“What time is it?” he asked.
“Almost time for the show to start,” I said.
He rolled to his feet without further complaint and went into the bathroom to change his clothes and wash his mouth. I protested when he did the former without shutting the door, and when he reminded me it was nothing I had never seen before, I hid my face beneath one of the pillows.
Hawking’s idea of tidying up involved running the water in the sink for perhaps two minutes. I did not remove the pillow from my face until I heard him secure the clasps on his suspenders, and when I did, I did so in time to catch him gargling, a bottle of whiskey in hand.
“Charming,” I said as he spat into the sink.
He said, “Ain’t I?” And punctuated the question with a long pull from the bottle.
“Come on, it’s nearly nine o’clock.”
“I’m comin’, I’m comin’.”
We went out onto the balcony, Hawking pocketing the room key and pushing his feet into his boots as he left. The entire street below was ablaze, oil lanterns set up along the sides of buildings if they did not have their own posts from which to hang. Other tenants had lit candles atop their balcony tables to see their companions better.
The closer we came to the cage, the more the faces of the individuals composing the crowd blended together, their features indiscernible in the low light. Hawking and I stood next to each other in silence, and though he took another pull from his bottle, the sloshing of the liquid seemed to me as much an admission of uncertainty as his voice would have.
“I can’t see anyone from up here,” I said.
“Neither can I.”
A swell of voices heralded the arrival of the car containing the wolves. The effort of releasing the animals into the cage without allowing one side or the other to escape required coordination on the handlers’ part, but the way the young men walked atop the cage and pulled partitions up and lowered them again was as fine a display as I imagine a ballet performance would have been.
When the wolves were free to move from one cage to the next, the handlers scrambled away from the cage, and the crowd began to lose its composure. The wolves, six altogether, began to fan out in front of the bear, their hackles raised and their lips curled back into snarls I saw even from my place on the balcony, the lamplight illuminating their teeth and the soulless black of their eyes.
The bear was sat back on its haunches, facing the approaching wolves but doing nothing to meet them in battle. It loosed another low moan and the wolves circled it, nipping at it as if to judge its health before striking.
With the first snap of animal jaws came another swell of cheering. Still the bear did not attack the wolves. It leaned back into itself and bellowed. Though the three wolves still before it lowered their ears and sank lower onto their front paws, it was clear they would run if they had the opportunity. Behind the bear, the other three wolves paced back and forth, making high-pitched harrying noises and snapping at the bear’s legs and back.
From where we stood, I judged the crowd rapt but could make out nothing of the individuals within it. They were a single mass of hats and hollering. If any of the three we sought stood among them, I could not sieve them out.
So I quit the balcony and hurried through the room. Though I said nothing to warn him of my intention, Hawking followed me down to the street below.
Our view of the cage diminished once our feet touched Dauphine Street, as did our view of the crowd. Faces were easier to glimpse up close, but they were so packed together and focused on their desire for a fight, I found identifying anyone impossible. I grabbed hold of Hawking’s shoulder so I would not lose him in the crowd, and aside from a quick uncertain glance back at me, he did not react.
A commotion began to roll over the crowd, response to activity at the far end of the cage I could not see. With the men wearing hats and the women wearing capes, I could not see much of anything at all. The hand that was not on Hawking’s shoulder I kept around you.
As we drew closer I heard the bear’s whining, louder and frantic. I heard the crier’s voice, but so soon as he began to speak, his words disappeared beneath the wave of booing and hurled insults. A break in the crowd allowed Hawking and I to the front, and a silence rolled over those who saw what I saw.
I cannot recall if the bear began to whine again, or if in writing this I am imagining her desperation.
The handlers had her cub.
It was my voice joining the crowd’s this time, though theirs was lifted in exhilaration and mine in fury. I shouted, “No!” at the handlers, as if my protest would make any difference. They lassoed the cub into the cage, then released it. The wolves reacted with a quickness their appearance belied, all six responding as one to surround the cub.
That was what it took to rouse the bear. She reared up on her hind legs, standing almost too tall for the cage, then swiped at the first among the wolves to turn its back on her. It yelped as her claws destroyed its hind leg and hurled the wolf against the far side of the cage, its blood splashing the cobblestone beneath them. It did not rise again. Her bulk suggested she ought to lumber, but the bear moved faster than the wolves to try to put herself between the attackers and her cub.
By then Hawking had taken firm grip of my upper arm to keep me from acting without thinking, but I could not have told him whether I was more compelled by the horror before me or my search for the men who had murdered your father.
To say this was an event that would occur only in a place like New Orleans affords the rest of the country more than its due. This is a practice only monsters would think to profit from, and yet these monsters were human. The crier and the crowd and the whole of the city itself. Civilization and savagery are quite capable of living side by side. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. These same folks watching man’s manipulation of nature would have cheered just as loud were they witnessing a hanging.
