I carefully folded the note and put it in my pocket, trying not to think about the fact that Sunshine had come looking for me in the last hours of her life—and I had been out dealing with the Flynn wanna-be and his fat henchman. A phone call and a note, and I’d missed both. Were they related to her murder? A cry for help? If so, why me and not Bone? Especially since they had a history.
Bone was gone. Looking around the Calf I spotted Alex, sitting at the bar. A tiny thing, mostly angular bones and big eyes, Alex wore her dark hair cropped so close she almost looked like a young boy sometimes. She was one of those devouring readers that could knock out a book in a sitting—lots of science fiction and fantasy. She also enjoyed counted cross-stitch as a hobby. A knapsack full of yarn sat at her feet, her cross-stitch busywork for lulls at her job at Pat O’Brians gift shop. She looked up at my approach and gave me a wan smile.
In an odd flip-flop, I’d actually met her before I’d met Bone, and was subsequently surprised when we all crossed paths at the Calf one night. No real reason for my surprise, though. Quarterites’ lives are practically braided together, whether we like it or not. That two people I’d met independently happened to be friends from the same town was nothing extraordinary. I would chat with Alex when our paths crossed, mostly the play flirting that passes for conversation here. It didn’t take me long to realize that she had no real interest in me, but was totally devoted to Bone, though he seemed not to realize that. We still flirted, but nothing serious. It was just a fun way to kill some time without really showing each other any important cards.
“Where’s Bone?”
Her voice was a little unsteady. “He left. Said he’d be back.”
I felt a pang of unease. I had wanted him to stay put. “Did he say where he was going, exactly?” I asked, more directly than I wanted to. Caginess is second nature to me. But, then again, Alex was a good egg, and I only had Bone’s welfare in mind.
“No, Maestro.” Her eyes were a bit red. “He just said something about finding out what people know about Sunshine. Why don’t you sit down, wait for him to get back?” She gestured toward the adjacent stool.
Padre eyed me from down the bar, to see if I wanted a drink. I did, but ...
“Thanks, darling, but no. This has been a rough night. I think I’ll head home.”
Alex gave me a kind of numb little farewell hug. I nodded a goodbye to Padre, leaving him to tend to the crowd of grieving locals that was bigger now than when I’d ducked out earlier. Padre and I wouldn’t be talking pool-team strategies tonight.
I lit a cigarette as I stepped again into the humid outdoors. Another glass of Irish would have been very welcome, but Bone was out here somewhere. I wanted to keep him from doing anything rash or stupid, if I could ... even though I still wasn’t sure where this protective impulse was coming from.
I started down St. Peter, toward Bourbon. Maybe I was doing something stupid myself.
The Quarter hasn’t changed much since September 11th. That’s not a sad commentary on our backwardness or tradition of isolationism. Locals themselves will tell you that New Orleans lags behind the rest of the nation by decades. Our schools and civic services are supposed to be sub-par, of Third World quality. I don’t know how true any of that is. But here it’s easy sometimes to forget about other places. The Quarter is its own world. In some ways it feels like the 1800s have never lost their hold on the area.
It was certainly a drastic change for me when I came down from Detroit ten years ago.
Ten years ... sometimes that seems like a lot more time than it’s been. Other times, not nearly enough. I mentally snickered at myself. Apparently I’d been living on “Quarter time” too long. I couldn’t calibrate myself with the outside world’s calendar anymore.
Bourbon Street was winding down, though it usually doesn’t completely die until sunrise. The street was littered with plastic drink cups, spilled booze, and assorted bits of trash, and reeked of stale beer—just what you’d expect in the aftermath of any good frat party. Taxis scurried up the cross streets, gathering up partied-out tourists to take them back to their hotels. Two cops rode by on horseback. To the tourists, they were undoubtedly a colorful, quaint sight, but they were out here working. The horses gave them the height to see over crowds and the maneuverability to navigate narrow alleyways. And even the largest, most belligerent drunk would have a hard time pushing around fifteen hundred pounds of horse. I slowed a bit, idly watching as a couple stumbled by across the street—a coed wearing a green boa and one spike-heeled shoe, borne along by a guy who looked embarrassed enough to be her boyfriend.
There is a strong police presence in the French Quarter, but in order for it to be as safe as the theme park most visitors seem to think it is, cops would have to be camped on every corner. On certain occasions that is nearly true. Our city hosted a Super Bowl following September 11th. And of course, every year there’s Mardi Gras. Both events sprouted police everywhere, not to mention the Feds and the Guard. At such times I tend to lay very low.
But this was just a normal, lackluster summer night, with no conventions in town and nothing remarkable happening. Nothing except a murder by the river. Rose was probably right. The incident would likely get played down by those City agencies interested in maintaining a good image for the Quarter.
What else had she been right about? The Moon, the Two of Cups, the Nine of Swords: a dangerous undertaking, the appearance of a lover/partner, and the Lord of Despair. Swell, I thought, then pushed it out of my head. Like I said, the cards can get you second-guessing yourself into as much trouble as they can help you avoid.
