The Heavens Rise

by Christopher Rice

  But none of that mattered now. What mattered was, his passenger’s frosty silence notwithstanding, that everything suddenly felt like a gift to Anthem Landry. They had just entered that spot in the middle of the causeway where it was impossible to see land and, for the first time, he knew complete contentment. Or at least what he thought contentment should feel like; it was such a grown-up word, so superior sounding and so removed from the hormonal mood swings of adolescence.

  What Anthem Landry felt that night was the sense that he and the two people closest to him were living in a sacred space between great moments in their lives. And for years afterward, whenever he was in pain or trapped in the dark minutes of another sleepless night, he would exert all the effort he could to return to that lone, blissful hour. To Fred LeBlanc’s voice singing about how the morning mist arises through a crack in the glass after another sleepless night of wishing someone would take him back to New Orleans. To the hot wind ripping through the half-open windows and the briny smell of the moon-rippled lake water. To that eternal, frozen hour, buffed and polished to perfection, a lens focused perfectly on past promise.

  For years afterward, the sound of oyster shells cracking under tires ignited a low flame in the pit of his stomach because that was the sound that brought an end to so many things. That sound, and the sight of Elysium’s long curving driveway, empty and deeply shadowed behind the padlocked cast-iron gate. He tried Nikki on her cell but got her voice mail.

  That didn’t mean anything, Ben insisted. Coverage on this part of the North Shore was always spotty.

  Twenty minutes. That’s how long they lasted, twenty minutes of listening to the ticking sound of the truck’s cooling engine mingling with the moist undertones of the swamp, before Anthem pointed out the strangeness of the situation.

  “This is weird,” Anthem said. “They should be here by now.” And Ben started right in with all the assurances, all the elaborate possibilities as to where they could have stopped along the way and why. Gas stations, grocery stores. Maybe a flat tire or two or three. Never mind that Ben had spoken to Nikki on the phone just as the family was heading out the back door, over an hour before Anthem had left Metairie to pick up Ben at his parent’s house Uptown. Never mind that Mr. Noah was a taskmaster who defined punctuality; if he knew the boys were joining the family tonight, which he most certainly did, he would have had the house open and blazing with light to greet their arrival.

  After an hour, and four calls to Nikki’s cell, Ben ran out of explanations.

  After an hour and a half and no return call from Nikki, Anthem ran out of patience.

  He made a three-point turn in the rutted road and drove back to the highway. There was a gas station next to the turnoff and Ben wanted to see if anyone working there had seen the Delongpre’s Lexus SUV.

  Later that night, they’d both learn that if Anthem had kept driving for about another half mile on Highway 22, they just might have noticed the mangled stretch of guardrail through which the Delongpre family had disappeared.

  7

  * * *

  NEW ORLEANS

  Please God, Marissa thought. Not another endless conversation about what did or didn’t happen to the Delongpres. But as she walked the perimeter of the carpeted ballroom, she realized the other guests that evening were mostly white, well-fed Uptown folk, just like the missing family in question, and that meant Marissa Hopewell would have a better chance that evening of avoiding a conversation about the weather.

  Noah, Millie, and Niquette Delongpre had vanished exactly a week ago, leaving behind only pieces of their Lexus SUV along the banks of Bayou Rabineaux. Forget about the five young black men, two of them teenagers, who had been gunned down in cold blood just a few blocks from where Marissa lived with her mother in the Lower Ninth Ward. Apparently, the Delongpres made for better television. Or at least their ironically cheerful family photographs did.

  Even so, Marissa had still combed through all the articles on their disappearance. Hell, she’d even started a file on the case to see if it had the makings of a good column. But for now the details were too sketchy, the concerns a little too Garden District for her taste. And she found herself jumping to the same conclusion as the other women who worked at her paper; the father, one of the top surgeons in his field, had made enough money over the years to stash plenty in bank accounts throughout the world if he’d wanted to. He’d probably staged the whole thing, maybe even offed his wife and daughter so he could run off with his exotic, foreign mistress. That, or the whole thing was just some weird tax evasion stunt that would come to light as soon as the police finished combing through Noah Delongpre’s files.

