“Teddy might have mentioned Maggio,” said Eloise. “Teddy mentioned all kinds of things.” She leaned very slightly forward, an inch or perhaps less, but it was enough to alter the atmosphere. “He kept everything in his files.”
“Are they here?”
“They’re in the kids’ room.”
“I would like to see the files,” said Bill, but he was no longer thinking about the files. He was thinking of the blond strands that had come loose from her bun and fell over her forehead. Her hand slipped from her blouse. The top button slipped out of the buttonhole. He waited for a wink but it was not forthcoming. She stood abruptly.
“Should I follow you?”
She disappeared down the hall. He waited for an invitation. It did not come. He followed.
The children’s bedroom had no windows, only two single beds lying against perpendicular walls. Eloise Obitz’s back was to him; she faced the bed along the far wall. When she turned, her blouse was fully unbuttoned. The fabric parted to reveal a cream-colored corset with its own row of buttons set between folds of ruffled fabric. Towns within towns. Buttons beneath buttons.
“There aren’t any files,” he heard himself say.
She closed the distance between them. Advancing, she was all sharp cutting shoulders and quick little hands. Her face, clear and blank, stared up at him, and he felt her hands find his belt. It was not an easy belt to remove, the service belt. It had two rows of holes and two separate loops. But she had experience with the model. With a click the belt was loose. He felt stomach-sick and frenzied with desire. A hit of some narcotic burst in the brain stem and flushed downward in rolling waves. He had not felt it for months, maybe longer, not with such intensity—there had been a hit when he saw Maze outside Gino’s, but it was swiftly overcome by stronger emotion. Eloise looked down and her yellow hair was in his nose, giving off a strong scent of powder. He grabbed her shoulders. They were like the wings of a small bird.
“The files are under the bed.” Her tiny fingers worked into the coils of hair beneath the band of his drawers. “You can have all the files you want.”
He forgot why he had cared about the files in the first place. Maze was gone, perhaps forever. Even if he did solve the case, what good would it do? Would she care? Would she take him back just because he solved a big case? What kind of logic was that?
A door slammed open and shut. It took a second for them both to realize that it was not Eloise’s front door, but the neighbors’. Even so, the clatter and the prospect of being interrupted by her daughters made Eloise stiffen and in the caesura a sliver of mental clarity entered Bill’s lust-addled brain. He reminded himself that he wasn’t only chasing the Axman for Maze. He was doing it for himself. If he had learned anything this year, it was that cowardice led only to ruin. And what was more cowardly than taking advantage of the lonely widow of his former mentor?
But now Eloise Obitz’s lips were pressing wetly against his own and her busy little fingers were closing around his cock.
MARCH 8, 1919—THE GARDEN DISTRICT
It was a good thing that Operation Ritz Palace was a success because the Industrial Canal—the great dream that the shadow business and Hercules Construction served, the seed of her immortality—was a fiasco. Giorgio’s transfer to the DeSoto house coincided with the beginning of a precipitous decline at the work site. It wasn’t his absence that caused it, she didn’t think. She couldn’t put her finger on any single decisive problem, which was itself the problem. The Texas dredge was slowed by its delicate gastrointestinal system, and as the men dug deeper, quicksand conditions took hold. Marsh gas burst from the ground in explosive belches. When laborers weren’t threatened with being sucked under to a sandy grave or poisoned by gas, they risked drowning as groundwater seeped into the canal more quickly than it could be pumped out. The Spanish Death, on top of everything else, seemed to breed in the damp recesses of the canal. At the height of the first outbreak, Beatrice consented to a weeklong cessation of activities. The second outbreak in January led to another furlough. The budget doubled. This was not so bad in itself—much of the money would end up going to Hercules, after all, and much of that to Beatrice Vizzini—but it required a second municipal bond. The public indignation drew scrutiny to the exclusive nature of Hercules’s unusual contract. Hercules Construction, unlike the shadow business, was meant to operate in the light of day, but Beatrice was unaccustomed to the brightness of the glare. Hugs became impatient, even wondering aloud, during one particularly high-strung meeting at Hibernia’s downtown office, whether they should reconsider hiring additional construction firms. None of these troubles pained her acutely, however, for Giorgio, miraculously, had been cured.
