A Statue for Jacob

by Peter Murphy

  ‘It is a possibility,’ I agreed, ‘and if we never find them, maybe we will conclude that they did. But for now, we are going to work on the assumption that at least some of them survived. If we can find even one, it might be almost as good as finding them all.’

  ‘How do you figure that?’ Arlene asked.

  ‘If you don’t have a document, or a copy of it,’ I replied, ‘the next best thing is evidence to prove that someone destroyed the document – especially if that someone had a lot to lose if the document were ever to be produced to a court. If we only find one surviving loan certificate, the obvious question is: what happened to the rest of them? And if the answer to that is that the government may have destroyed them, a sympathetic judge might go with us.’

  ‘There’s something else, too,’ Powalski added. ‘Even if the government got rid of the certificates they had, there are still the ones Jacob gave to his friend for safekeeping.’

  ‘But how do we know who this friend was?’ Arlene asked. ‘Assuming it ever happened in the first place.’

  ‘We don’t, right now,’ Powalski conceded. ‘But Aunt Meg bent my ear for a good hour. She’s one of the main proponents of the theory that Jacob didn’t hand everything over to the government, and she says she has some evidence to back it up.’

  I felt my heart race again.

  ‘What evidence?’

  ‘She wouldn’t say. She said the lobby was too public. She will show it to us when the time is right.’

  ‘When the time is right?’ Arlene protested. ‘What in the hell does she mean by that? How is this not the right time?’

  ‘I think she means, not during the reunion,’ Powalski replied. ‘Aunt Meg strikes me as the cautious type, and with people like Mary Jane Perrins around, I can’t say I blame her. I think she’ll be as good as her word. I don’t think she was bullshitting me.’

  We were silent for some time.

  ‘The hell with it,’ Arlene said suddenly. ‘Come on, y’all. There ain’t no point sitting here moping about stuff we can’t fix, leastwise not today. Let’s get our asses out of here.’

  ‘Where to?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Where to?’ Arlene replied. ‘Hun, it’s Saturday night and we’re in the city of N’Orleans, the Big Easy. It’s time to party, girl.’

  ‘Are you going to show us the town?’ I asked.

  ‘I surely am.’

  ‘Are you going to lead us astray?’ Sam asked. She had perked up again, and was smiling.

  ‘I’m sure going to do my damndest, hun.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were an expert on New Orleans,’ I smiled.

  ‘Hun,’ Arlene replied, ‘if you live in Lubbock, Texas, you need a place to party, and it sure ain’t gonna be any place in Texas, and it sure as hell ain’t going to be Lubbock, Texas. No, ma’am. If you live in Lubbock, Texas, and it’s time to play, you head for the airport and you get yourself on a flight to N’Orleans. So, yeah, I’ve spent some time in this town, and I reckon by now I know my way around. Y’all coming, or what?’

  22

  ‘Whoa, slow down, hun,’ Arlene said. She placed a restraining hand on Sam’s arm and lowered the hand in which she held the famous bulbous glass. ‘That ain’t no fruit juice you’re drinking. Take it slow.’

  ‘It tastes like fruit juice,’ Sam protested. ‘I’m not tasting any alcohol.’

  ‘With the really lethal concoctions you never do, hun,’ Arlene grinned. ‘But trust me, the alcohol is there. You drink that too fast, and you’re going to be sitting on some corner on Bourbon Street early tomorrow morning trying to remember your name.’

  ‘Are you speaking from personal experience?’ I asked.

  ‘There are some things you don’t ask a gal in New Orleans,’ she replied, ‘and that’s one of them.’

  The fresh air had felt good as we walked from the Intercontinental across Canal Street into the French Quarter. The walk and the air somehow blew away the exertions of the day. The Quarter was warming up for the evening, and there were a lot of people on the streets, but it was still only just after seven, early by New Orleans standards. Arlene had steered us straight to St Peter Street, and had managed to usher us into Pat O’Brien’s before it got too crowded. At her insistence we ordered the legendary ‘Hurricane’ – except for Powalski, who stuck resolutely to his Jack Daniels over ice – and adjourned to the rear garden to enjoy the drink and the balmy air. We were beginning to relax now. The alcohol was indeed there, and as always after a hard day, it loosened us up. It felt good.

