Gods of New Orleans (15 page)

“Let’s go up, then, Pa. I hear Magazine’s got lots of work.”

“You hear, huh? From who?”

Aiden gulped. He hadn’t told his folks about the buggy man, or about the whole mess with the shine box, either. “Um, this guy in the dress shop,” he said, hoping his pa wouldn’t press it.

He didn’t, but Aiden didn’t miss the look on the man’s face that said he knew Aiden was having him on.

They went up to Magazine with a tight silence around them. Aiden hadn’t ever spent this much time with his pa outside of being at home with him on weekends. They reached Magazine Street, and it hit Aiden that he didn’t really know much about his pa, except for that he’d had a job cleaning up the Field Museum at night and slept most of the day because of it.

“What kind of work should we look for, Pa? Cleaning up like you did back home?”

“If we can find it, Aiden, sure thing. But that’s if we can find it. More likely we’ll find work that’s dirtier and doesn’t pay as well.”

All around them, Magazine Street was alive with activity. Women led children by the hand up and down the sidewalks. Small carts filled with fruit and vegetables stood like lampposts in front of every house, welcoming people up to the stoop. Girls with every color skin possible sat on the steps, smiling and waving at everyone who passed them by.

“C’mon up now. Beets, beans, and collards,” said a light-skinned girl across the street, waving at Aiden and his pa. Then she seemed to notice something and switched her attention to a young woman pushing a baby carriage. The girl’s mood shifted so fast and harsh that Aiden wondered if he wasn’t supposed to be looking at the girls, or if he should do something like wave back.

“Late oranges comin’ in here,” said another girl, with darker skin. She sat on a stoop nearby and Aiden could almost catch a hint of sadness in her voice. He looked at her as they passed and she turned her eyes away just as fast and sharp as the other girl had.

“Just keep walking, Aiden,” his pa said. “Don’t pay ‘em no mind.”

Aiden walked beside his pa, playing out what he’d seen and wondering what he’d done to put the girls off him and his pa so bad.

Up ahead, a dark-skinned gentleman came toward them. He wore a fine suit and porkpie hat and carried a walking stick that tapped a steady rhythm on the ground as he stepped. Aiden picked up on it first because his pa wasn’t looking at the man, but it was clear the guy meant to block their path and to do it quick. His feet and stick hit the sidewalk, clicking and snapping like typewriter keys. Aiden tugged on his pa’s sleeve in time to get his old man’s attention before they collided with the guy marching toward them.

The man drew up sharp and proper, with his stick between his toes and both hands on its head. His eyes met Aiden’s and he spat out a question that made Aiden’s skin crawl.

“May I ask just what in the name of Jehovah the two of you think you might be doing walking down this street?”

“We was‌—‌” Aiden’s pa started to say.

“I am speaking to the boy,” the man said, not looking at Aiden’s pa.

“Now hold on,” his pa said. “I’m the father here, and I’ll speak for my son. We‌—‌”

The man’s hands moved like lightning, bringing the tip of his stick up under Aiden’s pa’s chin just like that. Aiden spotted the little knife that extended from the stick to poke at his pa’s gullet.

“You’ll do no such speaking,” the man said, his eyes rounded with something like rage. “You’ll keep your fool Dove mouth shut unless you want another hole in your person. And this one won’t just mark ya. It’ll kill ya.” The man’s eyes rounded big and bright white, and full of what Aiden could only call hate.

Aiden’s pa stepped back as fast as the man had brought his stick up, so the knife point was left hanging in midair. The man slowly lowered the stick and did something with his hands on the stick’s head to bring the knife back inside.

“I asked you a question, Dove,” he said aiming a finger at Aiden while he kept his eyes locked on Aiden’s pa. With a quick glance, Aiden saw his pa looking ready for a fight but not so ready that he’d risk actually starting one. All around them the street seemed to go still. The calls from the stoop girls had stopped and only shuffling feet or cart wheels came through the air to Aiden’s ears.

“I am growing mightily weary of waiting for my answer, Dove,” the man said, turning his head to stare at Aiden now.

“We . . . like my pa‌—‌” Aiden started. His voice seemed to have snuck back into his throat, though, and the words wouldn’t come out unless he forced them. “We was . . . just out. Looking for work.”

