Gods of New Orleans (17 page)

“I believe you have my mail,” says the big man with the rings and stick.

“Yes, Sir. Here it is,” Brand says, holding out the envelope. The big man nods his head to one side and a servant Brand hadn’t noticed before appears at the god’s shoulder. The servant is a white-skinned man in liveries that match the big man’s own suit. He wears a black tailcoat and blood-red vest over a white shirt. Woven into the vest are threads of silver and gold.

The servant takes the envelope and produces two coins, which he extends, pinched between his fingertips as though he would drop them rather than hand them directly to Brand.

Brand cups his hands and catches the coins as they fall. He looks at them as they sit in his palms. The two discs of glimmering yellow metal give off a warmth that spreads through Brand’s hands and arms. He looks up to thank the big man and finds the street empty.

Doesn’t stick around, does he?

Brand figures the big man for a gangster. That’s easy enough for him to put together without help. Brand’s been face-to-face with gangsters before, he remembers. And this one owns most of New Orleans, same as Capone used to own most of Chicago City. Only
Mr. Heavy Black Lightshow
here has something Capone didn’t.

“There’s a god in him, though. Bet it’s a big one. Wonder how many more they’ve got down here,” Brand says. He pockets the coins and feels their weight for just a moment before they vanish like sand through a sieve. A man in a sharp suit strolls through the early morning and dodges around Brand at the last minute. Brand waves a hand after the guy like he’d brush him away. But the guy’s already gone, his back to Brand and his eyes on the road ahead.

“Gods’re all the same. Same as always,” Brand says. “Get you to do their work and give you nothin’ back for it.”

On cue, Brand feels the weight of the coins in his pocket again, and then realizes it’s an envelope. He pulls it out. When he sees what’s written on the front, he puts a hand to his mouth and holds in the scream that’s forming in his throat.

TO INNOCENCE C/O AIDEN CONROY.

Brand chokes back his scream and reads the address again.

“Conroy? They’re after you, too,” Brand says and turns his face to the sky. “Well let ‘em try. You hear that?” He’s shouting now, ignoring all the looks and stares and glares he draws from the people on the street.

“You just try it!” Brand the Tramp hollers at the city around him, waving the envelope like a bailiff holding a court summons.

Chapter 18

Aiden’s pa was none too happy about it, that was clear enough. He sat across from Aiden, with his back to the kitchen where Aiden’s ma paced around like a gearbox gone haywire. She kept stepping close to his pa and then spinning off to go some other direction. The way Aiden’s pa clutched the bottle against his belly said it all.

That day on Magazine Street, his pa had stopped them off at the same saloon he’d been in when they first hit town. His pa had gone inside and told Aiden to wait, then he’d come out and told Aiden to come in. The guy at the bar had aimed a thumb at a door in the back of the room, and Aiden went. He wound up in a little kitchen with a sink and a whole lot of dirty dishes.

Aiden scrubbed and soaped up the plates and glasses while he pa held down a stool. The barkeep said he’d done a real good job, more than enough to earn his pa a glass a hooch. The guy had said he was sorry he couldn’t pay Aiden for the work. Then Aiden’s pa had said
“How about a bottle to take home?”

The last drops of the liquor made a little pool in the bottom of the bottle now. Aiden tore his eyes off it and looked at his ma again, but not straight on. Meeting her eyes wasn’t any better than staring down the bottle in his pa’s lap.

Behind his pa, the kitchen was still a dingy little corner, but now the cupboards had tins and jars of food put up for keeping. The family’s dishes sat stacked on a shelf above the tin wash basin. On the other side of that, their new green icebox stood by, keeping cool a roast his ma had gotten that morning. When she’d come home with the roast, Aiden’s eyes had lit up. Then he told her about the work he’d finally found and they’d all three of them ended up like this.

The way his ma kept pacing around the kitchen made it look like the set of a Punch and Judy show.

Aiden wanted to tell his pa to put the bottle down; he could feel the words on his tongue. But the old man’s hangdog mug let just enough of the Conroy fire through. Aiden knew better than to say anything of the kind. Besides, the work he’d got meant pay. Real pay, and a lot better than the shoe shine gig.

