Vizzini appeared disturbed by the development. “Raymond?”
The man in the driver’s seat, a Negro wearing a black hat, gave an awkward smile. The passenger door opened and an urn-shaped woman gingerly stepped out. Isadore sat up straighter in his seat. He recognized her from the dig too. Though sturdy of build, she had none of her son’s gigantism. The only things outsize about her appearance were the gold rings that adorned the fingers of both hands. In the white brightness of the headlamps the rings sparkled like pixie dust.
“Mamma?”
“Officer, there has been a terrible misunderstanding.”
Bastrop looked between mother and son, the revolver rattling in his hands. Vizzini, dazzled by the sight of his mother, appeared to have forgotten about the cop. He took a pair of clumsy steps and passed in front of his automobile. He held no gun. His hands were empty. Empty was the wrong word, though; his fists were weapons on the order of boulders or jackhammers. Still Bastrop had a point-blank shot. Beatrice Vizzini seemed to appreciate this. She flashed Bastrop a strong, urging glare. If Isadore hadn’t known that she was Vizzini’s own mother, he would have concluded that she wanted Bastrop to fire. Bastrop, however, was frozen. He appeared to be dreaming and blind to the world.
“I’m sick, Mamma.”
“Let’s go home, Giugi. There has been a big confusion.”
“Mamma, it’s hard for me to breathe.” Vizzini tried to walk but stumbled and had to steady himself on the hood of his car. He paused there for a moment, eclipsing one of the headlamps. His mother glanced again at Bastrop, who responded with another violent convulsion of coughing. Vizzini was even closer now, less than ten feet away from the barrel of Bastrop’s revolver.
“Shoot,” whispered Isadore, but it was no use. Bastrop retched, shaking.
“Mamma, I think those oysters were bad.”
Mrs. Vizzini shook her head. “I’m sorry to see you like this.”
“It’s getting worse.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Her voice was distant, impersonal.
“Why are you talking like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m not your son.”
“It’s late. Let’s go home.”
Vizzini paused, shaking his head. He spat. “Why did you follow me here?”
“You seemed unwell.”
Vizzini considered this. “I think I know why you came.”
“I was concerned about you.”
“You were concerned I would live.”
“Giugi! You’re ill.”
“You poisoned me.” The word seemed to revitalize Vizzini. With great effort he rose to his feet. “Just like you did Poppa.”
Mrs. Vizzini again glared urgingly at Bastrop but it was useless. He had fallen to his knee.
“You killed me,” said Vizzini, marveling. Though his gait was jerky, he moved with determination toward his mother. Mrs. Vizzini seemed to consider returning to her automobile, before realizing that it would be useless. Her son was fully capable of yanking the door off its hinges, of smashing his fist through the glass.
“Shoot, why don’t you?” she shouted, her gaze slashing at Bastrop. “There’s your Axman! Shoot!”
Vizzini closed fast. His mother backed away from the vehicle. When Vizzini paused in front of the Model 56, she turned to her driver.
“Now, Raymond! Drive!”
Vizzini’s instincts, however impaired, were quicker than Raymond’s. Vizzini pivoted and reached his hand through the open window. He squeezed the driver’s throat. Raymond’s head fell limply on the wheel and the car began slowly to jog away from the canal. Mrs. Vizzini turned and ran. In a few paces she escaped the penumbra of the police car’s headlamps and disappeared into the blackness.
Bastrop finally rose to his feet. “I know now. I saw him on May twenty-sixth, 1918.”
“Get your head together,” said Isadore. “He’s coming for us next.”
“On the corner of Baronne and Thalia. Long trench coat. Dark homburg—”
Bastrop fired his revolver. The Model 56’s windshield exploded. Vizzini looked up—not in alarm so much as curiosity, as one might respond to an unexpected rap on the front door. He was surprised to be reminded of Bastrop’s presence. He paused, debating whether to address Bastrop or his mother first. He chose his mother. But his motor system was misaligned. He ran awkwardly. He was fighting some internal force that pushed him right though he wanted to run left.
“Mamma?” His voice had an edge. “Wait a minute, Mamma.”
