Gods of New Orleans

by AJ Sikes

  Emma’s face flashed in shock, but the barkeep settled her brow, laughing as he spoke. “Mistah Hardy say you comin’ on. Now what’ll it be?” he asked, setting the glasses down and turning to reach for a bottle. “First one on the house.”

  The barkeep’s hand hovered in front of a clear bottle half full of clear liquid. It felt like a month of Sundays since Emma last had liquor cross her lips. She favored bourbon, but didn’t want to give these men any thoughts about her being a chippy. Letting on she knew her drinking, and could hold it, would send the wrong signals around the little room.

  “Whatever you’re pouring is fine,” she said, taking a careful step to the nearest table and helping Eddie into a chair. The other men in the place were all white, but none of them seemed to care much about Emma’s choice of company. The two closest men kept eyes on her, but the others all went back to their drinks and conversation. Amidst the hushed voices and occasional chuckles, Emma took in the rest of the room.

  The bar ran halfway down the right side of the space. At the far end of the room, opposite the door, a small stage took up the rest of the wall. Tables and chairs filled the middle of the room, with a little square of space set aside as a dance floor in front of the stage. On the left, a set of stairs led up, and a door beside the foot of the stairs connected to what Emma figured must be the kitchen or the barkeep’s rooms.

  “Here ya’ go,” the man said from the bar. Emma heard the two glasses hit the counter. She checked Eddie, whose good eye said he felt safe. His mouth curled into a sad smile because of his busted lip, but Emma let herself relax just the same. She went to the bar and got the glasses. As she stepped away, it hit her that the tavern might have been operating out in the middle of nothing, but it was out in the open, too.

  She turned to the barkeep. “Guess the law doesn’t bother you out here, huh?”

  The barkeep nearly split his sides he doubled over so fast, slapping a palm on the bar top along with a few other men who whacked the tabletops in front of them.

  “Law, Miss Emma? Now that is a good one. Gonna remember that next time we hit a slow season and can’t get music in here. Jokes like that one’d keep the crowd happy.” He set to chortling again and winked at her. “Law don’t mind what the law don’t want to see no how. Sure enough, law don’t want to be seein’ this tavern.”

  “But why not?” Emma said, moving back to the table with Eddie and setting down the glasses. She had the full attention of the room and figured it was as good a time as any to get some answers about the new city she’d be calling home. “Hardy told you we were coming, so he must’ve told you where we came from.”

  “Oh, sure enough, Mistah Hardy did. And you’d be wise callin’ the man mistah, too, Miss Emma. Folks down here take to politeness like bees to a flower. And they quick to sting you, case you forget.”

  Emma’s mind flashed to the image of Hardy’s knife slamming Al Conroy’s hand into the station house wall.

  “Sure enough,” Emma said to the barkeep. “So you’re all okay with me and Eddie here? We’d be strung up in two shakes if anybody saw us together on the street in Chicago City. I know New Orleans has her own ways, but how far does that go?”

  “Not sure I follow you, Miss Emma,” the barkeep said. Before she could explain, another man spoke up from across the room.

  “She means are the two of them safe to walk the streets of New Orleans. She and Mr. Collins here are sure to be out and about and making their way in the Crescent City, and a woman wants to feel safe when she sets up a home. Thing is, she’s already seen the worst New Orleans has to offer. Murder. In cold blood. Ain’t that right, Miss Emma?”

  The man wore a white suit and a fedora that he kept tilted down over one side of his face. Emma figured that was why she hadn’t noticed him before. Other than Eddie, this guy was the only man in the place with colored skin. He’d been sitting by himself the entire time and as she looked at him, Emma got the sense she was in the presence of another character like Hardy‌—‌someone with a god in him. She couldn’t tell which one though, and she knew it wouldn’t come clear to her no matter how long or hard she stared at the man.

  “Yeah,” Emma said, half furious and half frightened at how clearly this man knew her mind. “That’s exactly what I meant. Mind if I ask how you know it?