  It never ceased to amaze Marissa how often rich white men ran afoul of the IRS.

  As she searched for the table number printed on her place card, she saw that while she wasn’t the only full-figured black lady in the room—five in all, including her, and not counting the servers—she was the lone pantsuit in a sea of tuxedos and off-the-shoulder cocktail dresses. For the most part, the guests looked jovial and carefree, despite the strange disappearance of three of their own. Maybe coming out en masse to support a scrappy little French Quarter theater now in its seventy-fifth year of operation made Uptown’s best and brightest feel spiritually connected. Or maybe the special Sazeracs mentioned on the invite were going right to everyone’s head.

  The event’s organizers had dressed up the Plimsoll Club for the occasion, although Marissa was having trouble figuring out the exact theme. Flowing blue drapes imprinted with stars and lightning bolts framed the walls of plate-glass windows, and the view stretched all the way from the Mississippi River Bridge to the Central Business District’s humble cluster of buildings. They were thirty-one stories above the spot where Canal Street met the river, inside the circle of steel girders that sat atop the World Trade Center, an X-shaped skyscraper that was a little too heavy on the concrete for Marissa’s taste. (And a little too sixties and out-of-date to hold such a prominent place in the city’s skyline, if you asked her. But nobody had. And it wasn’t like some Fortune 500 company had offered to tear it down and build something nicer in its place.)

  All of the waiters and strolling performers were dressed in flowing medieval costumes Marissa couldn’t quite put a label to. Were they supposed to be at a circus or a Renaissance festival? Venetian Carnival, read the invitation in her hand. Not quite, she thought, but that certainly explained the bejeweled, feathered masks that covered their faces. She wasn’t there to pull a Tom Wolfe on the night’s proceedings, but that didn’t stop her from taking mental notes on everything.

  Her boss had slid the invitation into her hand earlier that day because the theater was honoring its first (and only) black executive director, and well, that seemed like something that might fit well in Marissa’s weekly column. The man’s smile was just tense enough to acknowledge the strange place Marissa occupied as the only black columnist at Kingfisher. The paper was a household name in New Orleans and a formidable rival to The Times-Picayune. But it was staffed largely by do-gooder white kids, and even after three years, most of them reacted to her as if she was an intelligent life form from another planet. Fact was, most white people in New Orleans weren’t equipped to deal with a black woman who didn’t speak in the halting, drawling patois of the housekeepers who had helped raise them. Take away the accent altogether, add a bachelor’s from the University of Chicago and three years at the Chicago Tribune and oh, lordy! They practically quaked in their books thinking she was going to demand reparations on the spot.

  When she saw the Ferriots seated at her table, each step across the plush carpeting seemed to place an even greater strain on her calves. Marissa had expected to spend the night feeling out of place. But the Ferriots were Garden District, King of Carnival–style rich, the kind of family that made weekly appearances on the society page of The Times-Picayune because they just couldn’t stop handing out piles and piles of their own hard-earned money.

  When Marissa too
k the empty seat across from her, Heidi Ferriot glanced up from her wineglass as if she’d heard a short, high-pitched sound from somewhere across the room, just sharp enough to have been a nuisance but not loud enough for her to investigate with more than a frown. (A frown intended to make someone else, preferably someone who worked for her, do something about it.) Her black velvet dress had a sloping white collar that made her look like a calla lily stuffed inside a black stocking. Next to her, Donald Ferriot looked their way with a wan smile; he’d been turned around in his chair, studying one of the costumed jugglers weaving expertly in between the tables. The man’s explosion of downy salt-and-pepper curls and oversize bow tie made him look like a mad scientist attending the Bride of Frankenstein’s wedding. (If the Bride of Frankenstein had decided to get married in Monaco.)