I had covered two blocks of Bourbon, heading in the direction of the Marigny, taking a casual look into every place I passed. Alex had said Bone had gone out to ask around about Sunshine. I figured that would take him where the most people were. Hopefully he hadn’t actually gone to the river after all.
I found myself in front of Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo, an older one-story shop on the corner of St. Ann Street. I thought again about the rumors of a Voodoo involvement in the murder. Would Bone have come here? The shop was closed down tight for the night. If there were any answers in there, they would have to wait.
I looked down Bourbon at clusters of wilted balloons, remnants of some earlier celebration, that hung from the balconies. Music and laughter spilled out of the bars across the street, both still jumping despite the late hour. St. Ann Street supposedly splits the straight and gay halves of the Quarter. From what I’ve witnessed, though, those aren’t distinct realms. I suppose I know a lot more gays here than I knew up North, and in the Quarter they don’t segregate themselves. Neither do most locals give a rat’s ass about anyone else’s sexual orientation. So we get male bartenders with boyfriends working in “straight” bars, and heterosexual couples going into the two mostly gay dance clubs in front of me.
I didn’t figure that Bone would have gone trolling for information in either club, though. I turned around to follow Bourbon in the other direction, toward the CBD—the Central Business District.
“Hey, Maestro!”
I was used to being hailed on the street, but right now I didn’t have time for neighborly chitchat. I did a fast scan and saw someone coming toward me. I recognized the walk before the name came to me. Fencing had taught me to study an individual’s gait and body language.
Jet had been a decent stick when he shot for several league sessions a few years ago. He’d also been a notorious bad sport who contested every close-call shot and made a general pest of himself during the pool games.
“In a hurry, Jet. Can’t talk.” He had asked for a spot on my team roster before, which wasn’t going to happen.
I could smell the alcohol in his sweat as he stepped up, silvered hair sticking up in an unruly wad from his balding head. Jet was my age and drank about twice as much as someone of our years should. “Maestro,
ya hurd?”
I guessed he’d heard about Sunshine. “Like I said, Jet, I’m in a ...”
“Somebody’s lookin’ for yuh.”
I was turning away. I stopped. I measured him with my eyes. Jet was loaded, but not exceedingly drunk. I took a few steps away from the corner, and he followed, to a quieter patch of sidewalk.
“Want to tell me about that?” I kept my voice low and level.
He licked his lips. “Guy goin’ ’round. He’s askin’ for yuh. By name.”
That meant “Maestro,” since nobody but my landlord and Padre knew the name that appears on my bogus state ID—which, of course, isn’t the name I was born with.
“Did you see this ... guy?”
“Naw. I was up to the Abbey earlier, heard ’bout somebody, a guy, nobody knew ’im, and he’s askin’ ‘Where’s Maestro, any y’all seen Maestro,’ like that. O’course nobody tells ’im shit, y’know. I heard he was goin’ along Decatur doin’ the same thing.”
“This was when?”
Jet’s bloodshot eyes narrowed as he thought. “Half hour. Forty-five. Not too long.”
That was roughly the time that word about Sunshine had reached the Calf. Was that significant? I didn’t know.
“Well, thanks for the heads-up,” I said sincerely.
“Sure. Hey, I ...” I could see him getting ready to ask again about getting on the team. Then he shrugged and said, “Sure,” and slipped off up St. Ann.
Jet wasn’t a friend, but it wasn’t shocking that he was giving me this warning. There are things that put Quarterites on automatic alert. One of them is strangers making inquiries. Some, but not a lot, of locals are ducking warrants and parole officers. Some are paranoid about the IRS showing up unannounced on their doorsteps. Whatever, xenophobia is the Quarter’s most common disease—though some would argue for alcoholism. Asking questions about a local quickly causes the wagons to circle. Suddenly, nobody knows nothing. Doesn’t really matter if you like the person or not. It’s almost jailhouse code.
I certainly didn’t like the idea of someone looking for me. It could, of course, be a simple misunderstanding. I counted off the bars along Decatur, thought of the bartenders I knew, and who was on what shift. I wanted more information than Jet had provided.
I was still standing there a few steps back from the corner. My eyes were darting around, scanning the people milling around the clubs’ entrances, the occupants of passing cars. My normal healthy state of cautious awareness was turned up several notches, so that the sweat on the back of my neck wasn’t entirely due to the heat anymore.
There were extreme possibilities here, very extreme. I forced myself not to mentally follow them to their conclusions. I’d been in danger much more tangible than this, and at just over half a century old, I was still walking and breathing.
I reversed course back down Bourbon, taking only a few steps before it hit me out of the blue where Bone might be. For a few seconds I’d actually forgotten him, which was why my subconscious had probably furnished the answer. I moved on at a faster pace, hoping I wasn’t right about his whereabouts.
For the record, I’ve got nothing against naked women, but even if I had never been married, I still wouldn’t make a habit of visiting strip clubs. It’s not prudishness on my part, not lingering Catholic school behavioral inhibitions. Neither do I go out of my way to object to the objectifying of women. One doesn’t need to shimmy naked and publicly to feel cheap and exploited and a whore for tips. Ask any waiter.