  “Ghost knows a lot of things,” the barkeep said, eyeing the other man with a look that echoed Emma’s worries. “Mostly keeps to himself, except for them times when he feels like flappin’ his lips a little too much.”

  The other man sniffed at that and threw back the rest of his drink. “Time I was gettin’ on myself,” he said, standing. He pinched the brim of his hat before striding across the room and up the stairs. Nobody spoke until the sound of a door closing came down into the tavern from above.

  A man sitting at a table across from the bar was the first to break the silence. “Birdman gonna take the other one he goes mouthin’ off like that again. You watch.”

  “Watch your own damn self, Jonas,” the barkeep said. “Ghost has friends, too.”

  “Friends he may have,” the man replied. “But he don’t have near enough as matches the enemies that boy’s found for himself.”

  “Which one is he?” Emma asked the room, halfway eyeing the man who’d spoken up.

  The men ignored her. Some exchanged knowing looks, a few others just stared into their drinks. Emma kept at it. This wasn’t the first time she’d got the silent treatment from a room full of men just for opening her mouth. “I asked which one he was, or do I sound too much like a little girl to get a question answered?”

  Still nobody spoke up. Then the barkeep grunted and leaned over his bar again.

  “Ghost, he’s a riverboat gambler. Man like to be tryin’ his hand at a game of cards more than he like to eat. He come and go easy as you please, like a few other men and women in New Orleans. Like Mistah Hardy, whom you have already had the pleasure of meeting. Ghost ain’t that much different, but he different enough.”

  Emma wrinkled her nose at the barkeep. She got the sense the man would have that be the last of it, but Emma felt like he’d only put more questions into the air, and she’d as soon have answers as let another second tick by.

  “I get why he’s called Ghost. Any man wears a suit like that would be. But what’s with the mind-reading, and how deep are we with Ha . . . Mister Hardy, I mean. What do we owe him for letting us set up on his deck? He didn’t say he’d let on we were coming, but he did say someone here would have the skinny on the deal.”

  “Well,” the barkeep began, “as concerns the man we call the Ghost, I’ve said all I’m willing to say. You’ll have to wait until he decides to explain himself to you. Or one of these fools in here gets drunk enough to let his own lips do the telling. Course, most everyone in here, yours truly included, like to be seein’ straight, so I wouldn’t hold your breath waitin’ on more news about the Ghost from any of us.

  “As for the deal . . . Mistah Hardy didn’t tell me proper, mind. But these gentlemen around you can all attest to his fairness. Berthin’ up above comes with a simple price. Just a little work is all.”

  “What kind of work?” Emma said, not liking the sound of it but ready to do just about anything to get something like solid ground under her feet again.

  “As I understand it, Mistah Collins here”‌—‌the barkeep paused to acknowledge Eddie with a wave‌—‌”he plays a horn, is that right?”

  “Sure is,” Eddie said, and Emma could see him bracing himself to rise if he needed to. The safety he’d felt before was clearly a thing of the past now. She put a hand on his arm and tried to make her eyes show him she could handle things.

  “Well, Mistah Collins, it just so happens that I have a stage, as Mistah Hardy no doubt told you. And I like to be having music on my stage from time to time.”

  The barkeep came around and leaned his back against the bar, crossing his arms and regarding both of them with the friendliest wolf’s grin Emma had
seen in a long while. “Usually,” the barkeep went on, “music’s good when the boys and girls come through from around the way. That’s two, three times a week at most. Once the projects go up around here, though, we’ll have a more steady flow. See more feet on my dance floor every night.”

  Emma let the barkeep’s words settle into silence before she asked the question that had been burning on her tongue.

  “That’s it? Eddie plays his horn three nights a week and we can berth up top?”

  “That’s it,” the barkeep said. “Sounds good to you, sounds good to me.”

  “Sounds too good,” Emma said, and she didn’t miss a few whispers and shuffled feet from the men nearby.