  And then there was the son. Marissa had trouble remembering his name at first. Maxwell? Meyer? No. Marshall.

  That was it. Strange kid. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to look up from the designs he was tracing in the white tablecloth with his dinner fork. (The kid’s slow, repetitive motions reminded Marissa of some Hitchcock film, something with Gregory Peck and ski tracks in the snow.) He was far more handsome than both of his parents, with his high, sculpted cheekbones and his jet-black hair, slicked back like some 1950s matinee idol.

  “Careful, folks,” Donald Ferriot said, with a tip of his wineglass at Marissa. “The press is here.”

  She was embarrassed by how pleased she was to be recognized, especially by a man of Donald Ferriot’s alleged stature. But she tipped her glass in return. “Just here to cover the awards ceremony. All comments at this table are officially off the record.”

  There was a light ripple of laughter from the other guests, but not one of them bothered with an introduction. Heidi Ferriot, on the other hand, gazed at Marissa mirthlessly.

  “I know everyone who works on the society page at the Picayune,” she finally said. “And I don’t remember you.”

  “You wouldn’t. We’ve never met.”

  “Yes, that I gathered.”

  “Also, I don’t do society columns and I don’t work for the Picayune.”

  “She writes for Kingfisher,” Donald Ferriot said.

  “Ah,” Heidi Ferriot said, and the sound was more breath than syllable. “That makes sense,” she whispered.

  Because Kingfisher is more liberal than the Picayune. And you’re black. And not the kind of café-au-lait, is-she-or-isn’t-she kind of black my kind of white lady is more comfortable with. And oh, by the way, how the hell did your black ass end up at my table?

  Marissa told herself to cut it out, to stop letting the voices of her own insecurities masquerade as insight. Sometimes being the odd one out meant you had to give other people the chance to show you they weren’t always—

  “And what do your people do?” Heidi Ferriot asked.

  “I’m sorry. My people?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t say you people. I said—”

  “I heard what you said,” Marissa answered. “My mother’s retired now.”

  “And your husband?”

  “Haven’t met him yet.”

  “And your mother. What did she do before she . . . retired?” There was too much emphasis on the last word for Marissa’s liking. It suggested that in Heidi Ferriot’s world, black women didn’t retire, they just went on the dole.

  “She was a dance teacher.”

  “So at some point, presumably, she was a dancer?” Heidi asked.

  “When she was younger, yes. She taught children, mostly. Through church groups and the like. She had her own studio for a while but she gave it up when I was a girl.”

  “But not on Airline Highway. And not with a pole, I presume.”

  The brittle silence around her seemed to confirm it: Yes, the bowed heads and pinched mouths of the other guests seemed to say. That bitch just called your mother a whore.

  Marissa was not an investigative journalist, but she was a columnist, and columnists lived off of access just like anyone else in the business. And you didn’t get access by shooting off your mouth at fancy parties and taking things too personally. And yes, this may not have been the most significant event of her career, and the end of the night probably wouldn’t deliver the makings of more than a passable column. But still. But still, but still, but still . . .

  “Marissa?”

  It took her a few seconds to realize it was the kid who’d spoken. And he’d used her first name as if they’d been lifelong friends.

  “I asked you if you knew your snakes.”

  Asked. How long had he been speaking to her before she’d heard him? Was she on the verge of having a stroke? Was she really that angry?

  “My snakes?”

  “Yes. Your snakes.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean. I don’t own any snakes.”

  Marissa was surprised to see that Donald and Heidi were looking not at her but at their son, and their expressions were suddenly tense. Were they afraid he was about to divulge some terrible family secret to this black journo? Or were they just afraid of their son in general? Too afraid to pull that fork out of his hand and slap some manners across the back of his head?