  ‘The last time I was here in Pat O’Brien’s,’ Arlene said during a rare lull in the conversation, ‘was just after I finally threw my useless, no-good, asshole of a husband out of the house. It was that very weekend. I left Bubba with my momma and flew out to New Orleans, determined to spend what little money he’d left me before the goddamn debt collectors could get their hands on it. And I’m here to tell you, I did a pretty good job of it.’

  ‘What did your husband do that you had to throw him out?’ Powalski asked. He and Sam hadn’t heard the story. ‘Was he running around on you?’

  ‘Well, he was a hard dog to keep on the porch,’ Arlene replied. ‘He never could keep his pants zipped up for long. But it wasn’t the screwing around that did us in. Truth to tell, I could have matched him screw for screw if I’d had a mind to, and I was past caring by then. What did us in was the betting and the drinking – the betting, mainly. The booze cost him his job, but it was the gambling that did the real damage. Even now I don’t know much money went that way. He borrowed from the bank on our house until they wouldn’t lend him any more, and after that he borrowed from the Texas Mafia.’

  ‘The Texas Mafia?’ Sam grinned.

  ‘You bet your ass, hun. Oh, they might not be the Cosa Nostra. They might just be a couple of good old boys driving a pickup truck with Willie Nelson playing on the sound system and a dog in the back and a couple of shotguns on the gun rack. They ain’t gonna leave no horse’s head under your pillow. But you still don’t want to mess with them. I got the hell out of Dodge as soon as I got back from N’Orleans, before they had time to find me. I took Bubba and headed for Virginia and that’s where I’m fixin’ to stay.’

  ‘What happened to the asshole husband?’ Powalski asked.

  ‘Damned if I know, and damned if I give a tinker’s cuss what happened to him. If they took a shotgun and blew his balls off, I would give them a high five.’

  ‘You’re not planning to reconcile then, I guess?’ Powalski asked. We all laughed out loud, good and long.

  ‘But I sure did spend some money in this town while I had the chance,’ Arlene said, draining her Hurricane glass. ‘I stayed at the Monteleone. I ate at Antoine’s, Commander’s Palace, the Court of the Two Sisters – every good restaurant I could fit into a long weekend, ending up with Monday brunch at Brennan’s before I headed out to the airport.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Including Tujague’s,’ she said, ‘where I took the liberty of booking us a table in about twenty minutes. We need to haul ass.’

  ‘You booked us a table?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, sure. I booked as soon as I knew we were going to be here. It’s Saturday night in N’Orleans, hun. You can’t just walk into a restaurant without a reservation – leastways, not one y’all would want to eat in. Come one, drink up.’

  ‘I could go for another of those Hurricanes,’ Sam said, emptying her glass reluctantly.

  ‘You really don’t want to do that,’ Arlene said authoritatively.

  23

  We walked quickly through the growing crowds down to Decatur Street, turning left towards the French Market, and arrived at Tujague’s right on time. We were shown into the elegant panelled restaurant at the rear of the building, where a corner table awaited us.

  ‘It’s the second or third oldest restaurant in New Orleans,’ Arlene announced proudly a
s the waiter seated us. ‘I forget.’

  The waiter smiled. ‘Second, ma’am,’ he said politely.

  ‘Second,’ Arlene repeated.

  Powalski whispered conspiratorially with the waiter for some time, and within five minutes, as we were browsing through the menu and chatting, absinthe-style shots appeared for all of us, accompanied by two bottles of an excellent California chardonnay for dinner.

  ‘I’m taking care of the drinks tonight,’ he announced. ‘Cheers.’ He downed his shot in one, and we all followed suit. He signalled to the waiter, and a second shot arrived in seconds.

