Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

by Sara Gran

I looked at him. "You're sure," I said. "Wednesday night. You're absolutely sure?"

  Andray nodded and held his right hand up like he was taking an oath, or proving he was unarmed. He looked me right in the eye. "I lied to you, Miss Claire. God's honest truth, I lied to you. That's why my prints all over that place. I was looking for shit."

  "Find anything?" I asked.

  "Just beer and water," he said. "Just like I thought. But shit, we needed that. I remembered he had a whole closet of bottled water in there, so we went for that. People had kids, babies, with nothin' to drink. People need water out there, food for kids and shit. I took some beer, water, shit like that. Vic's house, lady next door. Both of 'em. I took whatever I could. Put out some birdseed." He laughed a little and shook his head. "I got a lot of shit to feel bad about. But not that. I broke into a lot of places those days. I ain't feel bad about one of 'em."

  I looked at him as it dawned on me what he was saying. "Where else you break in?" I asked.

  "Me and some boys," he said, looking at his daiquiri. "We got into that Walgreen's on Magazine. We got into Sav-a-Center, Whole Foods—that place crazy. We took water, juice, food, stuff for the babies, shit like that. We each took a shopping cart and bring it back downtown. One of the boys, he got a car, and we put stuff in there, too, but then he left town, and it was just carts. We could get cars, but ain't no gas. Then when that was all gone, we went to houses—houses we knew we could get into easy, like Vic's. People needed food—old people, babies. People was dyin' in there. We couldn't just..."

  He shook his head and swallowed and didn't finish his sentence.

  "You did that?" I said. "Andray, that's not stealing, that's—"

  I didn't know what to call it. Andray shrugged.

  "Why'd you feed Vic's birds?" I asked.

  Andray made a face like I'd said something stupid. "They ain't his birds," he said. "They just birds. I mean, they gotta eat too."

  He was right. I had said something stupid.

  "Who was the kid in the restaurant?" I said. "Why'd those guys try and kill him?"

  Andray shrugged. "He wasn't no one. I mean, I know his name, but he got nothin' to do with you. Why they did him like that, I don't know. I think they think he was talkin' to the cops. I mean, that happens. Someone gets some fucking job and shit and they forget, you know. You think you out of it. But you ain't ever out of it."

  "So what about you?" I asked Andray. "You want out of it?"

  He nodded. "For real," he said. "I'm sick of that shit. I just—you know."

  "You can take him with you, you know," I said. "Terrell. You don't have to leave him behind."

  Andray nodded. He didn't believe me and I didn't know if I did, either.

  "Mick wants to help you," I said. "All you have to do is let him."

  Andray shrugged. I thought about explaining Mick's guilt, collective and individual, to him, but I figured he already knew about that.

  "Look," I said. "Mick's kind of fucked up right now. Depressed. But if you let him help you, that helps him. I mean, I don't know why. I never understood people like that. But if you can let him help you find some stupid job or whatever, you'd be doing a lot for him."

  "Yeah, okay," Andray said, nodding. "He's trying to get me in this GED program. I been thinking about it. Sometimes..." He stopped. "Sometimes with Mr. Mick I feel like—I don't know. Like maybe like I'm an experiment or some shit like that. Like he's got—like he's got something to prove or some shit like that. I mean, not that I don't appreciate—" he rushed to add.

  "No, I know what you mean," I said. "But the thing about Mick is, you could tell him that. I mean, if you say it nicely, like you just told me. You could tell him that and he'd be okay with it."

  Andray nodded. "Yeah. Okay."

  "You're smart," I said. "Getting a GED will be easy for you. You just need to work on your reading. The rest'll come easy after that."

  "I can read," Andray said defensively. He could, I'd noticed that, but it was slow and laborious.

  "How's that book Vic gave you?" I asked.

  "It's okay," he said. "I mean, it ain't easy. I give you that. But I—I don't know. I like it."

  "Vic really gave it to you?" I asked, skeptically.

  "Yeah," he said. "One night he caught me looking at it. I don't know. I liked the cover." He took the copy of Détection out of his pocket and held it between his hands, bending it back and forth. I'd noticed from the wear on his pants that he always carried it there.