  “I guess I should be more specific,” Marshall said, but he was staring down at the table. Marissa thought, The way he’s working on that tablecloth, I’d bet he’d be just as happy doing that to his own leg. Or mine. A strange thought, but the guy was plenty strange. “If you were confronted with a snake, would you be able to determine whether or not it was venomous?”

  “That depends,” Marissa said.

  “On what?”

  “I grew up here. So I know the snakes in this area. But if you dropped me in Texas, I’m not sure I’d be of much use on that front.”

  “I think it’s important . . . in life, I mean, to be able to tell the difference between a snake that can actually kill you and a snake that just scares you. Don’t you agree?”

  “Well, maybe . . . but what if you’re not afraid of snakes at all?”

  “Are you not afraid of snakes, Marissa?”

  In a low voice, Donald Ferriot said, “What’s this about, Marshall?”

  The kid was barely eighteen years old and talking to Marissa like she was his kindergarten teacher.

  “Now, don’t lie just for the sake of argument,” he chided her. “That wouldn’t be very polite, now, would it?”

  “To be honest, Marshall, I’m more afraid of the snakes I might meet every day.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The snakes I might be forced to have dinner with, for instance.”

  The silence around the table was as stilted and pained as it had been after Heidi Ferriot fired the first shot. Marissa was about to say something to lighten the mood but Marshall was suddenly staring straight past her head with such wide-eyed intensity that her words left her. One of the costumed waiters, or possibly one of the jugglers or mimes, had caught the kid’s eye. Caught both of his eyes in one tense fist was more like it. The longer Marissa stared at him, the more it became clear that Marshall Ferriot had gone entirely still, so still it felt as if the air pressure around them shifted suddenly. As if Marshall had been rendered so rigid and devoid of life, the air itself was literally avoiding him.

  “What’s the matter?” Donald Ferriot asked his son. “Are you getting sick again?”

  In response, Marshall got to his feet and started walking toward the nearest plate-glass window. He picked up an empty metal folding chair a bartender had been resting his feet on a few minutes earlier. The chair had heavy cushions on the back and seat, so when he lifted it in both hands, the seat’s weight forced it to fold automatically.

  “Oh shit,” Marissa whispered. She was convinced the kid was about to do something truly, truly stupid, probably in some kind of sick retaliation for Marissa’s crack about snakes. When Marshall was still several paces from the plate-glass window, he swung the chair back over one shoulder as if it
were as light and slender as a baseball bat.

  He’ll just try to make a commotion, Marissa thought. He’ll hurl the chair at the window to get the entire room’s attention and then—

  The first crash got everyone’s attention all right. But Marshall didn’t stop there. He slammed the chair into the glass again and again and again, with a ferocity and determination that kept everyone glued to their chairs. The room was a sea of frightened expressions and napkins brought to mouths. Around the fourth strike, the kid had managed to punch several large holes in the plate glass, and the cracks radiating out from each one looked poised to bring the entire window apart.

  Then Marshall tossed the chair to one side and took several steps backward. He had backed up almost to the nearest table when a terrible realization of what he was about to do swept the room. There were several small screams. Then Marissa was on her feet.

  If she’d thrown herself at Marshall, tried to tackle him to the ground like he was a quarterback, she might have been able to prevent what happened next. But the kid was a good two feet taller than her. And it was a moot point anyway because when she reached for his shoulder, she missed.

  Marshall hurled himself face-first into the perforated glass. Like something out of a goddamn cartoon, Marissa thought. The collision made a deep, bone-rattling thud tinged with the violent metallic rattle of the giant window’s frame.

  But the window held.

  The kid’s right shoulder was wedged inside one of the holes he’d punched with the chair; it looked to Marissa like he was trying to pry himself free. He was dazed and disoriented, his forehead sprouting blood from a dozen different cuts. But when he looked back into the room, his eyes found Marissa and she saw utter lifelessness in them. It was as if the kid’s spirit had literally been drained out of him.