  ‘You’ve been pretty quiet tonight, Powalski,’ Arlene said. ‘But you sure have the waiter following you like a faithful old hunting dog. Do you have some history in this town you haven’t told us about?’

  ‘There are some things you don’t ask a guy in New Orleans,’ he replied, ‘and that’s one of them.’

  ‘OK. You got me there,’ Arlene laughed.

  ‘So, what do you recommend?’ Sam asked.

  ‘You ever had crawfish étoufée?’ Arlene asked her.

  ‘Never.’

  ‘It’s to die for. It’s one of the great Creole or Cajun dishes – I’m never sure what the right word is.’ She turned to Powalski and me. ‘Y’all ever had the étoufée?’

  ‘Never,’ I replied.

  ‘Years ago,’ Powalski said.

  ‘During the time we’re not allowed to ask you about?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Well, I’m up for trying it now,’ I said.

  ‘Way to go, girl. And you might want to try the lobster bisque to start. And don’t forget to leave room for the bread pudding with whisky sauce.’

  ‘You may have to carry me out of here later,’ I grinned.

  ‘There’ll be some big dude called ’t-Jean who’ll carry you all the way back to St Charles Avenue for five dollars, hun, trust me,’ she said.

  ‘You I trust,’ I replied. ‘I’m not sure about ’t-Jean.’

  We finished with a chicory coffee and a glass of Armagnac, by which time we had forgotten all about the trials and tribulations of the day; even Mary Jane Perrins of Boston, Massachusetts, had lost her menace. We had been talking one on one for some time, but then there was one of those silences that come about sometimes when several individual conversations happen to finish at the same moment, and in the silence Powalski spoke up.

  ‘I was here several times during my training with the CIA,’ he said. ‘We used New Orleans for tradecraft games, street work. It’s a good place to learn to follow people, or to lose them. The crowds are a huge challenge, and there are so many places, little side streets and alleyways you never notice when you’re just walking around, to disappear into. It’s perfect, especially at night in the Quarter when there are so many people on the street. We used to spend hours following each other, and then, when we were off duty, we would go out on the town. I got to know the bars and restaurants pretty well.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Arlene said after a pause. ‘But I think there’s more.’

  ‘So do I,’ Sam said. ‘Come on, Powalski. Out with it.’

  He drained his Armagnac and raised a finger in the direction of the waiter, which was all it took to produce another.

  ‘I met this woman,’ he said simply.

  ‘I knew it,’ Arlene said.

  ‘She was a lawyer, actually, had her own practice in the city doing family cases and such. She was really something. I met her here, as a matter of fact – not in the restaurant here, in the bar at the front, where we came in. I was waiting for a couple of colleagues; we were going to have dinner, and there she was, sitting at the bar. We got talking, and we exchanged phone numbers, and it went from there.’

  ‘It went from there?’ Arlene protested. ‘What in the hell does that mean? You can tell us, Powalski. We’re pretty broad-minded, ain’t we, ladies? I reckon we’ve heard it all before.’

  Sam and I nodded.

  ‘Not much to tell,’ Powalski said. ‘We had an affair. It was very special. She was very special. But then my training came to an end, and I had to leave. The last sight I had of her was after our last drink together on Jackson Square on a misty autumn evening, watching her disappear into the mist as she left.’

  We were silent for some time. I think it was the sense of inevitability about it that shook us.

  ‘That was it?’ I asked. ‘You didn’t try to keep in touch?’

  He shook his head. ‘When you work for the Company it’s not exactly conducive to stable relationships. You can be moved anywhere at a moment’s notice. I didn’t see what I had to offer her. I did make inquiries after I left the CIA, some years later. By that time, she had married and moved to California.’

  ‘Didn’t that…?’ Sam began. She didn’t finish the question.

  ‘It broke my heart,’ he replied. ‘I’m still not over it, and I don’t know whether I ever will be.’