As gentleman’s clubs go, Big Daddy’s wasn’t at all seedy. New Orleans’ romantically sleazy Storyville past is just that—past. Advertised as Bourbon Street’s only ‘topless, bottomless club,’ Big D’s was more like Disneyland—for adults. A pair of high-heeled mechanical legs, complete with stockings, swung back and forth out the front window, drawing the attention of Bourbon Street crowds, much like balloons might draw a child’s attention at the fair. Inside, all was virtually antiseptic. Crisp lighting, air-conditioning cold enough to nearly freeze my summer-sweaty T-shirt to me, a bouncer’s alert/disinterested eyes robotically watching, all combined to make the climate feel—what? Fake? Contrived? You mean those beautiful buxom babes aren’t dancing up there strictly for my enjoyment? They ... they just work here? You mean this isn’t real?
Pornography is as pornography does.
The patrons crowded the seats nearest the one occupied stage—frat-boy cretins that could be the same ones who’d hassled Nicki at the restaurant earlier, and maybe were, along with middle-aged and much, much older men. Their voices slavered and cheered above the soulless, bass-heavy music pounding the air. I didn’t know the girl twirling around the pole on the stage, and didn’t study her long enough to figure out if her bare, gravity-defying breasts were real.
Hardly a turn-on. I didn’t join in the ogling, didn’t want to be mistaken for one of the simps down front. Stayed instead back by the bar, ordered a shockingly expensive rummincoke from the tall female bartender, and tipped good anyway. That’s ingrained. I’ve had quite a few years now in this industry, having no other marketable talents, and very quickly tipping becomes sacred. (If you’ve got no education and no prospects, go wait tables.) It works both ways, as do most things in the Quarter. When I wait on bartenders and fellow wait-folk at the restaurant, I can expect generous gratuities.
I watched the spike-haired waitress work the customers by the stage, noting and recognizing her naturally sensual movements. She came up beside me to set her tray on the bartop and place her order with the bartender.
“Bone,” she acknowledged me. I saw raw eyes in her heavily made-up face.
“Chanel.” I’d served her at the restaurant often enough that we knew each other’s names.
“If you’re looking for a job, we don’t hire male dancers.”
It was standard smartass banter. But her voice sounded scraped and quivery. She was just barely holding herself together; so was I. And we both were wearing our tough fronts.
I wasn’t about to make it a contest. “I came to ask about Sunshine.”
I said it quietly, under the music, so the bartender didn’t hear as she set glasses and beers onto Chanel’s tray. Chanel heard, and her painted features went still.
Finally she said, “What ... do you want to know, Bone? We only heard a little while ago. I only know she’s dead. Stabbed.” A shrill note of anger, one I recognized, punctuated her last word. Her bare eyes drilled me.
“That’s all I know too. Chanel ... please. Sunshine was ... she was special to me. We go back. I just want to know ...” And here my breath was suddenly gone. I locked gazes with her; and perhaps there was something to be read in my eyes.
“Who did it,” she finished for me.
“Yeah, who did it.” My lungs restarted. My heart beat slow and hard.
“I don’t know that.” Chanel took up her tray.
I nodded. “But I want to find out. I want to know who killed Sunshine.” I realized the club’s management might be watching, and I didn’t want Chanel getting any flak for loitering to talk to me.
She stood there a moment. “Look, I’m out of here in fifteen. Okay?” And without waiting for me to say anything, headed back toward the stage where the grandly-endowed girl was mock-humping the face of a man who looked old enough to have stormed the beaches at Normandy.
I drank off my drink, too fast, feeling it in the bones around my eyes. I hadn’t eaten dinner tonight—didn’t like eating on-shift—and tried to remember a meal before that. Nothing came.
The dancer finished her set, and a new one appeared on the second stage, causing the college kids and old men to migrate over. While I don’t knock the stripping profession, per se, I don’t know if it attracts self-damaging individuals or creates them. I’ve known two dancers in my life who have overdosed, and one who is serving a ten-year mansl
aughter stretch for putting a 9-millimeter to her sleeping boyfriend’s forehead and pulling the trigger. That the boyfriend used to pound her like a gong hadn’t seemed to impress the cops much, but the jury took it carefully into account.
When I stepped outside, the steamy air was almost welcome after the club’s deep freeze. I picked a patch of wall, leaned, and waited. Sunshine had been waiting tables at Big Daddy’s, not peeling, I reminded myself needlessly. But ... hadn’t she already been on a self-destructive trajectory? And, if I was going to be brutally honest, she had been since we’d moved here. For that matter, even before we got together. Bad relationship choices—so bad and so consistent, in fact, they had to be deliberate on some level. Her high-strung personality had been volatile, but not panicky. Actually she was a good one to have around in a crisis. Still, she had that penchant for strong emotions, and her flirtation with drugs had been more serious than I’d let myself think. And what of our relationship? Was I the only decent man she’d ever been with, or was I just fooling myself? That scene at Molly’s between us, when she’d showed up wrecked and we’d ended up screaming at each other ... Christ. It still made me wince.
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