“Work?” the man said, his eyes flashing open with a mix of fright and fury. “For the likes of you? A little Dove and his clipped pappy. And you like to be finding work along the Magazine? If that ain’t the best story I’ve ever heard.”

“It ain’t a story, mister‌—‌”

“Oh no? Well go on and tell me the long and short of it. I’m just dying to hear it.”

“Well, okay . . . ,” Aiden began, feeling his voice taking over now and getting the words back where they belonged on his tongue. “We just got to town and settled in over on Constance Street. My ma works the dressmaker’s shop there, along with the other sewing ladies. Me and Pa, we set out trying to find our way now, so we can help keep the home, too. Like a real man does, you know?”

The Negro seemed ready to slap the words right back into Aiden’s mouth, and for a second Aiden thought he would. Then the man’s face split open in a grin and he let out a belly laugh that shook Aiden to his feet.

“Well now, Dove. That is a story, indeed. And it’s one I’m like to believe. But tell me now, how do you propose to find work when you got a man like this by your side? He’s been clipped, and surely you know what that means.”

“Clipped? You mean how he got stabbed? That was all because some guy had his fingers in my ma’s hair. Ain’t that right, Pa? Tell him, will ya? How come I gotta do all the talking here?”

“I . . . ,” his pa started to say. “I can’t, Aiden.”

“Whaddya mean you can’t? You’re talking to me, ain’t ya’? Jeez, Pa. Help me out here. C’mon.”

The dark-skinned gentleman spoke then. “Your pappy knows, Little Dove. He clearly knows what clipped means, and he knows better than to speak out of turn again. Ain’t that right, Dove?”

Aiden looked between the two men, his pa and the man with the walking stick that hid a knife in the tip. As he watched the two men face off, his pa’s face softened and fell, and a tear crept out of his left eye.

“Yeah,” Aiden’s pa said. “I know what it means. Or I can figure it well enough I guess.”

Aiden waited for his pa to finish, and he could see the man with the stick was waiting, too. He tapped a foot and rolled the fingers of one hand across the back of the other that held his walking stick steady.

Aiden’s pa started up again, and said something that made Aiden’s blood go cold in his veins. “It means I can’t work in this town, Aiden. That’s right, isn’t it? Sir?”

In that instant, Aiden remembered what the barman had said when they first got into New Orleans.

“Won’t be finding work with a mitt like that on ya.”

The man they’d met on the street nodded at Aiden and his pa, and then he said, “Yes it is, Dove. That is right.”

He reached a hand into his coat and brought out a slim metal case, like for holding cigarettes. He held the case out, toward Aiden, and flipped it open to reveal a small stack of visiting cards.

“Go on and take one, Little Dove. You apply at the address thereon and you’ll like to be finding yourself . . . some work, I daresay.”

Aiden lifted a card from the case. It was a thin cream-colored piece of paper, but heavy, not like the newsprint he used to read when he worked for Mr. Brand. The card had a name and a street number on it, and a little note.

Chez Jambord et Pomet

45 Lafitte Street

For seekers of employment in New Orleans

Adien read the card while the man with the stick closed his little metal case and put it back in his coat.

“Now if you’d be so kind as to get this clipped bird off my street,” the man said with a smirk in Aiden’s direction. “I believe I can be wishing you a good day. And if you dilly or dally a second longer, I’m like to forget my offer and have the both of you run out of town on a rail.”

Aiden’s pa didn’t waste a breath. He turned and stepped fast down the sidewalk so that Aiden had to scurry to catch up with him. When he did, he thought of asking his pa what it was all about and how come he went quiet and got soft back there. But the look of shame on his pa’s face said enough.

Chapter 16

Emma wrung out another wet rag in the bucket beside her. She let it hang off the rim and sat back against the wall. The house Bacchus gave them wasn’t much to look at, even after three days straight of nothing but scrubbing and polishing. The walls were clean at last, and the few furnishings that’d been in the place were no longer coated in dust. A carpet in the front bedroom had to be thrown in the dustbin out back. There was one chair in the back bedroom that Emma swore had bloodstains on it, but she’d scrubbed it clean anyway, telling herself not to notice.

Just get it clean. Clean as can be is all we need.

The bathroom and kitchen were the easiest of all, since they had tile floors. The wood floors through the rest of the house, however, needed more work than Emma could do on her own, and Eddie was still in no shape to bend or get down on his knees.