“Help me!” she yelled from the darkness. “Officer!”
Bastrop fired again. Isadore wondered if he had imagined the sound because Bastrop made no movement but a thick column of smoke rose from the barrel. The bullet appeared to go nowhere near Vizzini. The giant continued to hobble in his manic, uneven manner, like a lamed ruminant. Some twenty yards distant, Mrs. Vizzini reappeared at the fringe of the nimbus of light cast by Bastrop’s headlamps. The light might have dazzled her, or perhaps it drew her from the darkness as it would a cloud of termites. Or perhaps she was drawn by the pitiful sight of her dying son. After a moment’s hesitation, Mrs. Vizzini began to run again—toward the canal.
“We can’t lose him,” said Bastrop. The gunshots had restored him.
Isadore saw in his head Orly and Miss Daisy and tiny Isadora, an earthworm dazzled by daylight, writhing and sobbing. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Stay here then.” Bastrop walked into the white light of Vizzini’s headlamps, revolver extended, his figure abstracting into a silhouette. Then Isadore was outside the car. He followed Bastrop into the light.
It was easier to see once he’d passed behind the headlamps. Mrs. Vizzini had again vanished but up ahead, by the lip of the canal, her son fell to his knees.
“I only wanted to help.” He spoke softly. “But you made me sick.”
Isadore realized, too late, that he had left in the car the pistol that Bastrop had handed him. He listened for Mrs. Vizzini but could not hear anything apart from Bastrop’s wheeze and Vizzini’s strangled breathing.
“I think I’m dying.” Vizzini’s tone was matter-of-fact. “I am dying.” The words energized him. He lurched back to his feet. “Mamma? Mamma! I’m dy-ing.”
Bastrop lowered the gun—not out of strategy, it seemed, but physical weakness. Isadore felt it too, the weakness. It came upon him in a wave, a miasma rising from the muddy canal.
“I’m dying, Mamma.” Vizzini stumbled again, rose halfway up, tilted sidewise, fell again. “Don’t hide. Don’t you want to say goodbye?”
The silence was interrupted by Bastrop’s cough, muffled in his sleeve.
Vizzini rose with difficulty to his feet. He couldn’t straighten himself. Hunched over, his torso nearly parallel to the ground, he advanced toward the edge of the canal. Isadore and Bastrop followed quietly, taking tentative steps. Vizzini appeared oblivious of them. When he resumed, his voice was bright and taunting.
“I’m dying, Mamma.” In a quieter, confiding voice, he confided to himself, “I’m really dying.” He palpated his stomach, his head, his throat, as if trying to determine where the poison was doing its work. With a lurch he straightened his trunk and screamed, triumphant, “I’m dying! I’m dying! I’m dying!”
A low sick thumping noise came from the darkness. Another followed, and several more in rapid succession. Vizzini cocked his head, listening.
“Mamma?”
He scrambled with strange stomps and uncontrolled gesticulations, to the canal. The quarter moon sliced through the clouds and gave Vizzini’s wet face a nickel-plated glow. He bent and stared over the edge. Bastrop and Isadore stared over the edge too. A shapeless mass lay huddled at the bottom of the canal, some thirty feet below. In the moonlight Isadore saw the pale skin of an arm, and at the end of it, a concatenation of gold flickering like an eternal flame.
Bastrop coughed loudly and Vizzini whirled around. His eyes were crazy. Isadore felt his organs
plunge in his thorax. Bastrop doubled over, his gun hanging limply from his hand. Vizzini charged like a bull—a bull that had been pierced several times by a lance—limbs flailing, head bowed. Isadore reached for the detective’s gun. He did not remove it from Bastrop’s hand but raised the hand so that it trained on the giant’s dark, galloping form.
“Pull!” said Isadore. “Quick!”
The gun exploded. The force of the bullet stopped Vizzini but failed to knock him over. He looked with childlike wonder at his shoulder, where a corolla of blood was blooming. He prodded it and removed his fingers to contemplate their stickiness.