She did not think it was a coincidence that there had been no attacks in the eight months since he began working with Rosie. Every man had a rowdy age, but she had helped him through his. It was even perhaps not too late for Giorgio to become the family leader she had hoped for, the man Sal never was. Her intercession had diverted Giorgio’s violent energies to productive use. He had, to her delight and amazement, transformed Ritz Palace into a highly profitable concern. Giorgio had become a businessman.
He ran the Ritz Palace like a doctor’s office: no drinks or cigars sold, no music played, no card tables. Less romance, more lust. It turned out most clients did not mind as long as the main service was delivered. The girls were booked a full week in advance, the house was clean, and there were no complaints from neighbors or police. The work calmed him. Or perhaps it was all the sex. Though Beatrice did not like to dwell on it, she had concluded that he was engaging several if not all of the women under his employ. He might have even engaged Rosie despite the age difference—she was at least ten years older than him. Who was Beatrice kidding? He was engaging Rosie.
In February, with Beatrice’s blessing, Giorgio opened two additional cribs, installing three women in each. They were situated in former grocery apartments that had been sitting vacant in good neighborhoods—one in the Garden District, the other in Faubourg Bouligny. Giorgio spent his days moving among the houses. Every evening Rosie left her sealed report beneath a pot of pink azaleas on Beatrice’s front porch. Her letters varied little but were highly detailed. They were more glowing than any assessments Giorgio had received in elementary school. Reading the letters at night in the library, she dared to imagine a new future unfolding before her. Gradually she would hand over to Giorgio greater responsibility. She would begin to include him in meetings with Hibernia, tutor him in the intricate financial structure that linked the shadow business and Hercules, and deputize him to oversee Zo and the cousins. Within a couple of years, once Hercules had terminated the shadow business for good, she might even retire. She could join the boards of cultural institutions: the French Opera House, say, or the Delgado Museum of Art. The Vizzini name would come to be associated with charity, fine taste, discretion. She would embark on this new stage of life secure in the knowledge that her son would lead Hercules to ever-greater business success, expanding from construction to, perhaps, shipbuilding, engineering, real estate speculation. One day, perhaps, in the not too distant future, Giorgio would find a respectable woman with whom he would produce a new generation of Vizzinis, and so on, through time immemorial.
Still a line in one of Rosie’s recent letters struck her as odd. Giorgio has shown an unnatural talent for this work, Rosie wrote. It was an anodyne statement, written without emphasis, but it lingered in Beatrice’s mind. The more she thought about it, the more it bothered her. It was unnatural that did it. The word reminded her of something Sal had said, toward the end, after she confronted him with evidence of sloppiness in his business affairs. Sal had first laughed, as if charmed by the idea of her investigation, before growing angry. In their final argument he had used that exact word, unnatural. He had called Beatrice’s determination to reform Hercules “unnatural.” He didn’t understand why it wasn’t enough to make money and live comfortably. He didn’t understand her yearning f
or higher things. He found it unnatural that she should favor the phantom of future glory over present happiness. He found unnatural the ends to which she would go to achieve this glory. Beatrice had tried to explain that nothing was unnatural about her views—or her methods. What Sal called “unnatural,” she called strategic. She called it wise, bold, visionary.
She called it cunning.