  Sam’s turn came. She’d had a series of boyfriends, none serious, which she attributed to her unpredictable life as an actress. She was torn. On the one hand, she loved her life and hated any thoughts of giving it up. On the other, there was something missing, and she was aware of the ticking of her biological clock. Life wasn’t simple any more. There was one young man who was showing an interest, and she didn’t know what to do. She was worrying about it.

  Which left me. Of course, Arlene knew about the Week in outline, but the only person I had fully confided in about that horrific period in my life was Arya. Sitting in her house, with the tea and the incense and the foot rubs, I had eventually brought myself to tell her the whole dreadful business – the devastating loss of my parents; the eviscerating sense of betrayal, of worthlessness, when Jordan cast me aside as casually as a necktie he had lost his taste for; the nightmares and the nights I spent throwing up – all of which was then still my daily experience of living.

  I had hated talking about it. It was like torturing myself all over again. At first it had made me feel weak, foolish, defeated. As time went on, and as Arya listened without judging, I gained confidence that talking about it was also helping me to move on – painfully slowly, it was true – but moving on, nonetheless. But it was never easy, and never once in all that time did it occur to me to open up to anyone else. It was far too personal and far too humiliating. Despite what Arya had told me time and time again, I could still convince myself with little effort that everything that had happened was somehow my own fault.

  Now, without warning, on this evening, in this city and in this restaurant I didn’t know at all, there was a silence that meant it was my turn to share – yet another kind of silence to scare me. But scary as it was, I felt I was among friends. Yes, our relationship was a professional one and a relatively new one, and yes, it would be the wine talking, to some extent – I was drunk enough and sober enough to know that. But I had embarked on something special with these friends. They had all opened up in their own way and it hadn’t hurt them. Perhaps I could take a chance.

  So I clutched my wine glass, took a long drink, and told my friends about the Week from Hell, about the nightmares, and about Arya. The only time I cried was when I talked about how much I missed my parents. That wound was still so raw, it was almost unbearable. As I talked about them, Sam took my hand and held it between hers, and kept it there until I had said all I wanted to say. Then, something wonderful happened. When I moved on to talk about Jordan, I cried no tears. I felt no urge to cry at all. Suddenly, Jordan was no more to me than a bad taste in my mouth which I spat out with every word; by the end, he was just another typically arrogant asshole of a corporate lawyer who’d had the staggeringly original idea of cheating on his partner by banging his secretary. Suddenly, Jordan was something that had happened to me in my past, something I had put behind me, something that no longer had any importance in my life whatsoever. Wh
en I announced this, there was a spontaneous burst of applause around the table.

  The drink was catching up with me now. But I knew the difference between the drink and the demons that had followed me for the past year. And I knew that the demons, if not gone altogether, were in retreat. It was an exhilarating feeling. I felt free again.

  ‘I know a couple of good old boys with shotguns,’ Arlene suggested. ‘I could give them a call if y’all want him taken care of.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to waste their time,’ I replied.

  As we left Tujague’s, each of my friends gave me a long hug, and Sam walked arm in arm with me all the way back to the Intercontinental.

  24

  Dave Petrosian

  I’d arranged to meet Kiah for lunch. For some reason I couldn’t quite define, I’d wanted her to have my pleadings as soon as the ink was dry on them, and handing them to her in person somehow seemed the right thing to do. It wasn’t the standard procedure, obviously. Civil procedure has moved on a bit since every piece of paper had to be delivered personally to the recipient. I could easily have sent the pleadings to her electronically, which nowadays is the usual way of communicating with opposing counsel. If I had been worrying about them being missed, lying overlooked and unopened in her inbox, I could have sent them over to her office by messenger, or I could simply have given her a call to make sure she checked her email. But I did none of those things. I arranged to meet her for lunch. Why? It was because these particular pleadings were so final, I convinced myself eventually. It was because they were about to bring the case of Samantha van Eyck (individually and on behalf of all those similarly situated) v United States to an abrupt end. So what? I got cases dismissed on some procedural ground or other, I got summary judgment against some plaintiff or other, on a regular basis. What made this case so special? What made it special, I admitted to myself eventually, was that I was going to miss it.