Maybe his pa would put the bottle down on his own once they got things sorted out and Aiden showed up with money for the family.

That’s gotta be worth something.

He’d thought for sure it would. He went to the address on the card he got from the man on Magazine Street. But when he’d told his folks about the gig, his pa sat there looking glum as can be. And his ma didn’t like it no matter how he sliced it. She almost bounced around the kitchen now, with her arms crossed, and still not getting too close to his pa.

“It’s five dollars, Aiden.
Five
. And that’s just to buy the cart and, what did that colored man say? A book? It sounds like gambling to me, and you know how I feel about gambling.”

“Alice . . .,” his pa started. For a second, Aiden thought his pa would take over where his ma left off, just tell Aiden to forget it. Then the old man surprised him.

“It’s like any job the kid’s gonna find now. He’s got nothing … no credence. He doesn’t belong here and neither do we, but we’re here. So he’s got to find work where he can. People down here. They don’t care his old man used to run the cleaning crew at the Field Museum. Might as well tell ‘em I was King of Siam all the good it’ll do him. Al Conroy’s name is mud in New Orleans. The kid got work that pays. We should be thankful.”

“
Thankful?
” his ma said. “Al Conroy, did you just suggest‌—‌”

Aiden’s pa went to take a slug from the bottle and Aiden didn’t miss his ma sending a bent eye in the old man’s direction. If his pa noticed, he didn’t let on, but he stopped with the bottle in front of his lips. Then he let it sink back down to his lap where he held like a newborn baby.

The distance between Aiden’s parents didn’t feel anything like normal, but he couldn’t pretend it felt wrong, either.

He had some more words in his mouth and thought he should say his piece, maybe try to bring the family back together around him finding good-paying work. Get his pa to stop slugging hooch. The words pushed at his lips, but a tightness in his throat kept him quiet.

Aiden’s pa lifted the bottle again, and this time he didn’t stop. Aiden closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to watch.

His ma’s shoes clapped on the wood floor, echoing against the hum of sewing machines in the room below. Aiden opened his eyes, thinking she’d come close enough to snatch the bottle out his pa’s hands. But his parents just kept up their dance like they’d been doing the whole time.

His mother’s mood still went in every direction, like she was being forced to follow steps she didn’t know. She seemed to stagger from place to place in the small kitchen: over by the sink, then the counter, back to the sink and away again. Her feet landed firm and steady each time, but her face said it clear enough.

She doesn’t know what to do.

Aiden’s pa didn’t seem to mind, or notice if he did. Aiden hated watching it, but he knew that opening his mouth would just get him hollered at.

Getting hollered out only counted in his book when he’d earned it. His folks were on a roll, and he had no choice but to leave them to it. His pa made sure he wouldn’t get a chance to speak anyway.

“It’s just five dollars, Alice. That’s what? About a day’s pay for you? Okay, it’s a lot, but‌—‌”

“Al, I barely bring in enough for us to keep food on the table, and what little I have left seems as likely to end up in a bottle as anywhere else.”

That was what Aiden had been waiting for, but he didn’t know it until the words left his ma’s lips. Aiden’s pa clammed up tight, set the bottle on the ground beside his chair, folded his arms, and stared at the wall behind Aiden.

“Ma,” Aiden said, testing the waters. She didn’t reply, but she didn’t holler at him neither, so he kept on. “I think it’s straight, this cleaning job I got. The fella I talked to showed me the other guys’ books and it’s just keeping records. It don’t look like gambling.”

“
Doesn’t
, Aiden,” she said, her eyes finding his now. “Doesn’t look like. Oh for‌—‌ Do you remember what I said about keeping the Conroy name in good standing?”

Aiden nodded, and he didn’t miss the look his ma aimed at the back of his pa’s head.

“Yes’m,” Aiden said, doing his best to just keep his eyes on his ma and pretend not to see the way his pa’s face squeezed up like his head would pop any minute. His ma was staring at the old man’s head now, and Aiden knew she was talking to his pa as much as to him.

“People in this city value proper etiquette, Aiden. The people that matter anyway. That means speaking clean as much as it means acting clean. Don’t forget that, or the people we care about and want to like us will start thinking we belong with the‌—‌” She stopped, but Aiden knew what she had in mind to say. He didn’t want to give her a chance to get the word out, so he piped up and did his best to make like he cared about ‘speaking clean,’ like she’d said.