MARCH 9, 1919—CARONDELET WALK
The first candidate was short, slight, bundled tightly in a dark hooded coat. He walked with the swaying, horizontal motion that came on after a fourth drink. It was unlikely he would put up a fight. He couldn’t do Isadore much damage anyway, and if he made a big noise, nobody would hear. At this hour Carondelet Walk, a narrow, rutted horse path that separated the Old Basin Canal from a grim procession of shuttered warehouses, was empty and silent. There was no escape. A crabbing boat was tied to the nearest mooring but the deck was too far away to be reached in a leap. Isadore had a decent disguise—he had cut a patch of netting from the boat’s hawser and secured it beneath his black alpine hat, wearing it like a mask. He was proud of the disguise. It was also a dark night, a platinum cloud obscuring the moon. It added up to ideal ambush conditions, better than any Bailey had obtained. But with Bailey, Isadore had only to stay in the shadows, serve as a lookout. This was a different business altogether. As the figure approached, Isadore tightened the crab netting over his face and gripped his Webley & Scott revolver, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. A picture of Orleania rubbing her stomach, her eyes moist with fear of the future, entered his mind, and the next thing he knew, he had leaped from behind the loading dock.
“Hold it,” he said, rough.
The candidate, after a brief hesitation, walked faster.
“I am pointing a gun at your head,” he shouted.
“I have the crabs,” came a female voice. She turned slowly, her hands rising over her head. “If you rape me, you will also have the crabs.”
“Good heavens. I—”
“Take pity.”
“I did not see you were a woman,” he said stiffly. What would he do if Orly were held up by a low-down tough? He would murder the man. That was one scenario in which he could see committing murder. Imagine: holding up a woman!
“The crabs are only the smallest portion of my misery. My husband has gone, and he was the source of the crabs.”
Isadore resumed his position behind the dock in a precarious moral state. He had no time to reconsider his plan, however, for another candidate approached. The man—Isadore could see his Stetson from half a block away—was white, tall, striding with a quick, assured pace. This hour, 3:00 a.m., was the height of the so-called Tango Slobber, the steady dribble of men oozing home from the nightclubs, gambling parlors, and sporting houses in the Tango Belt. The clubs around Iberville and Rampart stayed open all night on Saturdays but around three o’clock the conscience of any man intending to go to church with his family began to churn. If a man was in a rush, or not thinking clearly, he might find himself walking along the fetid canal that divided the former Storyville district from Black Storyville. It was the shortest route to the back of town, a straight line, and it avoided the enticements and dangers of both nightlife districts. No enticements lay along the Old Basin Canal, only a procession of slumbering shrimp boats, shell barges, garbage scows, charcoal schooners, oyster luggers. And Isadore Zeno, lurking.
This man appeared not to be egregiously boiled, was several inches taller than Isadore, and had strong shoulders. Best to let him pass. Isadore held his breath. When the man came flush with the dock, he turned and stared at Isadore.
“Yay!” The man’s voice was deep. “Who goes there?”
Isadore could not speak. In his pocket he fondled the Webley & Scott. Should he shoot? What if he missed? What if he hit? He did not want to fight and he did not want to kill because he did not want to be fought or be killed. So he remained squatting. He forced himself again to think of Orly and their unborn child but it no longer had an effect.
“Why is there fishnet over your face?”
After a pause, Isadore said, “Do you have a nickel for a poor fisherman?”
“It is a poor fisherman indeed who must resort to begging.” The man removed a coin from his pocket and placed it in Isadore’s trembling palm.
“Appreciate it, sir.”
The man shook his head in sorrow. “It used to be enough to teach a man to fish.”
Bailey had taught Isadore how to fish. A victim should be preoccupied, incautious, physically compromised: fat, short legged, disabled. He should offer the promise of a good payday, meaning he should either dress well or in a uniform that suggested he carried cash—knife sharpener, say, or bakery deliveryman. The greatest danger was a man who sought eye contact, a surefire sign of aggression. Should a confrontation occur, it was essential to attack with overwhelming ferocity. Bailey had no fear: he would have slugged the gentleman in the face, no matter how tall or white he was, and kicked him into the canal. That’s why he was a successful highwayman. It was also why he was in jail, facing death.
It had become difficult to imagine any other outcome. The newspapers reported that Capo, the sweaty swinish police captain, assured Bailey that he would be rewarded for cooperation, and in September he confessed to six of the holdups—without mentioning an accomplice. He also pled guilty to murdering Detective Theodore Obitz. But the judge refused to accept the plea. He wanted Bailey hanged. Obitz’s widow wanted him hanged. The Police Department wanted him hanged. Bailey was not so brave anymore. He told the judge he had made a mistake—could he change his plea to manslaughter? The judge laughed. Bailey tried again: Was there anything he could do to avoid a murder charge? You could kill yourself, replied the judge.
