot, and two people too. And dogs, two or three dogs."

  Frank stopped a minute and looked down.

  "Some people," he went on, "they wouldn't take animals. They didn't mean—" He looked at the dog, as if he didn't want to discuss such things in front of her. "They just didn't understand. They thought they was doing the right thing. They didn't mean nothing by it. But some people, they wouldn't leave without their animals. And I can understand that. I really can. Some of 'em got help and some of them didn't. Some stayed with their animals and, you know. And I got to say, I understand that. Because when you love something, well. You know. But a lot of people just didn't get it.

  "So that guy. He goes out, and every boat he comes back with two or three people and a whole bunch of animals. Dogs, cats, whatever. He's taking all the ones everybody else left behind. He bring one boatload back, he go right out and get another. He ain't eat nothing, hardly even drink any water. Like a fucking machine," Frank said. "Boatload after boatload.

  "Then one trip, he come back, and he got on out of the boat. And I heard—well, I thought I heard a gunshot. I heard something, but I wasn't sure what it was. I looked around and I didn't see anything. But then he, your guy—he'd just got off the boat and he had this kid in his arms, this boy. And he kind of like—I thought at first the kid was too heavy, and he couldn't hold him up, you know. The kid kind of fell out of his arms and he kind of like stumbled and then—" Frank waved his hand in the air, imitating a man falling down.

  "He just like crumpled right down," Frank said. "It all happened fast, like—" He snapped. "Like that. Of course, I knew what that was. I looked around and I seen a kid run off. Thug, long hair. Dreadlocks, kind of. White shirt, big pants. You know, like all of 'em wear. Didn't see his face. Didn't see much at all, you know, with the light. But one of the searchlights came down and I got a real good look for just, just about a split second. I didn't see his face, but I can tell you: thin, about five-seven, dark skin, hair like that, like all the thugs wear, tattoos. You know what they look like."

  Frank shook his head. He looked angry, and confused.

  "These kids. Shootin' each other over nothing, shooting everyone they see. I mean, when does it end? When does it stop? A man like that, like some kind of a hero—and just this week, that musician, that mother with her baby just over there, and, what, seven, eight more. Ten? I mean, I seen a lot of people die. I went from Iraq to New Orleans and then they called me back again. But something like that—something like that, it sticks with you, you know? But I'll testify, sign an affidavit, whatever. I'd like to see whoever did this pay. I really would."

  Frank looked at me. I couldn't look at him.

  "I don't know what's worse," I finally said.

  "Out of what?" Frank said, confused.

  "I don't know if it's worse to tell you the truth," I said. "Or keep lying to you."

  Frank sat up and frowned.

  "I'll take the truth," he said.

  I told Frank the truth. I told him who killed Vic Willing, and why.

  "You still willing to testify against him?" I asked when I was done.

  Frank's face darkened, like a shadow had fallen across it.

  "I don't know," he said. "I'm gonna have to think about that one."

  I nodded. I hoped he wouldn't.

  We sat and didn't look at each other.

  "The thing about the truth," Frank said after a while. "It's never just what you want it to be, is it?"

  "No," I said. "Doesn't seem that way."

  Frank made us some more tea. We drank it and talked about how he was rebuilding his house: a little bit at a time, with lumber "borrowed" from houses nearby. For the first time I noticed that the walls, few as they were, were good old cypress, the joints fitted tight. The beams that I'd assumed to be leftovers were solid cypress too, and the floor was hard, finished heart pine.

  "Gonna be some place," I said.

  Frank nodded, and stopped frowning.

  "It is," he said. "It really is."

  "So," I said when we finished our tea. "Do you know what happened to Vic's—do you know what happened to his body?"

  Frank looked away.

  He nodded.

  "The thing was," he said, "there was nowhere to put them. Not just him but a whole lot of people, gone" He meant dead. "Nowhere to put 'em. So one of the other rescue crews, these In
dian guys, these black Indian guys—we gave him to them, we asked them to—"

  He stopped and sighed and drank some tea.

  "The Indians," he began again. "They put them in a boat and took them—well, I don't know where. They took them somewhere and, you know. Gave 'em, like, a burial. Each and every one, they promised me. Man I know from Central City. He's the Witch Doctor for the White Hawks. They know how to do it right. Put each one where they belong, someplace special. Like a burial at sea. They know chants, songs. How to do things right. And did something so, you know, they'd be okay. So they wouldn't keep floating back. So they'd just be gone. It wasn't for us," he rushed to add. "Not for us. For them. To do the right thing."

  I nodded.

  We were done. I tried to give Frank some money, but he wouldn't take it. I thanked him and then he thanked me in return.

  "What for?" I said.

  "For telling me the truth," he said. "I know it ain't easy."

  He stopped and deepened his frown.

  "People like you and me," he said. "We can take it. Not everyone can. But I'd rather have the truth, ugly as it is, over every beautiful lie in the world. Because I seen too many times where the lies end up. Here. There. And sometimes I think people like us, people like you and me—we holding on to it for everyone else. Holding on to it so when everyone is ready, it's there. And it ain't easy, holding on to it. Not with all the good-looking lies all over the place. Not with everyone goin' around with their have a nice day and thanks for calling and don't worry about the levees and all that. It ain't always easy."

  "But it's worth it," I said.

  "Yeah," Frank said. "It's worth it."

  On the way out, before I got into my car, I saw a copy of Dé- tection poking out from under a bucket of plaster on what was left of the porch.

  53

  BY THE TIME I'd finished with Ninth Ward Construction it was after seven. I called Mick. We met at a different Middle Eastern restaurant on Magazine Street for dinner.