Bacchus had sent them to a sawbones he said they could trust.

“Man works for me. So he works for you. When I tell him he does.”

Emma couldn’t suppress the shiver that whipped through her when the gangster put a hand on her waist and escorted her into the doctor’s clinic. Two of Bacchus’ toughs had helped Eddie in and the doctor didn’t spare a moment when he saw how bad Eddie’d been hurt.

“Lucky he’s still breathing . . . ,”
the doctor had said as he peeled Eddie’s shirt off and exposed the bruises around his ribs. Emma had cried long silent tears while the doctor and one of Bacchus’ boys wrapped bandages around her lover’s middle.

Right where my arms should have been,
she’d thought to herself while the tears rolled down her face.

But now they were home together, and Emma had cleaned the place up as nice as she could. The work wasn’t finished, but she was. And she knew Eddie wasn’t ready to take over.

Of course, the man just couldn’t let things lie. Emma jerked up from where she sat when he crawled into the room with a rag in his hand.

“Eddie, you’ll just make it worse,” Emma said, giving him a bent eye and reaching for the rag. He didn’t miss a beat and slopped the rag in the bucket, splashing Emma with some of the sudsy water. She gave a little squeal when it soaked through her skirt.

“Can’t have you doin’ all the cleanin’ up now, Emma. Wouldn’t be right.”

Emma wanted to argue, but at the same time she didn’t. Eddie was the reason they had a home of their own, and she knew it. But that didn’t make it easier to accept how quickly she’d gone from calling the shots to following them.

Eddie had kept the horn he’d gotten from the barman at Hardy’s place, and there wasn’t any protest from either Hardy or his bartender. When Bacchus brought them to the little shotgun cottage over on Dumaine, he’d handed them the keys and told Eddie to “keep an eye on her for me.”

Emma hadn’t been sure if Bacchus had meant the house, the horn, or her.

With Eddie making lazy passes with his rag along the floorboards, Emma scrubbed as fast as she could, trying to get the lion’s share done so Eddie wouldn’t have to work too hard. She knew he’d need his strength to play later that night. It would be his first show without her, but it would also pay in cash.

Their gig at Hardy’s place had paid in room and a little board, if you count two heels of bread and a wedge of dry cheese. They’d eaten proper that day that Bacchus came to collect them, but Hardy said it would have to come off their pay for the night anyway. And sure enough, it had been slim picking since then. Now, even with Bacchus lording over them, Emma didn’t know when she’d see something like a decent meal again.

When they’d arrived, the icebox in the back of the kitchen had some provisions in it. Nothing too fancy, just some cabbage, collards, a few apples, and a bottle of milk that was already going off. They’d eaten all of the food in the first two days, adding it to a steak Emma bought from a nearby butcher’s. Bacchus had given Eddie a few dollars.

“To get you and Miss Emma in good order before your big night.”

But that money was gone now, and even with the promise of a cash gig on the horizon, Emma still felt the bite of worry in her gut.

“You think you’ll earn enough for us to get some more food stored up, Eddie?”

“Huh?” he said, like she’d woken him from a dream.

“Tonight. You’re playing that gig for Bacchus tonight. He said he’d pay you in cash, and I’m wondering if you know how much it’s gonna be.”

“No idea, Lovebird. But you know, it’s got to be better than what we been earnin’ this week. Sure would like to know who’s gonna pay us for all this cleanin’ up we been doin’.”

Emma couldn’t help but laugh. Even in the worst moments, Eddie’s funny bone could tickle her into liking their chances again. She slapped her rag into the bucket and a spray of water fanned out and covered Eddie’s flank.

“Hey watch out now, girl,” he said, laughing, and then flung his rag at the bucket. He turned away to avoid the splash and Emma did the same, but they both ended up with suds on their backs and in their hair.

Emma turned back to see Eddie holding his ribs and wincing. She went to him right away.

“I told you to take it easy, Eddie.”

“I know, Lovebird,” he said. “I know. Help me to the bedroom, hey? I need to lie down a bit before tonight.”

Emma put a hand under his arm and stood. She supported his weight as best she could as he pushed himself off the floor on shaky legs. Together they stepped slow down the hall and into the back bedroom.