New Orleans Noir

by Julie Smith

  Nga stopped speaking, stared out in the direction of the street. In the direction, Sonny suspected, that the kidnappers had taken. He watched as she pressed her eyes shut long enough to trap the tears that threatened her cheeks.

  “It was hot,” she murmured in Vietnamese. “So I’d left the motor running, the air-conditioning on to keep the children cool. If I’d just kept the key in my pocket …”

  “You couldn’t have known,” he replied in Vietnamese, shaking his head. “Blame them, not yourself.” And then he asked in English: “What did you and Charlie do?”

  Nga took a deep breath, let out a trembling sigh, then spoke again: “We waited for hours, until after dark. And I was certain that they had already killed the children. But Charlie said no, that such a gang wanted money, not the attention of the police. So if they murdered—” Nga shook her head, as if to push the thought away. “Charlie told me that the waiting was just to make sure we would pay without hesitating. He said they must have planned this, that the evacuation just gave them an opportunity—a time when we would be vulnerable and the police would be too busy to help.”

  “And then the kidnappers phoned,” Sonny said, his tone making it a statement. “And Charlie went out into the storm, trying to get to the store.”

  Nga nodded.

  “They told him to empty the safe at the store, to bring all the money and jewelry back to the house. They promised to come for it the next day. If the ransom was enough, he would get his children back.”

  But like so many in New Orleans, Sonny thought, the kidnappers hadn’t anticipated the strength of the hurricane. Or the depth of the flooding.

  “Have they returned?”

  She nodded, briefly touching the bruise on her cheek with a trembling hand. And Sonny cursed himself for noticing at such an inappropriate moment that the nails on her long and graceful fingers were painted a delicate pink.

  “Not on Monday,” she said, “but yesterday. Just before sunset. Long after I judged my entire family dead. Only one man came. He pounded on the door until I opened it and asked for the money and jewelry from the store. That’s when I told him that I thought the storm had killed Charlie. I begged him to return my grandchildren.”

  “How did he get here?” Sonny asked. “Did he walk? Was his clothing wet?”

  She nodded. And Sonny thought to himself that the kidnappers could not be too far away.

  “He demanded the combination for the safe,” Nga continued. “He said that they would go themselves to get what was owed them. I swear, I would have given it to him had I known it. But the store is Charlie’s business, not mine. When I told him that, he struck me. Called me a useless old woman. Then he said that everyone knew the Phams were wealthy and that we’d installed an alarm on our house to protect our valuables. I told him it was just for protection, for me and the children. Nothing more. But he didn’t believe me. He gave me a day to gather up my valuables. And then …”

  Nga’s face crumpled and tears began streaming down her cheeks. Sonny opened his arms to her and she pushed her face into his shoulder, sobbing out the rest of the story.

  “He said that they would bring the children back with them before sunset. That they would drown them in front of me if what I had to offer was not enough.”

  Sonny held her, letting her cry, knowing that her natural reserve would soon have her straightening in his arms, stepping away from him. And when that happened … He shook his head just a little, pushing away another stab of sorrow.

  A moment later, she did just what he’d expected. And then she walked past him, back through the foyer.

  Sonny followed her, saw her hesitate as she caught sight of Charlie’s body, then watched her straighten her spine and lift her chin. She walked to the base of the staircase. Kept her back to Sonny as she shook her head, laughed a little. It was a sound untouched by humor.

  “These … thugs would be disappointed to know that Charlie grew up more American than Vietnamese. He believes … believed … in banks. That’s where our money is kept. And most of the jewelry we own is in a safe deposit box. But still, there were a few things around the house.” She glanced over her shoulder at Sonny. “Shall I show you what I have?”

  Sonny nodded, then watched as she walked back up the carpeted stairs. Just past the landing, Nga bent to pick up a bundle tucked in the shadow of a step. Sonny saw that it was a lace-trimmed pillowcase.