  "Anyway," Andray went on, "Mr. Vic, he seen me with it, and he told me to go ahead and keep it. Said I'd do better with it than he did." Andray shrugged. "I don't know what that means."

  "What'd you think?" I asked. "About the book."

  Andray smiled. "I mean, honest, it don't make no sense to me," he said. "And it's hard. But I—I don't know. I kinda like it anyway. Like, there's this one little thing he says, it's kinda like my favorite. He says something like, if you hold on to a mystery, you never gonna succeed. You let it go through your fingers, and then it come to you, and it tell you everything. I don't know—I like that. Not that I got a lot of mysteries to solve," he said, catching himself as if he'd said something foolish. "It just. You know. Good advice, I guess."

  "Those who try to grasp on to the mystery will never succeed," I quoted, astonished. "Only those who let it slip their fingers will come to know it, and hear its secrets."

  That had been Tracy's favorite line from Détection.

  "Talk to Mick," I said. "Let him help you."

  He nodded. We looked at each other.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry I thought you killed Vic."

  He looked at me and nodded.

  "I know," Andray said. "I'm sorry I lied to you."

  "It's okay," I said. "All that matters is that the truth comes out in the end."

  But the truth wasn't out yet.

  Andray went to get us another round of daiquiris while I waited at the table. He'd told me a lot of truth. But he was lying about the most important thing.

  He knew who killed Vic Willing. He wasn't in his apartment on Wednesday getting food. Why he was there, I still didn't know. But it wasn't the reason he was telling me.

  No one looks you straight in the eye when they're telling the truth.

  We had a few more daiquiris and at three or four me and Andray muttered some insincere protestations of friendship and exchanged a fake, manly, back-patting hug and wandered into the night.

  49

  I LAY IN BED that night in a T-shirt and underwear and lit a joint, after a few attempts to get the lighter and the joint to line up just right. It was nearly four in the morning. I'd stayed in the bar drinking daiquiris with Andray until after three, pretending I believed his lies. I'd hoped something might slip out. Nothing did.

  I'd cajoled, threatened, and held a gun to his head. If he hadn't told me the truth yet—and he hadn't—there was nothing I could do to make him. My bag of tricks was empty. I'd killed the last white rabbit.

  Leon had fired me. One person had tried to have me killed and a few more were probably in line. Mick had had little faith in me to begin with and less now. No one was paying me and no one seemed to like me too much here in New Orleans. Or anywhere, for that matter.

  In other words, a typical case.

  I sat up and went back to the file I'd built on the Case of the Green Parrot. I started from the beginning, with the preliminary information I'd gotten on Vic, and read it through to the end—every witness testimony, every fact, every figure, every omen, every sign. What I didn't have written on paper I went over in my mind.

  By the time I dozed off at five, I only knew one thing for certain.

  New Orleans was no town for happy endings.

  50

  I WAS ON THE SUBWAY in New York City. It was night. Somehow you can always tell the time of day on the subway. Tracy sat next to me. Now she was fourteen again. On her lap she help her old tape player/radio, smaller than a boom box and bigger than a
Walkman.

  "You forgot the most important clue," she said. "I tried to show you."

  I reached out for her. But when I tried to touch her she slipped away.

  "The most important clue," she said. "I tried to show you. But you weren't looking."

  Her blond bangs brushed the top of her eyebrows. She smelled like cigarettes and stale booze. We all used to smell like that.

  "Can't you just come back?" I said. "I miss you. We could go for a drink at Holiday. No one will—"

  "I tried to show you," she said, ignoring my question. "Look up."

  I looked up. The entire ceiling of the car was painted with a street scene. It was New Orleans, water shining in the streets, drowned and peaceful. Above the buildings flew a flock of pigeons. The pigeons flew out of the painting and settled around Tracy, landing on her shoulders and her lap. Now they weren't all pigeons; some were doves, some were cardinals, some were green parrots.

  A pigeon settled on Tracy's shoulder.

  "We tried to show you," the pigeon said. "The very first day. We gave you all the clues."