As the bear returned to all fours and moved to reproach the two wolves surrounding her baby, the three behind her leaped. One of them landed high on her back, sinking its fangs into her neck, while the other two began to chomp at her hind legs. The bear roared again, fury overtaking her grief, and threw herself at the cage bars closest to the cub. Bones crunched and another of the wolves yipped, losing its hold on the bear’s leg and crumpling to the ground. She clamped her teeth into the fallen wolf’s throat, shook her head once, twice, a third time, then batted it away as if it were a minor nuisance she could no longer attend to.
Again, she threw herself at the bars. And again. And again, until the steel bars began to crack in their grids.
Not until the bars cried out in distress did the crowd do the same. Those on the far side of the cage grabbed hold of their loved ones and fled, some of them screaming, most of them not looking back.
A few more blows from the bear and the bars snapped open, jagged pieces of steel flying into the street with the uninjured wolves attempting to do the same. The biggest of the wolves caught the bear’s claws, and when she dispatched the animal and swung again, she seemed to do so blind. An audience member who was too close to the cage when it broke clamped his hand over the great gash left behind on his chest and continued running. Those wolves who still had the ability to do so joined the crowd in fleeing down the street.
As the northern end of the street emptied, a distant figure caught my attention, not because of anything it was doing, but because it was standing still.
“Hawk,” I said, “look!”
It was the Mexican.
“Who’s that with him?” Hawking asked.
I did not know, and moving closer did not help me identify his companion. Though she was about as tall as he, she had a willowy form and long blond hair where he had wiry limbs and brown skin. From a distance I could only hazard a guess as to her age, but I could make out neither hips nor breasts. What I could make out were boots with heels so high as to be obscene, black stockings, and a skirt hem that barely covered what little she had to
show. Her arms were bare, her dress more of a shift.
We were perhaps fifty feet from the cage when gunshots began erupting behind us. I do not know whether Hawk threw me down or whether I went to my knees on my own, but either way I broke my fall with one hand and kept the other wrapped around you. When the firing ceased and all that echoed in the air was the ghost of violence, he was shielding me with his body.
My dear, you will find that just as your gift allows you to heal, it also means you will feel the pain of others. As did the bear and her cub, so did I feel their last moment of pain and fear and anguish.
“Son of a bitch,” Hawking said as we regained our feet.
The Mexican was gone, and the girl along with him.
It was my turn to swear.
“It’s all right,” Hawking said with a sigh. “I know where they’re going.”
10
I CANNOT TELL YOU the moment I began to think of Roger Hawking not as an imposed companion but as one I trusted, as a friend. I can tell you I knew nothing of his history when we arrived in New Orleans, other than what I had heard murmured in De Soto. Had he told me the truth, I would not have judged him. Even now, I do not judge him. I know nothing of what it is to be a husband, or a father, or a drunk.
After the madness in the street had subsided, he and I set off into the night together. In spite of my bare feet and poor preparation, I found the night air tolerable, and I wanted for neither shoes nor shawl. What I wanted was an explanation. I asked Hawking where we were going.
A strange expression came over his face, as if he would answer true were it not for the presence of an impediment. Spells exist that are capable of stopping a person’s throat, if not their tongue, from betraying a particular truth. He was under no such spell. He did not want to name the place.
I kept to his side and watched the alleyways and side streets, as Hawking was either oblivious to his surroundings or unconcerned with what might be lurking in the darkness.
Once we arrived at the canal, we passed by saloons lit by lanterns and match strikes, and doorways crowded with bodies in various forms of congress. Someone hiding in the shadows whistled sharp and lascivious at us. I assumed he was whistling at me. As I was wearing Hawking’s clothing, he very well could have been whistling at either of us. New Orleans, as I have written, is a lawless place.
We came at last to a building that appeared, in its size and grandeur, to be the only house on the street. To call it a house would imply it was a home. This was not a residence, terraced like many of the others in the neighborhood, nor was it strictly a place of business. It was more akin to a mansion than anything else, a wide yet shallow bit of construction meant to look impressive from a distance. Beautiful though it was, it had an ugly aura.
It was at the end of the street that we, or rather Hawking, hesitated. I did not realize he had done so until I found myself several steps ahead of him. Hawking stared at the front steps, and I shall never forget how distant he was.
I pressed on, Hawking trailing me up the steps to the open front door. We followed the entrance hall to find ourselves in a mezzanine. It was grander than any hotel I could have possibly imagined, and everything from the flooring, to the decor, to the furniture seemed to have come out of a storybook.
This neighborhood was, in fact, called Storyville. I did not know that at the time. We were in the city’s red-light district.
As I was gaping at our surroundings, I almost missed the approach of the establishment’s procuress. Then the clicking of her kitten heels reached my ears. I looked over to see a woman who appeared as lavish and plush as the place itself, wearing a blue silk evening gown with a neckline so deep its stitching just barely contained her ample breasts. She wore her kinky black hair parted down the center and rolled into two buns at the back of her head, which she covered with a frill and nothing more.
