“Tell me,” said Orly, once Pinky had drifted to the other end of the bar, “about the new job.”
The new job: a cathedral of a warehouse with vaulted ceilings two stories high, lit carelessly by occasional candles, populated by the skeletons of wooden barrels, metal staves with bladed edges, and pyres of stripped cypress trees. Drag’s uncle himself resembled a stave, slender, taut, with a spine bent by a life spent hunched over barrels. Isadore supposed he would look that way soon enough. Better to be stooped over from hard labor than bending over a horn for audiences who couldn’t recognize real music when they heard it.
“Drag’s uncle said I’ll be a proper cooper in no time.”
“You hated it.”
Making barrels was a pain in the ass. The lining had to be pulled tight, and when it slipped, the metallic edge sliced his hand. The pay for night-shift assistants, working from eight to one, was only four dollars a week—what you could make in about two hours at Savocca’s. But he hadn’t played Savocca’s since before the outbreak, nor any other tonk, and just about nobody else had either. “It beats digging in a swamp,” he said.
“But you’re still digging in the swamp.”
Outside the wide glass windows the streetlamp atomized the mist. Liberty Street shivered as if underwater. This time of year you expected alligators to climb out of the gutters, fish to swim through the air. Then came the spring floods and the streets really did go underwater.
“I appreciate that you stayed with the canal job.” It was as if the mist had seeped inside the bar and coated her face. “And now a second job, just like you promised. Baby, I’m proud of you.” She let out a sob.
“Or.”
She laughed through her tears. “You know how the baby swings my mood. I don’t know why I’m crying.” She cried.
“I think we should get you to bed.” He found two quarters in his pocket and put them on the counter, thinking, Four dollars a week minus fifty cents makes three dollars and fifty cents—in two minutes they had drunk nearly his night’s work.
“I’m not ready.” She wiped her face with the sleeve of her robe.
“You still haven’t told me what this is about.”
“You’re going to hate it, huh?” she said. “The cooper job.”
“Not like I hate the dig. Compared to the dig, it’s the Taj Mahal.”
“How much does it pay?”
He told her and watched her do the mental calculations. He knew what she was thinking: it wasn’t enough. Between them they could barely cover basic expenses. Soon they’d be four. Miss Daisy couldn’t care for an infant, and the Tiltons would never allow Orly’s child to play with their own children. She would have to quit, and they would have even less. The last six months had been devoted to raising a cushion but they had failed. The money from the Bailey jobs was long gone—all that was left in the Egyptienne Luxury cigar tin was the Webley & Scott revolver, which wouldn’t fetch much at the pawn now that the city had been glutted with unwanted service guns. They would soon have to leave Liberty Street, and that didn’t take into account if the baby got sick or, God forbid, the influenza found them. Would they starve? Would Miss Daisy die?
“Why’s it so hard? Just to slip by?”
“It’s a hard time, Or.”
“It has always been hard.”
“It has been,” he conceded. “It always has been.”
“You look different.”
“Dignified. Serious. A real workingman.”
She smiled, but it was a rueful and unpleasant smile. “You look like a workingman all right. Beaten down.”
“I work all day for us and you start complaining about how I look?”
“Iz! I don’t mean that. Nothing wrong with how you look. You have muscles in places you never did before. I like that.”
“There you go.”
“I mean in your eyes. You’re tired.”
“That’s all right. Daisy is the only person I know that isn’t tired.”
“You’ve been tired. I haven’t said anything because I know you’re trying, but I’ve been watching. I don’t like what I see.”
Isadore had to laugh. First he wasn’t working enough and now he was working too much.
“I know I’m not making sense,” said Orly.
The old drunk stumbled past them, into the night. At the end of the bar Sis Pinky poured the watery remains of his whiskey through a funnel back into the bottle.
“I’ve been unfair,” said Orly. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“Life is unfair. Work is unfair. But you’re not unfair.”
“I keep thinking about the night at the Funky Butt.”
“That was an age ago.”
“Remember how downcast I was?”
“You had other things on your mind.”
“I’d known about her for weeks.” She patted her stomach. “No, I was downcast because I saw how excited you were in the club. And on the stage! You were possessed by spirits. It gave me a memory of when we met.”
“Please. I was still in short pants.”
“Hustling in the street with Dick, playing outside the clubs, blowing so hard it looked like you were carrying lemons in your cheeks.”
“That’s another life.” He shook his head. “That boy is gone.”
He thought of the nightmare at the Cave. Being forced to play “At the Darktown Strutters’ Ball” for a few chattering white drunks should have been enough to crush finally his dream of musical glory, of creating a new sound that would live forever, flowing from one generation to the next down the river of time into the sea of immortality. But two days later he got a call to audition with Kid Ory himself. With King Oliver having fled to Chicago, Ory’s band needed a new cornet player. In the audition Isadore had played it straight, not wanting to alarm Ory, but apparently it wasn’t straight enough. Ory had hired Dipper Armstrong, an old classmate of Isadore and Bailey’s from the Waifs’ Home—a fine technical player, nothing special. At the end of their appointment Ory had playfully called Isadore “King Zeno” and said he’d be keeping watch on him. But there was no job for him—not with Ory’s Brown Skin Band or anyone else. Music had not respected him, so he could not respect music. He would learn to respect barrels. He would learn to respect mud.