“I’m dying.” Vizzini turned to the two men and contorted his face into something resembling a smile. He held up his blood-smeared fingers. “I can do anything.”
“Pull it,” yelled Isadore into Bastrop’s ear, but it was too late. Vizzini covered the remaining distance between them in a single bound and knocked them both to the dirt. The revolver skidded out of sight, somewhere below the reach of the headlamps. Isadore rolled away from the others and there was a sickening sound of deflation as Vizzini threw his full weight on top of Bastrop. But the fall depleted Vizzini. A violent shuddering overtook him; his legs went limp and his arms curled in on themselves. Still the force of his weight alone would be enough to crush a normal man. Beneath the giant Bastrop went limp.
At the edge of Isadore’s vision a glinting came through the darkness. He crawled toward it.
“I have enough left for both of you,” said Vizzini, between convulsive breaths. He raised an engorged fist above his head and brought it down on Bastrop’s face. With his full strength the attack would have killed the detective, even decapitated him. But Vizzini was frail and had relied on gravity to give his blow any force. “You killed my mother.” He lowered his fist again onto Bastrop’s head. A convulsion shot through Vizzini, tensing his spine, rolling his eyes back.
Isadore suspected three bullets were left in Bastrop’s revolver, maybe two. At this range he only needed one. If he missed, it would not matter how sick Vizzini was, or how close to death; he’d summon enough strength to kill. What was the alternative? Run home and hope that Vizzini didn’t survive his poisoning? Wait for another knock on the door?
The giant turned to Isadore. “It’s a beautiful canal. When I’m done with him, I’ll bury you in it.”
“It’s not your canal,” said Isadore.
“’Course it is. I made it.”
“No, you didn’t. I did.”
Isadore fired. The heat bit his knuckles and he dropped the revolver. Vizzini did not budge. Isadore looked down; the gun was halfway between them. But Vizzini didn’t appear to notice it. Sitting astride Bastrop, he stared in amazement—not at Isadore so much as through him, toward the canal and his mother who lay at the bottom of it.
A strangled gurgle came from beneath Vizzini. Bastrop was trying to speak. With tremendous effort, through a bloodied mouth and broken teeth, and a diaphragm concaved by the weight of a giant, he tried again.
“Offa me.”
“What?” whispered Isadore, as quietly as possible, so as to avoid interrupting Vizzini’s reverie.
“Get ’im offa me!”
Isadore took two steps closer. Vizzini did not react. Isadore took another step and dove for the revolver. He rose from the ground, gun aimed, but Vizzini remained frozen.
Bastrop groaned.
Isadore cocked the gun and advanced again. When he came within a few feet he saw that Vizzini’s eyes had rolled back in his head. His chest was matted with blood. Isadore nudged his shoulder with the barrel of the revolver and backed quickly away. Vizzini didn’t move. Isadore pushed Vizzini’s shoulder, hard.
Bastrop groaned.
Isadore leaned into Vizzini with his own shoulder. It was like knocking over a tree stump, and like a stump Vizzini at last fell stiffly to his side. Bastrop gasped as the weight lifted. He tried to take a deep breath but the pain of it made him whimper.
“Let me help you into the car,” said Isadore.
“Don’t,” said Bastrop. “They’re coming.”
“They? Who’s they?”
A pair of headlamps lit up the bascule bridge.
“Sit here,” said Bastrop. “I’ll protect you.”
Isadore almost laughed. If anyone needed protection it was the bruised, flu-ravaged detective. Isadore sat beside him. For the first time he noticed the lights of the city in the distance beyond the infernal abyss. Somewhere out there Orly and Isadora waited for him. Out there the word of his performance at the Cosmopolitan Club was spreading from Uptown to the Garden District to the Tenderloin and the Back of Town. From there—who knew? Maybe it would travel on the riverboats up the Mississippi, or as far as Los Angeles and Chicago and New York.
“You hurt?” said Bastrop.
“I don’t know.”
“This canal.” Bastrop said it like a curse. “Man has no business making rivers. Digging up the past.”
