Gods of New Orleans

by AJ Sikes

  Aiden went back to the first room and pushed the door all the way open. He stepped in and stalled with his foot halfway to the floor.

  The room was torn apart. Pictures had been ripped from the walls, glass lay around in scattered shards, the bits by the door reflecting pinpoints of warmth from the wall sconce. In the corners of the room, lamps were on their sides, the electric bulbs shattered across the wood flooring. A couch was turned over on its front, like it had been pulled away from the wall and forced out of someone’s way.

  Rolls of the carpet buckled up from the floor in places, and the corners of the rug were all peeled back, making a sort of basket for all the broken glass. Moonlight slanted through a window in the wall opposite the door, casting crazy shadows with the toppled furniture. A door in the left wall of the room was closed, but Aiden could tell it had been open when the mess was made. Shards of glass had scraped across the floor and under the door into whatever was behind it.

  The last time Aiden had seen such a mess he’d been running from the Governor’s army in Chicago City. For a second he worried a soldier would come through the closed door with a gat in his hand, ready to plug Aiden in the chest for helping Mr. Brand mess things up for the Great Lakes Governor.

  But that was all behind them. It had been over a month with nothing from Chicago City, not even a peep.

  Lifting his feet careful around the larger shards of glass, Aiden swept the bits and pieces together. He picked up the corner of the carpet and shook it gently, bouncing the smaller slivers into a pile in the middle. He got the big shards collected by hand and pitched them into the waste chute in the wall. But the house mother hadn’t told him how to get the smaller pieces out of the carpet.

  He could sweep until the sun came up and not have them all cleaned away.

  Since this was a new house, it had to have one of those fancy vacuum systems. Aiden looked around and, sure enough, he spotted a valve set into the wall by the door. So somewhere there had to be a hose to connect to it, and a way to turn it on.

  Aiden went to the closed door. The vacuum hose and control box was probably in there. He tried the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t locked, just jammed with something that stopped it from flipping up or down. He jiggled it again and felt it slip away from whatever had jammed against it. He tugged and the door fell open, pushing Aiden backward.

  Something heavy fell out from behind the door, pushing it against Aiden. He heard a thump and felt something hit the floor as he stumbled and went down against the overturned couch. With a quick grab, he steadied himself so he wouldn’t land in the pile of glass on the carpet. When he had his feet again he looked at the door and what had come out.

  A Negro girl was lying there, half out of the closet that held the vacuum hose. When Aiden went over to her, he recognized her. She’d been at Mama Shandy’s place a week back, on the arm of some thick-necked bird, and the both of them were dressed for uptown. The guy was white and had a set of dark eyes like gun barrels.

  The girl had been smiling that night, a week ago. But now, Aiden could tell right away she was dead. Her cheeks were puffy and bruised under both eyes, and a scarf was wrapped tight around her neck. The one eye Aiden could see was open and bloodshot.

  He reeled back then, knowing what he’d found and knowing good and well he wasn’t supposed to have found it, and why Mother Sophie had told him how to do his job.

  “You’ll just need a broom and dustpan.”

  But he couldn’t just hide the girl’s body again. There was no way he could put it all back like he’d never opened the door. They’d find out. The house mother and every man in her krewe would know he’d seen the dead girl.

  As Aiden stared at the girl’s frozen eyes, Mother Sophie’s angry voice swept up the stairs like she didn’t care who heard.

  “I know who he is, Mr. Bacchus. And I know where he’s from. He killed one of my girls and he’s gonna pay up for it. That fat white cat shows his face in your auction house tomorrow night, I want him in the street. You hear me? In the STREET!”

  Aiden whipped a hand over his mouth when he heard Bacchus’s name. He stayed silent and still and waited for the gangster’s heavy voice to reply. He got nothing for his trouble but more silence. Aiden wondered what Mother Sophie meant by “auction house.” The words played around in his head like puzzle pieces that wouldn’t quite fit together. Then Mother Sophie shouted a curse and kept on.

  “I don’t care if all of New York City comes down on my head. Sophie Bonvivant doesn’t run from any man.”