There was death on one side and death on the other. Then came the Spanish Death and the trial was delayed three months, depriving Bailey of a short confinement before his inevitable end. “I’m looking straight into the darkness now,” he told a reporter. “I’m looking straight into it and I can’t see no reflection.” Isadore had wanted to visit him, he felt guilty for not yet having done it, but the risk was too great. His presence might cause Bailey, desperate and panicked, to report Isadore’s role in the crimes to the police. No, it was better not to visit at all, better not to agitate him. A real friend would be careful not to cause any unnecessary harm.
Perhaps a new series of holdups would help Bailey’s case. The police had believed the grocer Besemer to be the Axman until another attack occurred while he was in jail. Might another series of highwayman attacks cause Bailey’s case to be reevaluated? But Isadore could not hold that idea in his head. He wasn’t doing this for Bailey. He was doing it for Orly and the child inside her, which was another way of saying that he was doing it for himself. Enough—another candidate approached.
He was small, pale, skinny. His jerky walk meant he was either drunk or infirm. He carried a long suitcase in one hand and hummed a tune beneath his breath. Think: You’re Bailey. You’re fearless. You’ve done this thirty times. Maybe the suitcase carried winnings from one of the casinos. Wait too long and you’ll risk being surprised in your own hiding spot. So jump. Jump.
“Hands over your head!”
The man froze but made no movement with his arms. Close up, Isadore could see that he was not white but was even lighter than himself. Very well—an Uptown Creole would still be liable to have money on him and would not file a police report. But Isadore did not look long because the holes in the crab netting were wide and head-on he might be more easily identified. He held the gun directly in front of his face.
“Would you mind, young man, if I first put down this case? It is heavy.”
“Go on.”
“There. Now I am raising my hands. There is no need to shoot.”
The Creole’s movements had a sinuous fluidity that unnerved Isadore. But why should he be more anxious than his victim? He circled quickly and, pressing the revolver between the man’s shoulder blades,
passed his free hand into the jacket pockets. He watched alertly for any sudden movement, but the Creole was still, his breathing even. Close like this, he could smell the man’s odor—oaky, touched with gin. It was an intimate thing, going through another man’s clothes, and it did not sit well with him. He had never been physically close to a victim on a Bailey job and was unprepared for the man’s damp skin, the gravel of his breath, the pulse of his jugular. Isadore found a folded handkerchief in one of the pockets. From the other he removed a set of keys, a pocket watch, and a plug of tobacco. He dropped everything but the timepiece, which he slipped into his own jacket.
“What you’re looking for is in the right pocket of my trousers.”
Isadore swiped the man’s waist to make sure there was no weapon. From the right trouser pocket he extracted a wallet and some coins. The left pocket was empty but in the back pocket he felt a thin metal rod that terminated in a bell. He held it up to his face to get a better look. It was gold plated—a mouthpiece for a trombone. Dread rose in him: Was this someone he knew? Had played with? The crab netting had come untucked from his shirt collar and he paused to replace it. He placed the wallet and the mouthpiece into his jacket and withdrew his weapon.
“What’s in the case?” he asked. But he was stalling. He already knew.
“Nothing that would interest you.” The man laughed. “I guess that’s the last thing I should say to a thief.”
“I’m not a thief.” Isadore had to stop himself from adding, I’m a musician.
“Of course not. You’re a professional purloiner. A career nightbird. A maestro of the pinching art—”
“Remove your shoes.”
The Creole bent slowly and untied his shoes with dainty precision. They were Chicago Flats with cork soles and treble clefs embossed on the toes. Isadore didn’t like the treble clefs. No ordinary jobbing trombonist could afford a gold mouthpiece and cork-soled loafers specially embossed. A voice inside him whispered a name.
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