‘Hi,’ she said. ‘You must be Victor’s dad.’
I smiled and stepped into the room. ‘I am, yes,’ I replied. ‘And you are?’
She rose from the chair and walked towards me. She had on her skirt and tee-shirt, but her feet were bare, dirty from where she must have walked along the street, perhaps dancing, living life, loving all that New Orleans represented in this most passionate season.
‘Emilie,’ she said, and then she spelled it for me. ‘Emilie Devereau.’ For a moment she looked a little awkward. ‘I met Victor last night. We were a little drunk.’ She laughed, and the sound was beautiful, a sound I had perhaps heard too little of in this life of mine. ‘I live upstate, quite a distance away. I was going to get a hotel room . . . we went everywhere but they were all filled up to bursting. Victor said it would be okay if I just crashed here—’
I raised my hand; I smiled once more. ‘There is no explanation needed, Emilie. You are here with Victor and you are more than welcome. Would you care for some breakfast?’
‘Oh hell yes, I could eat a dead dog if it had enough ketchup on it.’
I laughed. She laughed too. She was more than pretty. She carried herself with elegance and grace. She was about the same age as Victor, a little younger perhaps, and there was something about her that told me here was someone who could capture his heart effortlessly. Here was someone who would teach him to forget Elizabetta Pertini.
I turned back to my room. She followed me. Within a minute or two room service came with breakfast – fresh fruit, warm bread, some cheese and baked gammon, eggs Benedict, orange juice and coffee. We sat facing one another at the small table by the open window, the breeze from outside lifting and separating the fine organdy curtains, and with it came the scent of bougainvillea and mimosa.
‘So what do you do?’ she asked as she poured juice into my glass.
I shrugged. ‘I am retired now,’ I replied.
‘And before you retired?’
‘I worked all across America, traveled a great deal.’
‘Like a salesman or something?’
I shook my head. ‘No, I was not a salesman.’ I paused for a moment. ‘More like a troubleshooter perhaps, a troubleshooter for businesses, you know?’
She nodded. ‘So you’d like go somewhere and if something wasn’t working right in someone’s business you’d fix it?’
‘Yes, I would fix things, make them work again.’
She nodded approvingly. ‘Cool,’ she said, and then glanced over her shoulder towards the door to the adjoining room. ‘You figure I should go call Victor or something?’
‘He’s okay . . . let him sleep. Seems you wore him out, young lady.’
She looked at me askance, and then she blushed. ‘We didn’t . . . we didn’t . . . well, you know—’
I laughed. ‘Victor is not used to dancing for hours on end. He has come from somewhere where dancing was not his first order of business.’
‘He’s cool though . . he’s a nice guy.’
I nodded. ‘I think so, yes.’
Emilie looked at me, her expression momentarily pensive. ‘Where’s his mom? Is she gonna come down for the Mardi Gras too?’
‘No, Emilie, she’s not. Victor’s mother died when he was a very young boy.’
‘Oh hell, that’s awful. What happened?’
‘An automobile accident,’ I said. ‘There was an automobile accident and his mother and his sister were killed. It was many years ago.’
‘Hell, I’m sorry, Mr Perry.’
I smiled. ‘Perez,’ I said. ‘It’s Ernesto Perez,’ and then I spelled it for her which she found very amusing, and the moment of sadness was gone.
‘So what you guys doing down here?’
‘We came for the Mardi Gras.’
‘Right, right,’ she said. ‘Me too. You been here before?’
‘I was born here,’ I said. ‘A thousand years ago I was born right here in New Orleans, a little town outside of the city.’
‘And Victor was born here too?’
‘No, he was born in Los Angeles.’
‘Like Los Angeles in California?’
I nodded. ‘The very same.’
‘Wow, that’s cool. So he’s like Californian, like the Beach Boys or something?’
‘Yes, like the Beach Boys.’
She nodded. She paused to eat her eggs. She glanced back over her shoulder towards the half-open door at Victor still collapsed on the bed.