  "You wouldn't look," a starling told me. "We tried to show you, Claire. But you didn't want to see."

  "She never did," Tracy said. "She—"

  My shrieking phone woke me up. I was in bed in my hotel room, the papers from the case file scattered around the bed. It was eleven o'clock.

  I checked my phone. It was Mick.

  "I need my car," he said.

  "And I need food," I said. "But first I need to take a shower. In coffee."

  I heard Mick roll his eyes over the phone. I told him I'd meet him at his place in an hour or two. We got off the phone. My head pounded and my neck felt like someone had tried to break it. I went to the lobby and got two cups of burnt coffee and drank them in a hot bath. When I'd finished the coffee I had a few hits of weed and three ibuprofens. This case involved far too much alcohol and not nearly enough sunshine.

  I got to Mick's house at two. He came down and got in the car and we drove to Casamento's on Magazine Street. It had been my favorite restaurant when I'd lived here and it hadn't changed much. I got an oyster loaf and talked to the waitress about the price of shrimp and laughed when someone's little kid toddled over and offered me a bottle of hot sauce and played with two fat cats in the courtyard.

  It didn't make me feel any better to see what New Orleans could have been. Just worse.

  Our busboy was friendly and funny. He was about seventeen and I guessed he was in school. No one would work as a busboy if they weren't. Somehow he and Mick got started talking. Everyone knows everyone in New Orleans, even if it sometimes took them a while to remember exactly how and why they knew each other. His name was DeShawn.

  "How's your mom?" Mick was asking.

  "She's okay," DeShawn said. "Still struggling."

  "She get some therapy or something?" Mick asked.

  DeShawn shook his head. "She won't do it. Just goin' to church, prayin', all that."

  "She should give it a try," Mick said. "Helped me."

  "I know," DeShawn said. "I'm tryin'."

  As they talked I glanced up occasionally in between bites of oyster loaf. An oyster loaf is pretty all-consuming, and I wasn't paying much attention. A little bit at a time I took in the boy, lanky and big, still sizing up to a growth spurt. He had short hair and a diamond earring and a few tattoos, although less than most kids I'd seen. New Orleans was the most heavily tattooed city I'd ever been in. On one forearm was a girl's name, typical and dull. On the other was a set of praying hands holding a crucifix, also dull.

  Above the crucifix was a tattoo I'd never seen before. It was a tattoo of a parrot sitting on a branch of a live oak tree.

  "That's one of the parrots from around here, isn't it?" I said. "One of the green parrots?"

  DeShawn smiled. "Yeah," he said. "Got it when I was evacuated, out in California. Came out good, huh?"

  "Really good," I said. It wasn't really good, but I'd seen worse. I had worse. "Most people never notice them," I said. "Why'd you get that?"

  "I know!" he said. He smiled. "Most people don't even know they live here. Never look up," he said. "Just reminded me of home, I guess. Remind me that I'd be back one day."

  "So you were here during the storm?" I asked. "You and your mom?"

  He nodded. "Sure were. Up on our roof for three days."

  "Jesus," I said. "That's terrible. Listen, can I ask you something? You know a boy named Andray Fairview?"

  "Claire," Mick said, looking annoyed. "Please."

  "Sorry," I said to both of them. "But—"

  DeShawn shook his head. "Don't think so," he said.

  "How about this guy," I said quickly. Before Mick could object I reached into my purse and pulled out the picture of Vic. "You ever see him?"

  "Claire!" Mick said. "Totally inna—"

  DeShawn took one look at the picture of Vic Willing and the blood drained from his face.

  Mick may have thought it was totally inappropriate to ask DeShawn about Vic, and I suppose in a way it was. But it would have been worse to let a clue fly away without letting it tell me what it knew.

  All you have to do is listen. All you have to do is not shut them up when they try to talk to you and the clues will tell you everything you need to know. And eventually, if you follow one to the next, wherever they fly, they'll lead you to the truth.

  "Yeah," DeShawn said. He grabbed the edge of the table as if he were dizzy. "Jesus. Sorry, I got to—"

  "Please," I said, and pulled out a chair for him. The boy sat down.