  “Settle yourselves, boys. Miss Emma’s got a worry bone, any man can tell.” The barkeep returned his attention to her. “Don’t you fret none. Mistah Hardy look out for them what do him right and proud, and Mistah Collins here gonna do the man very right and very proud. Now, why you still have that look on your face says you thinkin’ like a rabbit?”

  “What about me?” Emma said. “What do I have to do so Mister Hardy feels right and proud about my being here?”

  A man who sat next to the one called Jonas spoke up and couldn’t get half a thought out before laughing so hard he had to stop. Emma caught the last few words that fell off the man’s tongue.

  “ . . . room upstairs,” he said. The man laughed again, swallowed some beer from his glass, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Emma glared at him when he turned his wrinkled and boozy nose in her direction. “This Old Storyville, ain’t it?” he said and laughed again, his cheeks going pink as the dawn.

  Emma stood slowly, keeping one hand on Eddie’s for support but also to make sure he stayed put. She reached a hand into her coat pocket for the gun that wasn’t there anymore. These men weren’t dopes, but it was her luck the room was dark and they’d all had at least a glass or three before she’d come in. She made as if to grab something in her pocket and lifted it slightly, aiming her finger through the fabric at the man who’d spoken.

  “Any man tries it on with me and he’ll find himself on the wrong end of a gat. Is that clear?”

  The room went hush for a few heartbeats. Emma looked from the man who’d spoken to the one called Jonas, who scooted his chair a few inches away from the jokester. In the corner of her eye, Emma saw the barkeep had his eyes on her pocket like he believed good and well she had an iron.

  “Don’t need more shooting today,” the barkeep finally said. “Old Clive didn’t mean nothin’ by it, Miss Emma. Did you, Clive?”

  The old man with the wrinkles running across his forehead and a pope’s nose settled in his chair and shook his head. “Just funnin’ is all,” he said. “Didn’t mean it serious.”

  Emma sat back down and kept her hand in her pocket. The empty space where a gun used to be felt cold against her palm, and she promised herself it wouldn’t be long before she had heat on her side again.

  Chapter 12

  Aiden kept looking around the street like he’d been told by the man who gave him the box. The guy was in the dress shop when he and his ma went down for her first day of work. Aiden’s ma asked if anyone knew where Aiden might find a job and the man seemed to appear out of nowhere, just popped up like a jack-in-the-box from behind the counter.

  He’d handed over a shoe-shine box and said Aiden could find work up and down any stem in the city so long as he kept walking and carrying the box. When he was done at the end of the day, he was supposed to bring the box and any money he’d earned back to the dress shop and hand it in to the lady there.

  That was a week ago. He’d come out on the street twice so far, trying to find shoes to shine, but no luck. Today would be different, though; he knew it. Still, it felt like hours had passed and he hadn’t shined a single shoe, much less done anything but nearly put holes in his own.

  Aiden pulled the green book from his trouser pocket and unfurled it. The book fell open to the first map, and Aiden thumbed a few pages until he got to the 'East Carrollton’ map. He found where he was on St. Charles Street and stuffed the book back into his pocket. He’d been thinking of trying his luck in the Hollygrove neighborhood, but he only saw dark-skinned folks walking in and out of the homes there, and not much that looked like a shopping district. The man who gave him the box told him to stick to streets with lots of storefronts, so that’s what Aiden had tried to do.

  He’d taken the streetcar down St. Charles and got off where the carman said he should.

  “Over at Riverbend; you like to be finding shine work.”

  Aiden pretended not to hear the way the carman muttered about doves fouling the nest. Aiden just picked up his shine box and stepped off the streetcar. Now, he looked up and down St. Charles and saw nothing but crowds and storefronts in every direction. But which one should he aim for?

  About as hopeless as a blind man in the dark.

  “Hey, Shine!” Aiden spun around, but he couldn’t see who’d hollered.

  “I said, Shine! Dammit, son, you got mud in your ears? Shine!”