‘Go,’ I said. ‘Go wake him up. Tell him to come and have breakfast with the family.’
She smiled wide. She almost fell off the chair and hurried back through to the adjoining room. She struggled to wake Victor, but finally he slurred resentfully into semi-consciousness, and when he realized that she was up, that I was right through in the next room sitting at breakfast, he rolled sideways off the mattress and hit the floor. She was laughing then, dragging him to his feet, pulling him across the room and to the table, where he sat down heavily. He looked as if he’d gone ten rounds with Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom.
‘Dad,’ he said matter-of-factly.
‘Victor,’ I said, and smiled. ‘I think perhaps you should drink this.’ I handed him a bowl of hot black coffee. He took it, held the bowl between his hands, and then he looked sideways at Emilie and smiled sheepishly.
‘You met Emilie then?’ he said.
‘That pleasure I have had already, yes,’ I replied.
Victor nodded, looking at me as if he figured I might need an explanation. I smiled at him. I sensed him relax. ‘I’m gonna take a shower,’ he said. ‘If that’s okay with you guys.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Emilie and I will sit here and talk for a little while.’
I watched Victor head back to his own room. At the doorway he glanced back and smiled at Emilie. She waved him through the door and turned back to me.
‘We went everywhere looking for a hotel,’ she said. ‘Everywhere was booked out completely and I didn’t have anywhere to stay. My uncle is gonna be tearing his hair out.’
‘Your uncle?’ I asked.
‘Sure, my uncle. He brings me down here every year.’
‘And where is he?’
She shrugged. ‘Back at the hotel cursing me like God only knows what . . . probably have called the cops by now or somethin’ equally stupid.’
‘He’s at the hotel?’ I asked.
Emilie looked awkward. ‘Well, er, yes . . . at the hotel. It was quite a way from where we were and there was no way we could have gotten a cab at that time.’
‘I see,’ I replied. ‘Of course not.’
There was a moment’s awkward silence between us.
‘You should call him,’ I said, feeling the first sense of tension. The very last thing in the world I needed was to be tied up in some missing persons report with the New Orleans PD.
Oh sure, Officer, it was fine. I was over in the hotel with Victor and his dad. I slept there, and then I had breakfast. Sure, I’m telling the truth . . . go over there and ask them for yourself.
Emilie looked at me sideways. She smiled coyly. ‘Helluva liar I make, eh?’
I was silent for a moment waiting for her to explain.
‘Okay, okay,’ she said. ‘I could have called my uncle and he would’ve come and fetched me, but . . . well, I like Victor, he’s cool an’ everything, and I figured what the hell, you know?’
‘Chi se ne frega,’ I said.
‘Key senna what?’
I laughed. ‘It’s an Italian expression. It means what the hell, who gives a damn, that kind of thing.’
‘Exactly!’ she said. ‘I thought that very thing . . . not like I thought that we might—’
I raised my hand. ‘I believe your intentions were nothing less than honorable, Emilie.’
She smiled. ‘Right, Mr Perez, my intentions were honorable.’
‘Ernesto.’
She nodded. ‘Right, Ernesto.’
She reached for the coffee pot and refi
lled my cup. She was charming, bursting at the seams with life and energy, and I was pleased that Victor had found someone his own age here in New Orleans so quickly.
‘So you should call your uncle,’ I reminded her. ‘Use the phone here. Give him a call. He’ll be worried.’
Emilie was hesitant for a moment and then she nodded. ‘I can use your phone?’
‘Of course . . . over there on the stand.’
She rose and padded barefoot across the carpet. She called information and asked for the number of the Toulouse Hotel. She scribbled the number on the jotter pad and then dialed.
‘Mr Carlyle, please.’
She waited a moment.
‘Uncle David? It’s me, Emilie.’
For a second she looked surprised, and then she held the receiver a few inches from her ear and looked across the room at me.
I could sense the explosion that was occurring at the other end and I smiled to myself.
‘I know, I know, and you have no idea how sorry I am, but I’m okay . . . I’m fine, and that’s the main thing—’
Another blast from the uncle.
