LITMIR.BIZ

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the scorched spices at the bottom of a cast-iron pan. She and Guidry had been lovers once, but so briefly and so long ago that he remembered that period only occasionally, and without much feeling about it one way or another. He doubted that Seraphine remembered it at all.

      “You and Carlos never miss a button, do you?” Guidry said.

      “So you see now, mon cher? Don’t worry.”

      As Guidry walked back through the Quarter, Seraphine’s scent faded and his mind worked. It was true that Seraphine and Carlos never missed a button. But what if Guidry was one of those buttons? What if he was worried about the feds when in fact the real danger—Carlos, Seraphine—stood smiling right behind him?

      Get rid of the Eldorado.

      And then get rid of the man who got rid of the Eldorado. Get rid of the man who knows about Dallas.

      The priest on the steps of St. Louis was still going strong. He was just a kid, barely out of the seminary, pudgy and apple-cheeked. He clasped his hands in front of him, like he was about to blow on the dice in hopes of a lucky roll.

      “When we pass through the waters, God will be with us,” the priest was assuring his congregation. “When we walk through the fire, we shall not be burned.”

      That wasn’t Guidry’s experience. He listened to the priest for another minute and then turned away.

       4

      Barone got the call at nine. He was ready for it. Seraphine told him to meet her at Kolb’s for dinner in half an hour, don’t be late.

      Bitch. “When have I ever been late?” Barone said.

      “I’m teasing, mon cher,” Seraphine said.

      “Tell me. When have I ever been late?”

      Kolb’s was the German restaurant on St. Charles Avenue, just off Canal Street. Dark-paneled walls and beer steins and platters of schnitzel with pickled beets. Carlos was Italian, but he loved German food. He loved every kind of food. Barone had never seen anyone in New Orleans pack it away like Carlos.

      “Sit down,” Carlos said. “You want something to eat?”

      The place was almost deserted, everyone at home watching the big news. “No,” Barone said.

      “Have something to eat,” Carlos said.

      The ceiling at Kolb’s was fitted with a system of fans connected by squeaking, creaking leather belts. A little wooden man in lederhosen turned a crank to keep the belts and the fans moving.

      “His name is Ludwig,” Seraphine said. “Tireless and reliable, just like you.”

      She smiled at Barone. She liked to make you think that she could read your mind, that she could predict your every move. Maybe she could.

      “It’s a compliment, mon cher,” she said. “Don’t look so grumpy.”

      “Try a bite of this,” Carlos said.

      “No.”

      “C’mon. You don’t like German food? Let bygones be bygones.”

      “I’m not hungry.” Barone didn’t have anything against the Germans. The war had happened a long time ago.

      Seraphine wasn’t eating either. She lit a cigarette and then set the matchbook on the table in front of her. She positioned it this way and that, observing it from various angles.

      “It’s time for you to proceed,” she told Barone. As if he were too dumb to figure it out by himself. “The matters we discussed.”

      “Houston?” he said.

      “Yes.”

      “What about Mackey Pagano? I don’t have time for that, too.”

      “Don’t worry,” Seraphine said. “That’s already been taken care of.”

      “Did I say I was worried?” Barone said.

      “Your appointment in Houston is tomorrow evening,” she said. “As we discussed. You’ll need to go see Armand first, though. Tonight.”

      Carlos still eating, not saying a word, letting Seraphine handle everything. Most people thought that Carlos kept her around—the well-dressed, well-spoken colored girl—for blow jobs and dictation. Barone knew better. For every problem that Carlos could think up, Seraphine had a solution.

      “All right,” Barone said.

      His Impala was parked on Dumaine, a block off Bourbon. Friday night and hardly a handful of people around. Down on the corner, an old colored man was blowing “’Round Midnight” on the alto sax for a few tourists. Barone walked over to listen. He had a minute.

      The old colored man knew how to play. He hit a D-sharp and held it, the note rising and spreading like water over a levee.

      The guy next to Barone jostled him a little. Barone felt a hand brush against his pocket. He reached down and grabbed the hand. It belonged to a scrawny punk with pitted cheeks. Needle marks up and down the pale belly of his arm.

      “What’s the big idea, pal?” the dope fiend said, playing innocent. “You wanna hold hands with somebody, go find a—”

      Barone bent his hand backward. The human wrist was fragile, a bird’s nest of twigs and tendons. He watched the dope fiend’s face change.

      “Oh,” the dope fiend said.

      “Shhh,” Barone said. “Let the man finish his tune.”

      Barone couldn’t remember the first time he’d heard “’Round Midnight.” On the piano, probably. Over the years he’d listened to fifty, maybe a hundred different versions. Piano, sax, guitar, even trombone a time or two. The old colored man tonight made the song feel brand-new.

      The music ended. The dope fiend’s knees sagged, and Barone turned him loose. The dope fiend stumbled away, not looking back, hunched over his hand like it was a flame he worried might flicker out.

      Barone dropped a dollar bill in the sax case. The old man might have been fifty years old or he might have been eighty. The whites of his eyes were as yellow as an old cue ball, and there were needle marks running the length of his arms, too. Maybe the old man and the dope fiend were partners, one drawing the crowd so the other could rob it. Probably.

      The old man looked down at the dollar bill and then looked back up. He adjusted the mouthpiece of his alto. He didn’t have anything to say to Barone.

      Barone didn’t have anything to say to him. He walked over to his Impala and slid behind the wheel.

      THE WEST BANK OF THE MISSISSIPPI, JUST ACROSS THE RIVER from New Orleans, was a dirty strip of scrapyards, body shops, and lopsided tenement buildings, the wood rotting off them. The Wank, people called it. Barone understood why. The smell was something else. A couple of refineries fired night and day, a burning funk that stuck to your clothes and skin. Ships dumped their garbage on the New Orleans side, and it washed up here. Dead fish, too, the ones even the gulls wouldn’t touch.

      He pulled off the main road and guided the Impala down a narrow track of oyster-shell gravel that ran parallel to the train tracks. Tires crunching, headlights bouncing over rows of busted windshields and caved-in grills. A stack of chrome bumpers ten feet high.

      It was after midnight, but the lights in the office were still on. Barone knew they would be. A man gets in a certain habit, he stays there.

      Armand’s office was just a shack, four walls and a corrugated tin roof. The front room had a desk, a sofa with one arm sawed off so it would fit, and a camp stove that Armand used to boil coffee. The back room was behind a door that looked like any other door. Solid steel. Try to kick that in and walk with a limp for the rest of your life.

      Armand

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