  “I gathered up everything that those men might value,” she said as she came back down the stairs, then opened the bag for him to peer inside. “Credit cards. Bracelets, watches, rings. A few gold coins. All the cash I could find. Almost five hundred dollars. I have a key to the neighbor’s house, so I even went there, too. Looking for valuables they’d left behind. I found a few things.”

  Sonny imagined adding every bit of cash and jewelry he had to her bag and knew it would still not be enough for men who were willing to steal children. Though he said nothing, Nga sensed his doubt. Or perhaps she read it in his expression.

  Panic pinched her voice, making it shrill. “Then what shall I do?”

  Sonny murmured another prayer to the Virgin. For courage. And for a return of skills he thought he’d never use again. Not in America, where there was no war.

  “We will wait for them to come,” he said finally. “And we will get the children back.” Or we will all die in the attempt, he thought.

  Hours later, the men came back.

  For much of that time, Sonny had been waiting in the shelter of a collapsed carport opposite the Phams’ front yard. He’d been sitting above the water on a section of crossbeam, but when he saw the men approaching, he slipped into the water.

  There were three of them, just as Nga had said. Two moved through the deep water on either side of a raft created from a section of privacy fence. Another walked behind. They were bare-chested, golden-skinned, and muscular. Despite the masks they wore, it was easy to see that they were young men. A tattoo of a sinuous green dragon curled around each man’s upper right arm.

  The Pham children were sitting at the raft’s center, bound together shoulder-to-shoulder with duct tape. Facing outward. More duct tape covered their mouths. Above the tape, their eyes were terrified. It would take little effort, Sonny realized, to tip the raft and send the bundle of children tumbling into the water. Where they would certainly drown.

  The children shared the raft with three handguns.

  The procession stopped in front of the house, in front of the porch. Sonny watched as the two flanking men abandoned their positions and went up the steps. Two of the handguns went with them. They shouted loudly and waved the guns in Nga’s direction when she came to the door.

  Maximum intimidation, Sonny thought.

  One of the men pointed at the raft, clearly threatening.

  Nga nodded, looking nervous, but did just as she and Sonny had agreed. She gestured for them to come inside. To view the valuables she’d collected.

  “Keep them inside for as long as possible,” Sonny had instructed her, silently admiring her courage when she’d immediately agreed. They had spread the ransom across the dining room table, then gotten rid of the pillowcase so that gathering up the money and jewelry would be less convenient for the kidnappers.

  Nga had added to the plan: “There’s a wall safe upstairs. I’ll put half of the money back into it. When they demand more, I’ll reluctantly tell them about it. Then I’ll take them upstairs. After that, they can wait as I search the house for the extra jewelry I’ve just remembered.”

  “Smart,” Sonny’d said, and then he’d grinned at her. “Be sure to move slowly, old woman. That way you’ll give an old man the time that he needs.”

  Now, as he slipped quietly into the water, Sonny murmured another prayer to the Virgin. He apologized to her for previous transgressions, then asked her to intervene on his behalf. To ask the Lord’s forgiveness for what he was about to do.

  “Ban cung sinh dao tac,” he said finally. (“Necessity knows no la
ws.”) And he hoped that the old adage was respected in heaven, too.

  Then he made sure his grasp was firm around the razor-sharp filleting knife he’d taken from his tackle box when he’d briefly returned to his little house. And he moved forward, only his nose and eyes above the water’s surface, the top of his head camouflaged by a small, leafy branch. When he’d tested it, Nga had assured him that it looked as if the branch were merely floating loose on the water.

  Sonny had already checked his route, knew exactly where the obstacles lay between him and the porch. He moved forward quickly, detouring when he needed to, half-swimming, half-gliding through the water. Recalling how he’d once crossed rivers in just this way, intent on an enemy.

  The man who’d been left behind was entertaining himself by terrorizing the children. He had retrieved his gun and, with his free hand, was leaning on the raft, pushing it downward against the water’s pressure, then releasing it abruptly. He was laughing at the children’s muffled cries.