‘Okay, enough, Uncle David. I know you’re pissed beyond belief, but the fact of the matter is that I’m okay and no-one will be any the wiser. You let up on me and I won’t tell Dad that you let me get away from you, okay?’
There was silence for a moment. The girl was bartering for her freedom.
‘Okay, I promise.’
Another few words from Uncle David.
‘No, I promise, I really do. Cross my heart and hope to die . . . never again, okay?’
Uncle David seemed placated.
‘Okay, I will. Maybe an hour or so. I’ll get a cab and we can have lunch or something, alright?’
There were a few more words and then Emilie wished him goodbye and hung up.
‘You were right,’ she said. ‘He was gonna wait another hour and then call the cops.’ She sat at the table, tucked her legs beneath her. ‘I’ll go back in a bit and get the third degree for a while. Where was I? Who was I with? Where did I stay? All that kinda crap.’
I nodded. I understood the third-degree kind of crap. ‘Your father?’ I asked her. ‘He doesn’t come down here with you?’
Emilie shook her head. ‘He’s like the busiest guy on the planet. Meetings all the time, all sorts of important stuff. I think he’s in the process of buying about eight trillion companies and if he leaves the office for like eleven seconds the world will end.’
‘A workaholic.’
‘A cash-aholic more like.’
Emilie tore a thin strip of bread from a roll and dipped it in her coffee.
I looked towards the doorway and wondered what was taking Victor so long.
‘So you guys here for a few days?’ she asked.
I nodded. ‘Yes, we’re staying for a little while. If Victor likes it here we might stay for some months.’
‘That would be cool. I could maybe come down and see you.’
‘Yes, that would be good,’ I said, and I meant it, for here I believed was someone that would give Victor all that he had become so aware of missing in Cuba.
The door opened and Victor walked through. His hair was wet, combed back from his forehead. He had on a pair of jeans, a white tee-shirt. Somehow he looked older, as if in one night he had gained a handful of years.
‘Could I take a shower before I go?’ Emilie asked.
I nodded. ‘Me casa su casa,’ I said. ‘Go ahead, take a shower, and then we will arrange a cab to take you to your uncle.’
Emilie rose from the chair. She touched Victor’s arm as she walked past him. ‘Your dad is cool,’ she said. ‘Hell, I wish my dad was more like yours instead of this Donald Trump thing he’s got going on.’
Victor smiled. He seemed pleased. He turned and watched her disappear and then came to join me at the table.
‘Nothing happened,’ he said as he sat down. ‘I mean nothing happened between me and Emilie.’
‘But one day soon something will,’ I said. ‘And if it isn’t Emilie then it will be someone else, and I want you to understand that such an event will be important and that it is natural and normal and the way life is. My first girlfriend was the cousin of a friend of mine. Her name was Sabina and her hair was longer than anyone’s I’d ever known. It was perhaps the most important day of my young life, and it made me very happy.’
Victor looked momentarily embarrassed. ‘You’re not mad with me?’
I reached across the table and took Victor’s hand. ‘You are happy?’
He nodded, ‘Happy? Yes, I’m happy. I had a great time last night, and I really like Emilie.’
‘Then I am happy too, and she said that if we stay here a while she will come down and visit with us.’
‘We could stay here a while?’
‘Yes, if that is what you want.’
‘For real? We could stay here?’
I smiled. ‘Well, perhaps not right here in this hotel but maybe we will take a house somewhere on the outskirts of the city and stay for a few months.’
Victor smiled, seemed pleased. There was a light in his eyes, something new and youthful, something I had not seen the entire time we had been away from America. He was an American boy, perhaps more than I had ever been, and there were so many more things here that were right for him. Perhaps, truth be known, I had begun to realize that as my own life would come to an end so his would truly begin. Maybe that was now my purpose: to contribute to the life of another instead of contributing to their death.
Emilie reappeared. Her hair was wet, tied back with a colorful band, and she had on her deck pumps.
