[email protected] (12 page)

Professor Li looked quizzically at Dr. Luna. The hint of a smile crossed his face. “Scholar of our recent history, I see.”

“Conversations with my Cuban friends. My unsavory communist youth.” Dr. Luna bowed.

“Well, at least I know who Robert Graves is!” Sister Maria was huffy. It seemed to her that she was being made sport of. She hadn't actually read Robert Graves's
White Goddess
, but she had heard of it.

Sister Rodica didn't understand much of this scholarly discussion. For her,
Gal Gal Hamazal
held personal and secret meanings. She was also—though it would have made her blush to admit it—a little in love with Gala Keria. And to complicate things, she had found Dr. Rabindranath's comment to Andrea extraordinarily apt. Andrea
was
pretty enough to apply for Gala's job! The nun felt the need to pray: she needed to banish both Gala and Andrea from that overwhelmingly warm place in her solar plexus, a place that was doubtless the devil's nest. It was still only a small nest compared to the spacious rooms given over in her to the love of God, Jesus, and the Holy Mother, but it could grow, she was certain.

Chapter Seven

Wherein Felicity initiates a transaction with Reverend Jeremy “Elvis” Mullin

The Napoleon House stands at the corner of Chartres and Toulouse Streets. The old building sports a cupola from which a citizen wielding a telescope might survey ship traffic on the Mississippi. Legend has it that the house was built by a group of conspirators who'd hatched a plan to spring the emperor Napoleon from Elba, the island of his exile. The cupola had been constructed as a vantage point from which to watch for the ship carrying Bonaparte. It was hoped that the emperor would recover his brilliance in the New World and lead the heroic conspirators to unparalleled heights of glory. Unfortunately, Napoleon died before he could be sprung, and the Napoleon House became a tavern. It seemed to Felicity that every noteworthy and historic building in New Orleans became a restaurant eventually.

The propensity to plot was as intrinsic to the city as the sticky, muggy, sultry, sexy weather. The French Quarter boasted numberless establishments where for centuries plots ranging from the takeover of small Latin countries to the assassination of presidents had been hatched with varying degrees of success.

Felicity had considered writing a guide for mystery lovers that would take them to the places conspirators had met in the past. She knew the exact locations from Major Notz, who delighted in pointing out ruined courtyards and ancient doorways where dashing and eccentric men had made preposterous plans to introduce order into chaos. One of these men had succeeded in proclaiming himself emperor of Nicaragua for a whole week before his armada of fishing boats was annihilated. Adventurers destined for Cuba, Mexico, and Central America first had their visions in the strong absinthe of New Orleans cafés. Felicity dreamed of setting off for exotic ports, but adventuring required moolah, which she lacked. But not for long, if everything went right.

The interior of Napoleon House was dark and inviting, kept deliberately in a state of careful decay, with faded paintings of the emperor on the walls. Beethoven's
Eroica
enveloped the room, the only music allowed here that wasn't opera. In the courtyard a Canadian couple shrieked, having sighted their first New Orleans roach. The size of small black hearses, the roaches of New Orleans, called palmetto bugs by their poets, enjoyed dropping into the plates of Yankees. The place was perfect.

Reverend Mullin had not enjoyed reading the letter summoning him to this meeting. It had been written by someone hostile to Jesus. The message began, civilly enough, “Most Esteemed Reverend,” which was then crossed out and changed to “Your Satanic Majesty.”

Most Esteemed Reverend: Your Satanic Majesty:

The Eye that sees everything was wide open yesterday. While taking in various acts of banal wickedness performed by the ignorant motorists of our state, the Eye was arrested by a huge outrage. This concerns you.

The reverend paused. The amateur writer who had penned these lines was obviously in need of remedial English. A long time ago, he too had suffered from a prolix style, but as his vision clarified, Jesus had made his speech crisp and effective.

The Eye saw you engaged in sexual concourse with a minor.

That wasn't so bad. But the message was. The reverend felt anger and fear fill his chest. He'd survived blackmail attempts before, but there was something novel here. The tone of the note was impertinent and shameless. More than money was at stake.