  Sonny emerged from the water directly behind him. He wrapped one arm around the young man’s shoulders as he slid the blade firmly across his throat. Just as he’d been taught back in Vietnam. Then he held the body for a moment, waiting for it to hang limp before lowering it slowly into the water.

  The gun sank before he could retrieve it, but that didn’t matter.

  He smiled at the children and touched his fingers to his lips. But he left them taped up and gagged. Impossible to trust ones so young to the silence that was essential to saving their lives. He pushed the raft back down the street, moving as quickly as he could, finally beaching it on his own tiny side porch.

  He took the children up into the attic.

  “Stay here,” he said in Vietnamese, and then again in English. “Your grandmother and I will be back soon.”

  He tossed them a package of cookies, then wedged the attic door shut from the outside so that they couldn’t follow him. They would die slowly, he knew, if he did not succeed. If he did not return.

  He went back to the Pham house.

  Just inside the living room, he stood on his tiptoes to reach past the ornate façade at the top of a mahogany display case. His shotgun, fetched from his attic hours earlier, was exactly where he’d placed it. Ready to use.

  He followed the angry voices. And the high-pitched wavering voice of a woman. One who Sonny knew was far too brave to be as panicked as she sounded. He crept up the stairs, now too busy concentrating to be praying. Then he swung around the corner into the master bedroom.

  Nga had backed away from the men, left them standing before the small wall safe. When she saw Sonny, she dove for cover behind the bed. Just as they’d agreed.

  “Drop your weapons,” Sonny said in Vietnamese, making the effort to keep his voice low and absolutely steady. “Or you’re dead men.”

  The two did as he said, turning to face his shotgun. Impossible to read the expressions on the faces beneath the masks. But Sonny didn’t much care what they thought. He marched them down the stairs at gunpoint. Into the water of the first floor. Past the place where Charlie’s body had been before he and Nga dragged it up to the second floor, placed it in the bathtub, gently wrapped it with a sheet.

  He showed them to the front door.

  “Your friend is dead,” he said. “But I was able to take back the children without killing you. Say your prayers tonight and thank God and the Virgin for your worthless lives.”

  Sonny stood on the porch, gun leveled in their direction, watching as they waded out into the deeper water.

  Nga had come downstairs, too, and stood just behind him.

  “The children are safe,” he murmured.

  “Kam ouen,” she replied quietly. (“Thank you.”)

  Sonny would have smiled, but just then one of the men stopped moving. He turned to face the porch, and his friend followed his lead.

  “As long as the water is high,” he shouted, “we own Village de l’Est! And we’ll be back. Perhaps we’ll take the woman next time.”

  The other kidnapper laughed, nodded.

  “Don’t sleep, old man. Because when you do—”

  Sonny begged for the Virgin’s understanding as he shot them both.

  Their bodies sank beneath the muddy water.

  LAWYERS’ TONGUES

  BY THOMAS ADCOCK

  Gentilly

  I hope that the one of my relations who come across this gift find a very exlent use for it since the old bag I hereby confess to steal it from was a lowdown evil person who actually deserve what I imagine they going to do to me up to Angola after they catch up to me, which is stick me with the ugly needle and put me down like a cat …

  Maybe there was ten thousand dollars’ worth of “gift” slipping around in my hands, maybe twenty. A sheaf of beautiful green-gray bills fluttered to the floor, along with Frank’s last letter to anybody. I stared at etchings of dead presidents on paper money. But all I could see, really, was the memory of my brother’s face, how it so often wore the expression of a mutt dog expecting to be cuffed.

  My brother wrote letters practically every day of his life, always on lined paper torn from the Big Chief notebooks he bought from Bynum’s Pharmacy. Frank bought Big Chiefs like other people buy newspapers and chewing gum.

  I picked up his letter from the floor.