“Yes’m,” Aiden said again. “It doesn’t look like gambling. Not a bit, Ma. Honest.”

His pa kept hush, but Aiden still caught the grunt that came up into the quiet that followed his words. His ma’s face darkened and she went to lean against the sink.

“It doesn’t sound honest, Aiden. The people you’d be working for aren’t our kind of people. They aren’t honest people.”

Aiden didn’t know what to say to that. He’d hoped she wouldn’t mention it, because he knew what his pa would say about who Aiden would be calling boss. But he remembered how Mr. Brand would shake hands with the dark-skinned delivery men, and how he used to huff and puff about having to wait for another white man to be finished using the can instead of just using the one marked COLOREDS when it was empty.

“They’re just people, Conroy. A colored man can die in a war same as any other man.”

“They’re just folks, Ma. Not like you and me and Pa here, sure, but they’re still folks. They’ve lived here good and long, and we’re the new guys in town, hey? I figure them offering me this job is like getting a welcome mat. Kind of,” he added when he saw his mother’s face hang with doubt.

“Kind of,” she said, almost mocking his tone. “Aiden I don’t
kind of
want you working around those people, and even though he’s too drunk to say it himself, I’m sure your father doesn’t, either.”

Aiden was about to add a few licks of his own, because the way his mother said
those people
had started to eat at him. But she beat him to it and what she said surprised Aiden even more than it burned.

“I suppose your father is right, though,” she said, her eyes going soft and the snarl dropping out of her voice. “If you’re going to earn for the family, you’ll have to take work where you can find it. How much did you say they’d pay you?”

Aiden almost missed the cue. “I … the man said I’d get fifteen cents a day, but only three days a week. Unless they have extra work, and that can happen pretty often, the man said.” Aiden went on, doing his best to parrot back what he’d been told.

“Which man, Aiden? The one who threatened your father or another one with a knife hidden in his walking stick?”

“The one at the workhouse, Ma. Like I said. He was a dark-skinned fella, sure, but he was wearing suspenders and carrying a mop and bucket. No knife on him that I could see.”

“That you could see. That’s just the point, Aiden. You won’t see it until they’re sticking it in you.”

“They aren’t like that, Ma. They’re not all hiding knives and trying to kill us because we’re white.”

Aiden had heard the words but didn’t believe they’d come from his mouth until the look on his mother’s face told him she’d heard him loud and clear.

His ma took a few breaths to cool off, and Aiden figured he should do the same. His pa just picked up his bottle again and took the last swallow. He set the bottle back down and looked at the wall some more.

“Well, Aiden,” his ma said. “Why don’t you tell me again what they were like. Apparently I’ve been misinformed by the twenty-seven years I’ve spent living with colored people free to walk the same streets as I do.”

Aiden wanted to fix his ma, put her mind right about things, but he didn’t know how to do it. And every time he thought he had the words to send back her way, she’d come up with something worse for him to deal with. He just couldn’t see how to change her mind, so he gave up trying and stuck to the facts.

“I just went around the back of the house there, with the guy carrying the mop. He showed me a couple of colored folks, a man and a woman, and they were all dressed up in glad rags. They’d been talking, but went hush when we came around the corner of the house. The guy with the mop told me, ‘Go on,’ so I did. I asked about work and the woman gave me the rundown on the gig.”

“And what was that, Aiden? The rundown.”

Everything felt all turned around in his head now, where he’d be working, how much he’d earn, and what he’d have to do. But he remembered how his heart got light when the color‌—‌ When the lady told him he’d be cleaning up houses.

“I’ll be cleaning floors, just like Pa used to do back at the Field. Sometimes it’s washing out a kitchen sink I’ll be doing, and sometimes washing walls, too. Mostly just floors, they said.”

“And where are these places you’ll be cleaning up? What do they do there?”

Aiden had to think a second, and he realized he didn’t have an answer for his ma’s question. Not a ready one anyway. The people he’d met hadn’t told him anything about
what would happen
or why the houses would need cleaning. Aiden figured it was just because houses need cleaning.