  "Sorry," he said. "That just brings back memories, you know?"

  "Sure," I said. "Of course. I mean, Vic. Well."

  "Vic" DeShawn said. "I didn't know his name. You know him?"

  Now I was confused.

  "You don't?" I said.

  "Yeah," DeShawn said. "I mean, no, not really. He, you know."

  "He—?" I said.

  DeShawn looked from me to Mick and back again, confused.

  "I'm sorry," I said again. "How do you know this guy?"

  "He saved my life," DeShawn said, his eyes welling up with tears. "That man, he saved my life. Me and my mom too. He saved us off our rooftop in the Lower Ninth. He came for us." DeShawn started to cry. "He came and got us when the whole fucking world left us behind. He came for us. Him"

  "Him?" Mick said, face wrinkled up in confusion. "Are you sure?"

  "Him," DeShawn said, pointing at the photograph. "Yeah, I'm sure. Him"

  51

  DESHAWN STOPPED CRYING and looked at the picture, hypnotized.

  "Me and my mom," he said. "We was on that roof for three days. Three fucking days. No food, no water, nothing. We had all kinds of stuff in the kitchen. But it all got washed away. Helicopters went overhead, we were shouting like crazy. At first. Even a couple boats went by. But the boats was all full. And the helicopters never sent nothing down to us. I don't know what they were doing. But they weren't there to help."

  He shook his head.

  "I still don't understand it," he said, frowning. "Why no one came. I mean, I read all the reports and all that. I know what happened. But I still don't understand. My mom, she's like—she just can't get over it. Can't get over that nobody came for us."

  He sat for a minute, his face wrinkled.

  "Until him," DeShawn said, pointing at the picture. "Third day—third night, really. And when night fell—well, it was good 'cause it was cooler. That was good. But it was so dark. So dark, like nothing you ever seen. And that dark—that was scary. Real scary. People screamin' from their rooftops, shouting, cryin'. The sound was all around you. But you couldn't see them. You'd hear stuff splashing around in the water, but you couldn't see it. Didn't know if it was people or rats—and then every once in a while these, like, searchlights would kind of swoop down and you'd see everything all lit up, but just for a second. Like a strobe light in a club.

  "And then, on that third night—we'd just about had it. My
mom was prayin', I was prayin', but it's hard, you know. It's hard to keep faith. We thought the whole world left us alone. And then we see this little light. This tiny little light, way off in the distance. And then, just like a movie or a dream or something, this boat comes over. Someone on the boat's got a flashlight, and it's like—like this little cloud, like this cloud of light coming to us."

  DeShawn laughed. But his eyes were wet while he did it.

  "It coulda been God, all we knew. I mean—being on the roof like that, it was like living in Bible times, you know? Like all that crazy stuff in the Bible or history or whatever you read about—it was like living then. Like you got trials and tests and anything could happen.

  "Anyway," he went on, "in the boat there's a mother, her boy, and this guy. This guy. And the mother and her kid, they're shivering and freakin' out, almost like they was dying. Just totally fucked up. And the guy, him ..." He looked at the picture of Vic. "He was smilin'. Just smiling and happy like he was having the best day of his life. And he had a dog with him."

  "A dog?" I said. "Are you sure?"

  DeShawn nodded. "A dog. I think it was the little boy's. Big German Shepherd type—my momma almost didn't get on the boat with him. I don't know how he knew we was there. Maybe he was one of the boats that passed us before, one of the boats that was too full. I don't know. I always wonder how he found us, but I don't know.

  "Anyway. He helped us get in the boat. We wanted to get more—my neighbors was there, right next to us—but there was no more room. The man said the boat would tip if he put more in. So he just took us to the ground. Just dropped us off on dry ground like it was nothing. Me and Mom got off the boat first, 'cause we was in front, and there was people there with blankets and stuff. By the time we turned around, the rest of them, they was just gone."

  "Oh my God," Mick said.

  "Saved my life," DeShawn said. "For real. Me and my mom—we would've been dead. See, later, we went back to the house, and the roof was caved in. We don't know when it happened, but."

  He didn't finish his sentence.

  "He saved your life," I repeated.