  Probly you going to come across this here loot, Wussy Wally. You being the onlyest one of our so-called family ever care to be buzzing around my bizness …

  He always wrote in jet-black Sheaffer Skrip fountain pen ink. His handwriting was strangely elegant; surely that would seem most odd to those who didn’t care to know anything about Frank besides the worst thing about his record in life.

  He called me “Wussy Wally” only when it was just the two of us. I imagine Frank believed his little brother would be embarrassed otherwise. So I was properly Walter, or sometimes Walt, when anybody else was around.

  I considered the private name a gesture of my brother’s affection and gentleness. For indeed, I did care to know about the thoughtful dimensions of an angry man’s life.

  Frank was right. Nobody else cared anything about him beyond keeping him far away. All our uncles and aunts and cousins kept their doors shut to Frank—and, by extension, to me too. This was due to Frank’s light fingers. As Aunt-tee Viola said for the whole bunch of our relations, “That boy Frank, he’d steal anything but a red-hot stove.”

  But he was more than a thief, of course. Just as surely as crooks in high places got where they are because of doing some good things for people now and then. A man’s life is not so petty it can be measured up at the end as all good or all bad. Frank was plus and minus like anybody else, except for cheap schooling and black skin, which of course magnifies all minuses.

  When I recollect his plus side, I would describe Frank as a philosopher. The things he said!

  Such as things he’d whisper in the dark of night when we were boys in a shared room, me in one twin bed drifting off to sleep, Frank in his—only I can’t recall ever seeing him sleep. Frank would be sitting up, sounding out important thoughts before scratching them into a Big Chief by the light of a radio dial.

  One night it was, “It’s a damn lie they say down to Asia Baptist Church about God create us all equal. But anyhow, every life is a big deal.”

  Another night, “Since I am only a poor man walking around to save on funeral expenses, maybe I ought to find a way of doing somebody a good deed when I leave. That sound like suicide. Well, suicide is just a trick played on a calendar.”

  And another night, “I am too sad to be dangerous. I am sad as a dead bird in a birdbath.”

  The night I especially remember from back in those years came the summer when Frank turned sixteen—on his birthday, actually. Mama said he was a man now according to the law, and that a man didn’t need his mama’s birthday fuss anymore. Just about everything was a fuss for Mama by then. She had the sugar, and it was taking her down fast and furious, even faster than diabet
es killed Daddy six years before.

  So Frank and I went out and had a birthday party, thanks to thirty-one dollars I’d squirreled away for the big occasion. Frank knew how to spend it, due to his knowledge of where a couple of teenage boys could purchase whiskey and the attentions of certain ladies who frequented the alley behind the Star Lounge on Senate Street.

  I remember Frank grabbing hard on my arm when a police siren sounded faintly in the distance. The party was over for some reason; I didn’t bother to ask why, as my brother was long in the habit of cringing and fleeing whenever a siren went off. I remember a party lady’s voice calling out behind us—“Where y’all going, baby?”—as we sprinted together up the alley and around over to Harrison Avenue toward home.

  It was the hottest night I have ever known, running aside. So hot the chameleons that usually skittered across the screens outside our bedroom windows were hanging loose by their sticky little toes, and I swear they panted like hounds under a porch. I don’t believe I slept any more that night than Frank did.

  In one of the tiny hours, Frank whispered something that froze the sweat on my neck. He cursed the city is what he did.

  The page where he wrote down that curse must have floated off with Katrina someplace, along with all the rest of Frank’s life collection of Big Chiefs. But I don’t need that long-lost page to remind me of what he said.

  “New Orleans be a jazzy town,” he said, “full of dead markers, a funeral urn of polished-up brass on top a flowery grave, and underneath the box going rotten.”

  So there I was in our old room in the old house—what was left of it—with all that money slipping and sliding through my shaking hands. I stepped over to a smashed-out window and took a sneaky look through a slit in the plywood cover to make sure no wrong numbers were out there in the street or the yard picking through trash or casing storm-bashed houses or otherwise prowling around.