You were wallowing in filth with an abandon that became even more evident when we developed the Eye's pictures. We now have a pretty good idea of what you mean by morality when you preach the fires of hell and scare the shit out of old ladies and children.

The letter ended abruptly with a summons to a meeting at Napoleon House that afternoon. It was signed “The Messiah.”

Felicity, too, had misgivings about the style of her missive. She realized that a cool blackmailer would write an impersonal note, but Mullin enraged her. Besides, she didn't want to appear to be too well read; it might put the reptile on his guard. Let him think she was a simple girl, like Joan of Arc. Which she was, though maybe not as strong; it was hard to imagine wearing heavy armor day after day. Joan must have been a sturdy woman, her body solid muscle. And inside? Inside? What was inside Joan of Arc? A bright emptiness? White light? Faith and anger? Concern for her horse?

She was drinking her second Irish coffee when Mullin showed up, half an hour late. He wore a light-colored business suit and carried a stylish burgundy leather briefcase. He seemed to have grown denser and meaner, like a big cat. He squinted into the dark and then spotted Felicity at the corner table. He should have known. The moment he saw that young punk in her grandmother's hospital room he knew that this was no innocent girl. He saw the sparkling sapphire in her ear and the silver glare of her bracelets, and in his mind's eye, an old snake hissed at him. You need a special music, young cobra! he silently hissed back. The music of the angel that drains the venom from your fangs.

Mullin sat down heavily and lay the entire weight of his authority-filled gaze on her not-unpleasant face. Her bright red lipstick contrasted fetchingly with the magenta streak in her spiky blond hair. Even the discreet ring at the right corner of her lip had a certain flair. Mullin was susceptible to women and snakes, whence came his wariness and his guile.

Major Notz had once told Felicity that the secret of worldly success lay in allowing people to underestimate you until they relaxed sufficiently to reveal their weaknesses. At that moment, you strike. She hoped that Mullin would buy it.

The manila envelope of compromising photographs lay on the table between them.

One of the bar's phlegmatic waiters appeared, and Mullin ordered water.

“What's the matter? Too cheap to have a beer?” spat Felicity.

“Let's get to the point, young woman.”

“Call me Messiah.”

“There are certain limits … on earth, in heaven, and in conversation. I'll do business with the devil, provided we proceed with civility.”

“Sorry,” said Felicity. “Fresh out. We'll have to go with impertinence.”

When his water arrived, she couldn't resist pointing out that New Orleans tap water was so impure it was known to glow in the dark. “They say that every glass of water that comes from the Mississippi at New Orleans has been drunk at least six times.” She was in no hurry, and Mullin's visible distress pleased her.

“It will get worse,” Mullin said darkly.

Since the girl seemed unwilling to get down to business, Mullin reached for the envelope. Felicity's small right hand, chunky rings on each finger, slammed down sharply on the back of his hairy hand.

“Now, now,” she chastised.

Mullin was startled by her strength, but it wasn't physical pain that enraged him. It was that she dared
touch
him at all. No one touched him without permission. In this respect he was like the pope, infallible, out of reach. It was perhaps the most important reason why he'd become a man of the cloth. His worshipers might kiss his sleeves or his shoes, but never his flesh. Mullin closed his eyes tightly, seeing the seas redden.

Felicity, too, was taken aback by the violence of her gesture and by Mullin's weird reaction. But two Irish coffees made her fast. “Okay,” she said quickly, in a somewhat conciliatory tone. “I have here pictures of the entire sequence of your debasement.”

Mullin put a finger to his lips and glanced around. He reached for the envelope again, and Felicity let him have it. He took the stack of photographs halfway out and flipped through them. Then he asked quietly:

“What do you want?”

“It's a long story,” said Felicity.

The reverend sat back in his chair.

“Well,” began Felicity, “in the beginning was hell. After Grandmère was robbed by your televised pitch, this little girl lost her bearings. I would call it abuse, but the word is tossed around so much, I'll just call it extortion. And it wasn't just emotional.”

Felicity described the loss of her heirlooms, lingering with sadistic pleasure on each object, hoping to make Mullin squirm.