“Isn’t there some way you can still play?” said Orly.
“You’re really saying this.”
“What about weekends? How you used to do in the second lines.”
“That was kid stuff. I don’t traffic with rag anymore.”
“Maybe you could play with Dick, or Drag. I used to think it exhausted you but I’ve come to see it gave you life.”
“This kind of talk isn’t going to do anyone any good.”
She seemed on the verge of weeping again so he pushed her glass closer to her. She took a tentative sip. “I don’t like the taste anymore.”
He finished it for her and finished his own. His vision sharpened. He noticed that the fringe of Orly’s blue bathrobe was caked with sawdust.
“I love you,” she said after a little while. “That’s all I’m trying to say.”
“I’ll get a hang of coopering.” He tried to be gentle. He didn’t want her getting the idea that he was miserable, that each day he went without playing his music felt like another window closing, the air getting smokier, the escape routes being sealed off, in a house on fire. “Before too long,” he said, “they’ll increase my pay.”
Orly wiped her eyes.
“I can play with the boys on the weekend. Maybe even a Saturday show, make a few extra dollars. Or if a band needs a sideman, like the other night at the Cave.”
“It was a dumb idea.”
“It was a good idea. But I’m not even worried about music anymore.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“I’m not just talking. Yes, I have been tired. But once the baby is born, that’ll be my music.”
“She.”
“How do you know?
“I just do.”
“All right, she. I won’t need to gig. I’ll have her.”
She winced. “You believe that?”
“I know it.” The whiskey bubbled in the caldera of his stomach. His future was becoming as clear as the polished mirror behind the bar, where he spied Orly’s face, wise and trusting and open, and his own, pinched and dry, mud streaked across the forehead, the mustache a little wild, two days’ growth of stubble tracing the jaw. He looked older than usual, but with enough soap and shaving cream, he might still pass for a ward of the Waifs’ Home. His Parisian grandfather, a cabinetmaker named Louis Bouillet, who never learned English though he arrived in New Orleans as a young man, whose framed portrait was one of the few possessions that Isadore had brought with him from the orphanage, survived in Isadore’s hazel eyes and delicate ears; his mother was visible in his full, expressive mouth. This was a mixed-up fellow, brazen and fearful both, divided between continents, families, races, lives. Nobody could trust such a man. Not even Isadore could trust this man.
“We will have money,” he told Orly. “And we will have joy.”
She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. “I hope so.”
“Don’t have to hope. That’s what a husband is for.”
Orly took his face between her large hands. In her eyes he could see that he had reached the place she had wanted him to reach. “I’m ready,” she said, “to sleep.”
She winced with pain when he helped her off the stool. After she went outside, her bathrobe dragging sawdust and who knew what else with her, he took a final glance at the bar mirror. He had been mistaken, he realized. He could not be confused for a child. That fellow in the mirror was a grown man, with grown responsibilities. He was a grown man who was going to do what any grown man in his position must do.
MARCH 7, 1919—GENTILLY
The old clarity began to return. The problem, he realized, was that they had been talking to exactly the wrong people. They had interviewed the owners of grocery stores. Of course the grocers wouldn’t talk. They were vulnerable, they had businesses to run. He needed witnesses with nothing to lose. Or who had already lost everything.
Eloise Obitz opened the door on Havana Street on the second knock.
“Billy Bastrop,” she said, a strange grin playing across her face.
He was disarmed by the speed with which she had answered the door. It was as if she had been standing on the other side, waiting.
“Orchids are my favorite.” She took them out of his hands and carried them into the kitchen. He heard running water. He didn’t know whether to follow her, so he remained in the doorway, hat in hand. He had not visited since the sleepless morning after her husband’s murder, when Bill and Harry Dodson had undertaken the grim errand of informing the victim’s family. After a tour of the Obitzes’ victory garden with the older daughter and a long, incoherent monologue by Eloise, they had made every plausible excuse to leave, but neither mother nor daughters would permit it. The encounter only ended when Bill pried the older daughter off Dodson’s leg and the female Obitzes melted together onto the living-room floor in a puddle of tears. If he had to revisit this scene, it would be better to go without Charlie, alone. Besides, this was no longer police work, at least not only police work. By solving this unsolvable case, he would solve Maze. He would prove his courage, regain his confidence. He would win her back. He would not have been able to explain all this to Charlie, which was another reason he left his partner behind. But he felt it was true. Instinct told him so.
He had expected to find the Obitz house messy and dark—like his home in Maze’s absence—but the living room was immaculate. The sofa cushions were puffed, the chairs aligned exactly with the edge of the coffee table, the floors cleanly swept. He felt as if he should remove his hobnailed boots.