It might have been a product of the detective’s delirium but Isadore suspected he was onto something. The purpose of a canal, as far as he could understand it, was to link things together—a lake to a river. But really it divided, cleaving a city in two, separating not only land but communities, families, lovers. In that way it was the opposite of song, which joined people together. Music flowed from city to city, generation to generation, growing deeper as it went, each singer modulating it with his own human strangeness, the song growing richer and weirder and bigger, flowing forever to the end of the universe.
Isadore knew he had lost himself in these thoughts because he did not notice the arrival of the second cop car until its front bumper came to rest several feet from his head. A woman burst out of the passenger seat and ran to Bastrop. A paunchy white man emerged from the driver’s seat. He approached warily, gun raised.
“He didn’t do nothing, Charlie,” said Bastrop. “Just saved my life.”
The big boy nodded and after a glance at Vizzini’s corpse to make certain he was dead, turned his attention to the detective.
“Oh God,” said the woman. “We need an ambulance.”
“I drive faster than any ambulance,” said Charlie. “Stay calm.”
The woman, crying, palpated Bastrop’s body, seeking the damage. “It’s over. Isn’t it?”
“It’s over,” said Bastrop.
It was beginning. Isadore thought of the other musicians at the Cosmopolitan tonight: Buddie, Honoré, Dodds, Collins. They had seen what he did and they had seen the response. They knew Isadore would never leave New Orleans; undoubtedly they would take his tricks on the road. Maybe they would give him credit or maybe they would pick from his style what they liked and pass it off as their own. The idea would have bothered him only days earlier but now he accepted it in a spirit neither happy nor sad. The song was his only for a little while. Then it was everyone’s. If it was a good song—a real, honest song—and it had a swing, it would be sung forever.
The paunchy cop finished settling Bastrop in the backseat of the patrol car. The detective’s wife got in beside him. She held his hand.
The cop approached Isadore. “I’ll need to ask you some questions,” he said, “but not tonight.”
“I understand.”
“I can’t give you a ride back.”
“I’ll walk.”
“The body squad will be out soon. I’ll tell one of them to take you.”
“There are three bodies. One’s at the bottom of the canal. The other is in an automobile that drove off that way somewhere.”
The officer walked to the precipice and gazed down. “Yah. I see that one. It’s sparkling.” He looked at Isadore for a moment like he wanted to add something. Then he got into his car and started the engine.
As much as Isadore wanted to reassure Orly that he was safe, that the bigger-than-big man was dead, he wasn’t ready to leave the canal. There was too much to think about. He wanted to remain in the darkness long enough to let it sink into him. His mind h
ad gone out to the ends of the universe but now it went down, to the mud at the bottom of the canal that was already devouring Beatrice Vizzini and, below that, to the buried primeval forests, where once there had stood colossal trees and wildflowers and spreading vines. Those lost forests had sheltered mastodons, glyptodonts, and giant sloths but also countless small creatures now lost to the world—obscure lizards and insects and burrowing rodents. His brain was full of them, the slithering, conniving animals, sometimes burrowing in the mud and sometimes climbing to the crowns of the trees, famished for life, each confident in its strange heart that its life was the only one to be lived, each full of joy and terror, each singing in its own funny way at the moon, just as loud and as pretty as it knew how.
ALSO BY NATHANIEL RICH
FICTION
Odds Against Tomorrow
The Mayor’s Tongue
NONFICTION
San Francisco Noir: The City in Film Noir from 1940 to the Present
A Note About the Author
Nathaniel Rich is the author of the novels Odds Against Tomorrow and The Mayor’s Tongue. His short fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and VICE, among other publications. He is a writer at large for The New York Times Magazine and a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and The Atlantic. Rich lives with his wife and son in New Orleans. You can sign up for email updates here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Part One: Glyptodont
Part Two: Towns Within Towns
Part Three: The Underground Forest
Also by Nathaniel Rich
A Note About the Author
Copyright
MCD
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
175 Varick Street, New York 10014
Copyright © 2018 by Nathaniel Rich
All rights reserved
First edition, 2018
The Times-Picayune’s map of New Orleans appears courtesy of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library.
King Zeno Page 35