  When no reply came again, Aiden figured the house mother was on a radiophone. He hadn’t seen one when he’d come in, but the house had to have one. It had a vacuum system.

  And a dead girl in a closet.

  Aiden nearly shrieked when Mother Sophie’s voice sliced the quiet house apart again.

  “Well the Birdman owes me for giving him my bitch of a half-sister, doesn’t he? When he’s done with Shandy and her krewe, you get him a message. Tell him Mother Sophie needs to collect.”

  Aiden heard the clatter of a radiophone in its cradle. He crept away from the dead girl to watch the stairs in case Mother Sophie came up to check on his work. A door opened somewhere downstairs. Aiden craned his neck for a look below the landing, but Mother Sophie’s voice rang out of the kitchen and hit his ears like a fire alarm.

  “Boy, you about done up there?”

  Aiden backed into the room and shouted, “Yes’m!” He kicked at the glass near his feet to make sounds like he was cleaning.

  “Good. Get on and finish.”

  “Yes’m, Ma‌—‌Mother Sophie. I will.”

  “That’s your only free one, boy,” she yelled up at him. “Mix me up with a Mama again, you’ll feel the cane on your backside. And don’t tell me what you will. Just DO! And hurry up. I got some more work for you out back, too.”

  Aiden listened for her footsteps on the stairs, his heart in his throat as he waited. Then he heard the kitchen door close a second time and he stepped fast but careful to the landing windows.

  Mother Sophie went down a stone walk to a little shack where two colored men were busy flinging mud all over the outer walls. A white man came out from the shack with a bucket that he filled at a trough where the other men were also collecting mud and who knew what else.

  “Got some other work for me, huh?” Aiden said to the empty house. He felt a twitch in his throat and it told him he’d made his last move in the houseboy game. Aiden stepped down the stairs. He went as quiet as could be and unlatched the front door, breathing a silent hope that the stoop wouldn’t be guarded. He opened the door and saw the night waiting for him, empty and cold, so he ran into it with all his will, leaving the house and its horrors behind.

  Chapter 31

  As Emma piloted the Vigilance, she thought about the letters Brand gave her. They were in his old desk now, where Lisette was sitting. Emma tucked the letters in there as soon as she and Lisette got on board, and she hoped that’s where they would stay. They hadn’t moved since she put them there. No showing up in the cockpit right when she went to start the motors or radio down to a mooring deck.

  Maybe Brand was just playing tricks to scare her. But why would he do that?

  As soon as the question hit her mind, Emma swatted it away. Who cared what Brand was up to? If she’d thought the letters were magical before, it must have been the stress of dealing with Eddie and the worry about the job she’d been doing for Bacchus.

  Brand was just a crazy old tramp, half drunk, or all the way drunk.

  But what if he wasn’t fooling? And how could he be with that vanishing act of his.

  If one of those letters was for her, then it meant she’d found some way to get the gods’ attention, more than before anyway.

  But so what? If they’ve got something to say that’s so damned important, why not just say it instead of sending Brand around flapping envelopes in my face!

  Emma wiped her eyes and drew in a deep brea
th, forcing herself to calm down. She had important business of her own tonight, and it was damn sure more important than any old letter handed over by a bum.

  “You okay, Miss Emma?” Lisette asked.

  “Yeah. I’m fine,” she said, not believing a word of it and knowing Lisette didn’t, either.

  “Sounds like you got more to tell than you lettin’ on, but I ain’t gon’ press you on it none. Not if you don’ want to be tellin’ me.”

  Emma knew a bait and switch when she heard one, but Lisette’s had to be the smoothest and kindest she’d ever been handed.

  “The place where Eddie practices,” Emma said and swallowed a laugh that turned into a cough. “He told me that’s what he does there anyway. Said it’s just a little room where bands go to work up their chops. What do you know about it?”

  “The Sun? He call it a practice hall?” Lisette said, her voice betraying the fear and worry that found a home in her just then. Emma did her best to put the woman at ease.

