Thomas Adcock - New Orleans Noir

Jimmie parked near the levee and turned the headlights off.

“If they build a casino on this land, I swear I’ll torch it myself,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

Tears welled in her eyes inexplicably. “I think I’m cracking up.” Jimmie took her hand and caressed it. “You can lean on me, girl.” He handed her his cigarette.

She took a drag, wiping her eyes. “You think the city is finished, Jimmie?”

“Hell no. If yellow fever, fire, and Betsy didn’t wipe us out, Katrina won’t either. But the government might.” He gave her a toothy smile.

His handsome gaze lingered. Their breath quickened, and she leaned toward him. They kissed and embraced under the moonlight in the Mustang parked in the Dead Zone with an urgency like it was wartime. And it was.

Later, she opened the door from the backseat and looked for her panties. Jimmie sat there with his Wranglers unzipped, smoking a cigarette.

“You sure got a tiger in your tank,” she said automatically. She said that to all the men. She found her panties in the front seat and put them on.

“You may want to keep those off. I’m not finished yet,” he said tenderly, putting a hand on her back. She brushed it away.

“This was a mistake,” she snapped.

“Why?” Jimmie asked in a puzzled voice.

“ Why why why . Don’t be so clingy.” She couldn’t believe what she was saying, but she couldn’t stop herself.

They rode in silence to Montegut Street.

“Please stay,” Jimmie said low, as he stopped near her gate. She wouldn’t look at him.

“Go cool yourself off, Jimmie. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

She got out and walked to her door. The Mustang squealed away loudly.

Wyatt sighed long.

“Someone told me they found his clothes all neatly folded on the rocks down there at the Riverwalk. You know how crazy a kid he was; he probably tried to swim across the river to Algiers. Nobody ever makes it. The current lost him. Hell, the hurricane lost him.”

She left Wyatt and wandered down by the Riverwalk, desolate at this hour. Clouds moved fast across the moon. Is this where you did it, baby? Just like you to go skinny-dipping in the River Styx , she thought. She walked down the steps to the water. She used to drink wine here with her ex. There was a figure sobbing.

“Jimmie Lee?”

She looked closer; it was the brunette her ex had been seeing.

“He set me up. The bastard!” she sobbed. “He called and asked me to meet him, and when I walked into the bar, there he was all cozy with some new fat rich cunt from New York who thinks she’s going to save New Orleans. He wouldn’t even look at me.” The brunette shuddered as she cried.

“That’s really tough, kid,” she said, as she sat down on a step and lit a cigarette. Lightning flashed in the direction of the Gulf, followed by the low drones of thunder.

“You must really hate me,” said the brunette when the sobs receded.

“No, I hate myself,” she replied, and offered the brunette a cigarette.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” the brunette said, taking the offered cigarette. “Does anyone know how he ended up in the river?”

She took a long drag and stared at the light dancing on the river currents. A breeze came off the water, small respite to the burning.

“He was number one hundred,” she said finally.

The former rivals sat side by side smoking cigarettes. Watching the shadow of a barge in the dark moving quickly and silently up the river.

Lakeview

Mike left his office at the shipping company at 5 o’clock sharp, his senses dull from another day of taking orders, checking invoices, and listening to the pursers gripe about prices going up. Didn’t they know? It’s what prices do. He always left work vaguely angry. All day counting the big money, all night counting the stingy tips. When he thought about driving the cab, trying to make ends meet, which they never did because the price of everything kept going up, he would get so worried he’d forget about being angry.

It had been worse since the hurricane. He was one of the lucky ones, his house was still standing; the floodwaters had leveled out with barely a centimeter to spare under his floorboards. The roof had nearly blown off. He and his wife prayed for no rain as they waited for their name to come up on any one of several roofers’ lists, not likely until spring, while Mike often spent the midnight hours covering the mold with toxic goop to keep it from getting the upper hand.

Too many people hadn’t come back yet, or they couldn’t come back because they had no place to live. Mike did the work of two, sometimes three people at the shipping company, but his paycheck was still the same amount, as if nothing had happened. His initial gratitude had worn thin. Each night as he left his office to drive to the yard to claim his cab, to drive sometimes for two hours without a fare, to pick up irritable people who thought disaster warranted cheaper fares, he found it harder and harder to remind himself how lucky he was. Only the thought that he could have died, his family could have died, put him in the proper attitude of thankfulness. He had to be careful. The death thoughts could get hold of him in spite of his deeply rooted Catholic faith. They could take over his mind so that he wouldn’t hear someone talking to him.

“Hey, Mikey,” the man said, “remember me? Mikey...? Hey. Mikey.” His breath fogged in the cool air as he leaned into the open passenger window.

“Yeah, sure. The casino. Kenner.”

Last week. Thursday night. The guy had flagged him as he drove by, same time, about 8:00, near the same place he was parked now, in front of Igor’s on St. Charles. He’d taken him out to the ’burbs because Harrah’s had been closed since the storm. He’d waited a couple of hours for him, then dropped him off at a worn-out building on Felicity Street, right off Prytania, where he had a room. “Up there,” the guy had said, and pointed to the second-floor balcony, rotting wood and rusted wrought iron that you’d think would have ripped clear away in the killer winds and landed on the avenue. The big wad of money he pulled out to pay Mike looked worth a week at the Pontchartrain Hotel. What did Mike care? It was the best money he’d taken in since the hurricane had wiped out the tourist trade.

Mike turned around now as the guy dropped his big rear end on the backseat and pulled his legs in after him, the way a woman gets into a car. “The casino?”

“Nah.” The guy’s short thick arm pulled the door closed and rocked the taxi. “We’re on another mission tonight, Mikey.”

Mike frowned as he turned away to start the car. What’s with this Mikey ? he wanted to ask the guy. No one called him that, not even when he was a kid. Then he was the French Michel , his mother straight off the boat from Pau, France. He’d taken his fair share of abuse for having a girl’s name. So he’d changed it to Michael. His license on the dash of the cab read Michael Willet , clear as day. Now here comes this slick-haired, stubby guy with his big hard-looking tub, one of those guys who pushes his stomach way out front, uses it the way other people use authority, takes up space with it, likes taking up as much space as he can, likes his tub of lard because it gives him a kind of presence he could never have as a thin man. And thinks it’s cute to call him Mikey . Puts him in his place.