  Across the street, a group of well-dressed men sat around a table outside a cafe. Aiden caught glimpses of them through the passing crowd. It looked like three of the men were dark-skinned. The other two he saw more clear. They were pinker than suckling pigs.

  Aiden moved to cross the street when the traffic parted a bit. He got a good look at the fellas this time. They all had bellies that made Aiden think of livestock. One of the white fellas waved, so Aiden stepped fast across the street. He stopped at the sidewalk and nodded to the man with his hand in the air.

  He was thick-faced and with a mustache that twirled up to meet his cheeks just below his eyes. When Aiden got close enough, the man lowered his hand and set it on the table next to him. The other four men all had smiles on their mugs, and Aiden caught a couple of them nudging each other in the ribs and whispering. The man with the mustache snapped his fingers in Aiden’s face then.

  “Man yells Shine you bust tail and haul it over to him, you hear me?” the man said. His puffed-up cheeks behind the ends of his mustache made him look like a stage actor Aiden had seen once. Back when he was just a boy, a traveling show came through Chicago City right after the Great War. With all these Japanese folks with white paint on their faces, and these big manes of dark hair, looking like ghosts of lions.

  The man in front of him now looked twice as scary, though, because he wasn’t wearing a costume, and he was staring daggers straight through Aiden.

  “I’m sorry, mister, I‌—‌”

  “Mister? You hear that, gentlemen? This little Shine just called me Mister.”

  Mumbles of agreement rolled around the table, across the men’s round bellies. Aiden spied gold watch chains glinting in the morning light. He watched the men’s jaws work around their laughter. One of the dark-skinned men gave Aiden a stink eye he thought would never come off, and the other white man looked at Aiden with something between hunger and hatred on his face.

  “I‌—‌”

  “You didn’t nothing, Shine,” the man with the mustache said. “Now get on down there and do what you get paid for.”

  Aiden set his box down on the sidewalk and knelt beside it. The man stuck a leg out and propped his heel on the box before Aiden got it open, so he had to ask the man’s permission to move his foot off the box. Then he had to ask if it was okay to set the man’s foot down on the pavement again.

  Aiden got his brush, rag, and polish out and barely had time to close the box before the man’s foot landed on it again with a thunk. With a hard swallow that stuffed his anger down his throat, Aiden went to work, first brushing away bits of ash that had fallen on the man’s shoe from the cigar he was smoking. As Aiden worked, more ash came floating down from above and onto the man’s shoe again.

  “You lean over the work, you won’t have that problem, Shine,” said the man. “You must be new at this, otherwise you’d have known that. Should be charging you tuition for what I
’m teachin’ you here today.”

  Aiden felt resentment and hatred curdling in his guts, but the thought of his mother sweeping aside rat droppings and dust kept him at his work. He leaned forward a bit and felt ash falling past his face, some of it landed on his ear and he had to fight the urge to brush it off.

  The quicker he finished this job, the better. Whoever these men were, Aiden wouldn’t soon forget their faces. Next time he was out looking for shoes to shine, he’d know to avoid this bunch if he spotted them. He’d just have to keep a good lookout as he walked to make sure they didn’t get eyes on him first.

  While he worked polish into the man’s shoe, the other men around the table traded chuckles and hushed comments that after a while became less hushed and more like what Aiden remembered from the school yards back in Chicago City. There always seemed to be some group of kids, his age or older, who had something to say about how Aiden dressed or walked or talked. Pretty much anything he’d done had been cause enough for someone else to take issue with it, as if whatever Aiden did was bound to end up going wrong.

  “Poor little Shine. Ain’t got sense enough to do this job,” said the other white man at the table.

  “Must be trying to buy his momma out of Mister Bacchus’s employ,” said one of the Negro men. Aiden’s ears pricked up at the mention of the gangster. He had to force himself to keep from shouting back at the suggestion that his ma was working for the guy.

  It didn’t take two seconds for Aiden to put together what the men around the table meant by being in Mister Bacchus’s employ.

  “How about it, Shine? Which house she work in?” the same man said.