When she saw me, her painted lips pulled into a smile. Her eyes traveled up and down my form, and I planted my hands on my hips in what I meant to be a fighter’s stance. She did not touch me. Instead she circled the two of us, making a pensive noise as she passed behind us, and when she came around again, she was still smiling.
“Well, the clothes won’t do, but the merchandise might,” she said in a thick Cajun accent.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“You,” she said, “you have an exotic beauty many a man would pay extra to pass a good time with.”
“She ain’t for sale,” said Hawking.
“Oh, my hand, I was just playing.”
With a last long look at me, the madame sucked on an eyetooth and crossed her arms over her chest before granting Hawking her full attention. She gave him the same up-and-down she had given me, this one full of derision.
“If you come here for a girl,” she said, “I ask you bathe before you lie with her. They women, not animals.”
She gave him more thorough consideration this time, her eyes lingering on his face, and she made that same thoughtful noise as before, this time with more depth to it.
“Are we old friends?” she asked Hawking.
Hawking said, “No.”
“Well, if we not old friends, and you don’t want new friends, what you want?”
“We’re looking for a girl we saw earlier,” I said. “About my height, skinny as a rail, yellow hair?”
“Ah,” said the madame, “you’re in luck. Come. I show you to her room.”
While the curtains had kept from the world the activities behind them, the doors had a tougher task before them. Hawking and I followed the madame up a winding staircase, and as we passed by several closed doors, I heard murmurs and cries. We passed through what seemed to me a pantry or another form of closet, and finally came to a door, slightly ajar and lit by lamplight.
The madame rapped on the door with her fighter’s knuckles and eased the door open.
Inside, the floor was covered from one wall to the next in pink carpet, its walls papered with a design of delicate flowers. Sex and perfume both hung heavy in the air, and something else, something cloying and rotten. The girl to whom the room belonged was seated by the window, wringing out a washcloth she had been using on herself a moment earlier. When we entered, she grabbed a robe and covered herself almost in one motion, her blue eyes wide as a woodland animal’s.
Those wide eyes met those of the procuress and made a wordless exchange.
“Oui, Madame Lavoie.”
Once Madame Lavoie had gone and shut the door behind her, I said, “Now look, we ain’t here to fool around. We got some questions for you, that’s all.”
“Y’all gonna pay me?” the girl asked.
“Of course,” I said.
The girl cinched the robe’s belt around her waist and draped the washcloth over the edge of the basin, eyeing me with lingering suspicion and Hawking with more open curiosity. Her childlike appearance from a distance did not diminish altogether now that we were closer, but her coltish limbs and flat trunk made me wonder if she had held aspirations of being a dancer one day.
“What do you want me for?” she asked, a toughness in her voice I imagine she had heard the other girls use and was trying out for the first time.
“We just need to ask you some questions,” Hawking said, “and then we’ll be out of your hair.”
She nodded, her eyes flitting back and forth between us without seeming to blink.
“It’s all right,” I said. “We need information about the man you were with at the animal fight earlier this evening. What’s his name, and who was he with?”
“What man?” she asked.
I crossed my arms over my chest, considering the consequences of what I was about to do. My eyes searched the room, quick, before landing on a pitcher of water beside some drinking glasses. I picked up a glass and filled it halfway with water, then danced my fingertips over it. Though I did not look at Hawking, I could feel his eyes on me.
“I wasn’t at the fight tonight,” the girl said.
“D
id you know there was a fight?” Hawking asked.
She hesitated before saying, “No.”
I turned back to her and held out the glass.
“You look parched,” I said. “Drink some water, sit down, relax. This doesn’t have to be so stressful.”
She eyed me with some suspicion, but took a sip of water all the same. Then she set the glass down on the windowsill and sat down on the chair she had abandoned. She uncrossed her arms, her limbs loose and splayed.
“The man you were with at the fight,” I said. “What was his name?”
“Lorenzo,” said the girl without hesitation.
“You get his full name?”
“The other fellas called him de la Cruz.”
“You saw the men he was with?” I asked.
“Yes,” the girl said.
“What were their names?”
“Kelly, I think, was the other one. His leg . . .”
She shuddered and could not finish her sentence for the revulsion it brought up. Hawking looked over at me with one brow quirked, but he did not interrupt me or ask any questions of his own. He just leaned back against the doorjamb and watched.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I can imagine the state he was in. Who else was with them?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“Tell me what he looked like.”
“Tall. Handsome. Blue eyes, blond hair. Wore all black. He . . . he did things.”
“What things?”
“I can’t,” said the girl.
“Please,” I said, “tell me what he did.”
“They hurt themselves, because of him.”
“The girls? How? How did he make them hurt themselves?”
She was becoming upset, but because of the spell I had Worked on her, she could not outright refuse to answer my questions. Hawking picked up on this, and he spoke up.
“Can you show us what he did to them?”
The girl nodded, and Hawking stepped away from the doorjamb. Without another word, we followed the young woman out of the room.
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