Eloise poked her head out of the kitchen. It was a fine head, a doll’s head—a standard deviation too large for her torso, suggesting a measure of jocularity ill suited to a woman recently widowed.
“You’ll stay for a moment, won’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Eloise to you, Officer.” She winked. “Sit on the couch. The chairs are hard.”
The house was silent, childless. Eloise returned with two wineglasses and a bottle. As she poured, Bill was struck by how normal she seemed. Her skin was soft and uncreased; her color high; her hair, nearly as blond as her late husband’s, coiled into a neat bun. She was pretty, if slightly drawn around the lips, roughly Maze’s build but narrower in her hips and shoulders. The only concession to mourning was the long black skirt, though it was dappled with white checks. Her blouse was white. She sat beside him on the couch, tucking her knees beneath her so that she could face him.
She held up her glass. “To surprise visits.”
She winked again. It was not voluntary, he decided, but a kind of twitch. They touched glasses and their eyes met.
“Your daughters.”
She laughed. “You’d have heard them. They’re with my sister.”
“I know it’s been a hard time.”
“It’s a small town.” Her smile dampened only slightly. “He’s everywhere.”
“I understand how that can be.”
“But lives go on.” Again the wink—yes, it was definitely inadvertent.
“Yes, ma’am. That is, Eloise.”
She beamed again.
It was a small town. In a small town people spoke the same way. He recalled something Andrew Maggio had said that morning. They stood on Tonti Street, around the corner from his barbershop. He had been giving a shave, but when he saw Bill’s uniform in the doorway he handed his blade to his partner and walked silently into the street. They did the regular duet—“I already told them everything,” etc.—but when Bill bluffed that he had a new lead, Maggio tightened.
I’ve been cleared, he said. There’s nothing attaching me to the crime.
I know it wasn’t you, said Bill. But I think the killer is still alive.
I hope you’re wrong.
I went to your brother’s grocery yesterday. It’s closed.
I sold it.
Why?
After what happened, you think I’d want to go into groceries?
Who bought it?
I sold my note to the bank. That ended my involvement.
With the grocery?
With your investigation.
Bill tried to summon the right question but as always it evaded him.
Someone in New Orleans knows what’s going on, he said at last, if only to extend the conversation. I won’t stop until I find that person.
You’ll have to look hard.
I am. I’m searching the whole town.
Ah, said Maggio. But there are towns within towns.
“I have a strange question,” said Bill, in the Obitz living room. “‘There are towns within towns.’ Have you ever heard someone say that?”
“‘There are towns within towns’?” Eloise tilted her head, as if listening for an echo. When none came, she provided one. “There are towns,” she said, “within towns.”
“It’s nonsense, probably.”
She shook her head. He noticed that her wineglass was empty. He did not remember seeing her take a sip.
“Maybe it’s like this,” she said. “Within the city there are lots of different communities. And each community exists apart from the others.”
“What kind of communities?”
“The community of officers and their families, for instance. I take it that’s why you visited this evening—to honor our little community?”
He hesitated. “I did want to pay respects. I looked up to Teddy. He was the best detective I’ve known.” It was the truth. He’d shadowed Obitz when he’d joined the Department. Nobody had better navy instincts than Obitz, which was why the entire Department was especially spooked by his death. A navy with excellent instincts shouldn’t die in action. At least that’s what they were told in training.
“I’m afraid I also have some professional questions. But first I want to know about you and your family. Is the Department doing enough to help?”
“We’ve been lonely. To tell the truth.”
“They haven’t been around, to help? We’ve made collections—”
She waved him off. “Business first. Then we’ll get to the other things.” She folded her hands on her lap. Her bright smile returned. Perhaps she was sick of talking about her husband. Bill couldn’t blame her. He didn’t like talking to other people about Maze and she was alive.
“It’s grisly business.”
“I was married to a policeman.”
“Do you remember the Maggio murders? The Italian grocer and his wife?”
“The Axman.” She filled their glasses.
“Teddy was working the case.”
She seemed to be turning over an idea in her mind. Maybe something had occurred to her. Detective work was like that: a lot of fruitful research and hard work with no result, and then a single question to the right person turns the lock.
“Is this the reason you came here, Detective? To discuss the Axman?”
“Anything you remember—”
“I heard your wife left.”
It stopped him.
“Small town,” Eloise said.
“She went with her parents across the lake. To avoid the influenza.”
“Has she?”
“Has she left?”
“Has she avoided the influenza?”
“So far,” he said. “So far as I know.”
“It’s very terrible,” she said. “The influenza.”
It was not quite a question but not quite a statement either. He recognized the tactic. It was the interrogator’s noncommittal inquiry, used to elicit information without seeming particularly eager to have it. She assumed a concerned expression though he sensed a playful fluttering behind her pursed mouth. She did not wear lipstick but her lips were moist. Her slender little fingers played lightly with the top button of her blouse. Well, he was an actual detective. He could wait too. Time elapsed. Her mouth opened. Her mouth closed. It was a soft mouth, filled with bright white teeth. In fact, he thought, my wife is the reason I’m here today. But he did not say this.
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