  “I get that’s a lie. You don’t need to worry about shocking me, Lisette. I’ve seen just about the worst there is in this world.”

  “If you say so, Miss Emma.”

  When Lisette didn’t continue, Emma nudged her again. “So what do you know about it? Where am I taking us and what am I going to see?”

  Lisette kept her tongue for a moment but finally let on. “Sun ain’t no little room. It’s like to bein’ the oldest dance hall in New Orleans. Full name’s the Rising Sun, and ain’t no man go there not knowing what he gettin’ into and hopin’ he gonna get everything he can.”

  Emma thought back to Brand’s last visit, and the warning he’d given about Eddie. So what if he did land himself in the street, Emma thought. So what if he woke up covered in mud with nothing but a banged-up horn in one hand and vomit down his shirt.

  So damn what.

  Emma flew them on to the deck by her and Eddie’s place. She and Lisette sat in the ship, talking while they waited for the night to grow old enough.

  “You said they don’t get going ‘til after midnight.”

  “That’s right, Miss Emma. Usual it’s the bands play them gala house shows first. Then they all go to the Sun and kick up a bit. That rum they get from down the Gulf, and that sweet leaf they smoke, makes the whole night feel right as can be.”

  Emma didn’t much care for the way Lisette’s eyes went glad as she talked, so she switched up the story fast.

  “What’re we going to do when we get the girls out? Where can we go? Do you know anywhere that’s safe?”

  Lisette’s face drooped in a heartbeat and she almost went back to shaking and sobbing. With a long slow breath, she held it in.

  “Sure I don’t know anywhere around New Orleans that’s safe if that’s what you askin’.”

  “Well what about farther away? Do you have family anywhere? Cousins? Anyone?”

  Lisette shook her head. “We all from down here and the Durand name pretty much all gone now ‘cept for a few that don’ wanna admit they blood with me and my babies.”

  “So we go somewhere else,” Emma said, mulling over the ideas she’d had since Lisette told her the truth about Bacchus’s game. She’d seen the one banker that night she was out with Eddie. And one New York banker was more than enough for her. But she had to be sure.

  “They’re all from New York?”

  “Who?”

  “The ones who come down and buy the girls.”

  “Oh. Yes, that’s what everyone always sayin’. New York money this and New York money that. Might be different men spendin’ it, but it always the same money.”

  Emma let it sit. Lisette looked tired. If Emma had to admit it, she was exhausted herself. And she still had to confront Eddie and fly back home afterward, so a little rest seemed the right thing just then.

  Lisette leaned herself onto Brand’s desk and let out a little sigh as she settled in. Emma thought about grabbing a quick nap in the bunkroom, but as soon as the thought came it went back out. She’d never wake up, and that’d be the end of their big plans. Bacchus didn’t have any work for her tonight, so she and Lisette were going on a snake hunt. She just had to stay awake until it was time to fly.

  Three hours later, Emma snapped awake in the pilot’s chair and glared at the clock set into the control panel. She shook herself and rubbed her face. Lisette stirred behind her and came awake slowly as Emma got the Vigilance airborne again.

  The Rising Sun sat by the riverside, over in Carrollton. Emma took them there as quick as she could, and they came in too fast over the nearest mooring deck. Emma had to loop back around to approach from a better angle. She breathed deep the whole time, doing what she could to calm her shaking hands. Lisette kept asking if she was all right, but Emma held in every word that clawed its way onto her tongue. All it seemed to do was make her eyes water and her throat burn.

  ~•~

  The walk from the deck was quiet enough, except for the steady thump-thump of Emma’s angry heart. The sting of Eddie’s lies ate away at her from the inside and turned her gut to acid. Halfway to the hall she had to lean against a tree and gulp some air to keep her stomach down. Lisette said she’d stay behind in the ship because people would recognize her out here.

  “This where Mr. B had me workin’ all these years, while he was raisin’ up my Juliette for auction.”

  Emma had wanted to ask about what to expect, but speaking her daughter’s name made Lisette go silent and still while tears dripped from her cheeks. So Emma had left her in the ship and made her way down the street on her own.