‘A taxicab,’ I said. ‘We will send you back to your uncle and you will take whatever words he has to give you, alright?’
For a moment she looked irritated.
‘If you are humble and tell him you are sorry then he will let you come back this evening and have dinner with us. Tell him he is more than welcome to join us if he so wishes.’
And so it was done. Emilie Devereau was despatched to the care of her uncle, and within an hour she called the hotel room to say that her uncle wished to speak with me. I introduced myself, told him that I was here in New Orleans for the Mardi Gras with my son, and that his niece would be more than welcome to have dinner with us that evening. He seemed satisfied that it had not been some fabrication by Emilie to rid herself of her uncle for another evening. He apologized for being unable to join us but allowed that Emilie should come. Would I take care to see she was returned safely no later than eleven? I gave my word and the call ended.
Emilie came. We spent some hours together, the three of us, and it seemed for all the world that here were two young people, one of them my son, attracted to one another, enjoying each other’s company, and perhaps, just perhaps, on the verge of falling in love. In Victor I saw myself, in Emilie I saw Angelina, and I vowed that I would do all I could to ensure this thing was preserved as long as it possessed a life of its own.
Emilie was in New Orleans another week. We saw her much of every day, and on two occasions I went with Victor to the Toulouse to collect her. There I met Uncle David, a remarkably serious man, and though he presented no opposition to his niece visiting with us I sensed an air of suspicion. I gave it no credence. It seemed to me that some people were born with such a slanted view of the world, and they were more than welcome to their fears and anxieties. Emilie was in no danger, for through her my son had found the greatest happiness I had witnessed, and for this I would be eternally grateful.
They stayed in touch once she returned home. He wrote often and she replied. On several occasions they spoke on the phone, and an arrangement was made for Emilie to visit once again nearer Christmas.
I rented a house on the western outskirts of New Orleans. I went about my days with nothing to concern me, and for some months it seemed sufficient that this was my life. Victor attended to the latter part of his schooling and enrolled at a college to study architect
ure. I supported him wholeheartedly, and he learned quickly and well.
Time unfolded quietly and without incident until the early part of 2001. It was then that I became aware of something that served to draw me back to my former life.
I was alone one afternoon. It was the second or third week of January. Victor was at college and I was eating lunch in a small restaurant. I had paid no particular mind to the people sitting at the adjacent table, but when I heard a name mentioned my attention was snapped towards them.
‘Of course Ducane will shake things up. He’s never been one to let these things go too easily—’
I turned and looked at them. I wondered if this was merely a coincidence, or if they were speaking of the same Ducane I had met so many years before.
I glanced towards them, and there, held up in the man’s hand, was the front page of a newspaper. The face of Charles Ducane – so much older, but so unmistakably the same man – looked back at me. And the headline over it, DUCANE LANDSLIDES GOVERNORSHIP, almost took my breath away.
I did not eat anything more, but called for the check, paid for my meal, and left the restaurant. I walked half a block and bought a newspaper from a street vendor, and there, in startling black and white, the same face smiled back at me from the front page. Charles Ducane, the very same man who had stood beside Antoine Feraud nearly forty years before; the same man who had orchestrated the killing of three people whom I had murdered through his indirect command, was now governor of Louisiana. I smiled at the dark irony of the situation, but at the same time there was something about this that unsettled me greatly. I had not liked Ducane, there had been something truly sinister and unnerving in his manner, and I could only imagine that he must have risen to such a credible position through the sheer quantity of money that was behind him.
I walked the streets, unable to identify what it was that disturbed me so about this man: his manner, his conceited attitude, the feeling that here was someone who had engineered his way through life and arrived at a governorship through Machiavellian deceit and murder? And he had been the one, alongside Feraud, who had attributed killings to my name. The thing about someone having their heart removed: that had been Ducane and Feraud. It angered me that I was now in hiding somewhere on the outskirts of New Orleans, unable to engage in life the way I wished, and yet this man – guilty of the same deeds – was now proudly smiling from the front page of a newspaper with his public reputation intact.
R. J. Ellory Page 54