“Every night I went to sleep seeing two faces, my mother's and Saint Cecily's … and I prayed the rosary. I had a little chest of keepsakes. My Communion dress with the lacy border was in it. A picture of my dad in a silver frame. A prayer book inscribed to me by my favorite nun, Sister Amelia, my history teacher. A lucky fava bean I got from a Saint Joseph's altar. A lace handkerchief dipped in Lourdes water.”

Mullin did have a moment of discomfort. He reached for his water.

“Man,” Felicity smirked, “I got a bundle of pain from you, Preacher. Endless Sundays having to listen to your malicious damnation of things I loved. Prince! Guess what? God loves Prince. He doesn't love you!
You're
a freak.”

Mullin listened to her litany but in the end did not recognize himself in her words. The awesome figure Felicity was describing was someone he admired in the way one admires a fine portrait of oneself. In his pulpit, onstage before people, Mullin had no thoughts. God spoke
through
him. Alien words came out of his mouth, and the faithful loved and rewarded him. It was not in defense of himself but of that divinely inspired messenger of God that he'd built an elaborate mechanism, set to destroy any intruder, any threat to his domain. This girl, with her sob stories of adolescent despair, was about the size of a flea. He needed to deploy only one millionth of the power of his mechanism to erase her completely. Which he would do, he thought, as soon as this charade ended.

And then Felicity got to the point.

“Grandmère won the lottery. Two-point-one million dollars. And you took it from her, Jeremy Mullin!”

During the silence that followed, Felicity kept her eyes steady on the preacher. She had presented her case as fact, but now she wasn't so sure. Perhaps the crazy old woman had torn up the ticket after all.

“I did?” Mullin stirred from his dull resentment. “She gave
me
no money, young woman.” He paused. “She gave to God's work.”

Felicity strained hard to keep herself contained.

“Marie-Frances Claire did her part to battle sin.”

“Sin?” said Felicity. She pointed to the manila envelope. “You'd know a lot about sin.” She stared into his eyes for a long minute. The reverend's eyes were pools of darkness. At the bottom of each one stood Satan, masturbating. “The way I see it,” she said slowly, “you owe me … two-point-one million.”

Mullin started. He leaned across the table and joined the fingers of his hands.

“There ain't no fucking picture in the world worth two-point-one million dollars.”

“Sure there is. Haven't you heard of van Gogh?”

“Negotiable?”

“Not.”

“Everything is negotiable, except your eternal soul.”

“You sold yours a long time ago.”

“Hell is real, young woman.”

“Yeah. And you know how you get there, Preacher? By insulting heaven. Heaven is like a bank account. It's full of pleasure. Everybody's born rich. But if you take too many loans and dip too much into other people's accounts, you'll find it empty when you die. And that's what hell is: heaven empty of its treasure.”

“Well said. Too bad you don't have the calling.”

“It's a matter of principle, scumbag. You owe me two-point-one million dollars. No more, no less. No interest, you notice. I'm being kind.”

Officer Joe Di Friggio hadn't stopped thinking about Felicity since the night they met. The two characters he'd nabbed at her request had told the judge some cock 'n' bull story about being mugged outside the Harness, a gay bar notorious for orgies. Which explained their nakedness. Only, the Harness wasn't anywhere near Felicity's apartment. Joe wasn't gay, but a few years before, he had allowed himself to be photographed clowning in his police uniform at a party. Subsequently, a poster of shirtless Officer Joe in his leather jacket, cap tilted rakishly on his head, billy club raised, had been distributed without his permission. The beefy pinup had been a hit. Joe was unable to find out who the photographer was, but when the poster first appeared, he went on a rampage. He tore it off the walls of every gay bar in New Orleans, but the poster reappeared every time. After a while Joe gave up, consoled by the fact that the billy club half hid his face. He had been raised to look on homosexuality as an abomination, and it bothered him that gay men all over the city might have been aroused by his uniformed body.

Joe had called Felicity to update her about the case and found himself asking her out for a date. At first she had claimed that she was too exhausted to flirt. Then she had consented and had suggested that they meet at the Napoleon House.