  When she saw the hall up ahead by the riverside, Emma felt her insides spin again and only just kept them steady with a hand pressed flat against her belly.

  Glowing lights from the second-story windows lit up the night around the hall. People standing on the balconies there etched the scene with their laughter and sweet-smelling smoke. That and the foot stomping from inside told Emma everything she needed to know about Eddie’s “rehearsals” out here. Even without Lisette’s information, she’d had plenty of reason to suspect before. But seeing it with her own eyes stabbed the blade of betrayal even deeper.

  Two heavies stood at the doors: white men with jaws that look like they could chew bricks for breakfast. They stood either side of the entrance dressed in the same liveries as Bacchus’s other boys, but these two looked twice the fight as any Emma had seen so far. Both men wore a look that said you were welcome only if you meant to have a good time and not cause any trouble. Emma had seen their type back in Chicago City and worked up her best smile, just like she’d done back home when it meant getting into the mayor’s speaks without any hassle.

  “Evening, miss,” one of the men called to her as she approached from across street.

  “Hi,” Emma said, letting her hips say more than her lips did. “I hear it’s girl’s night tonight. Is that right, boys?”

  The two men chuckled and one came forward, letting his hands fall to his sides.

  “If you’re here as an invited guest, it can be your night.”

  Emma almost let her mask slip into worry, but she caught herself in time and let out a giggle instead. “I believe I’m on the list, but my invite is with my man inside. His name’s Eddie Collins. I’m sure you know him,” Emma said, hating herself for making a mockery of the fire that burned her heart to ash. “Don’t you, boys?”

  At first she thought she’d overdone it. Both men had looks on their mugs that said they wished she’d told them different, but as the near one reached a hand up to his jacket, the other put a hand out and touched his partner’s arm.

  “She’s with the band. We don’t need that kind of trouble,” he said and dropped his hand back to join the other one in front of his belt.

  “Yeah,” the near one said to Emma. “Go on inside.”

  Emma nodded her thanks and stepped between the two men. As she passed through the wide-open double doors, she heard the men chatting behind her.

  “Guess he li
kes white and dark meat on the grill,” the first one said.

  Emma swallowed the ball of rage that flared in her throat. She used a thumb to dab the tears that threatened to leak from her eyes and went into the hall. At the back of the foyer, a staircase led up to the next floor. To her left and right, high doorways opened into grand parlors filled with tinkling glasses, laughter, and dancing feet.

  A white woman came from the parlor to Emma’s left holding a drink in one hand and a silver cigarette holder in the other. The woman wore flapper beads, a feather fascinator, and what looked like half the dress she was meant to be wearing. With a quick flick of her eyes, the chippy took in Emma’s plain skirt and simple blouse. In that instant, Emma regretted not dolling herself up in the glad rags Bacchus had given her.

  If I hadn’t fallen asleep . . .

  Emma knew what it felt like to be weighed and measured. She’d had plenty of men send their eyes in her direction before, looking her up, down, and all points between. This wasn’t the first time a woman’s eyes treated her this way, but it was the first time Emma felt it like a punch to the gut. The flapper’s lips and eyes curled into a look that told Emma she’d wandered into a viper’s den.

  “My, my,” the woman said, pausing to puff on her smoke. She let the holder dangle between her fingers like it might fall only to snap her fingers closed around it, trapping it in her grip. Her face hadn’t changed any, and Emma waited for the insults to start flying from the woman’s ruby lips.

  Emma didn’t have to wait for long.

  “My, oh my. What would be the occasion?” she said, dropping her eyes to Emma’s simple brown shoes and white stockings. The smoking woman had on a pair of jet black sandals with straps that tied above her slender ankles.

  Emma figured she had one play, and it happened to be the one she’d been holding in since they got to New Orleans.

  “I’m here looking for my man. He’s a horn player. Name’s Eddie Collins. You seen him?”

  The flapper didn’t miss a beat in replying, and the steam Emma thought she’d put behind her words escaped from her lips in a gasp of surprise.