Ace Atkins - New Orleans Noir - The Classics

After that, he lived his life much as he had before the wraith’s first visit. Armistice Day brought throngs of joyous revelers into the streets, as well as a blessed wave of cool weather; it had stayed sweltering through October. The war was over, and surely the wraith would never come back and make him do those things again.

He could not forget the organic vibration that ran up his arms as blade buried itself in bone.

In fact, he dreamed about it almost every night.

Francis Ferdinand returned in the spring of 1919.

He did not muck about with appearances this time, but simply materialized inside D’Antonio’s head. D’Antonio collapsed, clawing at his temples.

“ He deceived me for a time, but now I know he still walks this earth ,” said the wraith. “ We will find him .”

D’Antonio lay curled on his side, blinded by tears of agony, wishing for the comforts of the womb or the grave.

Giacomo Lastanza was a powerful man, but he had been no match for the fiend in his bedroom. Now he lay on the floor with his head split as cleanly as a melon, and his wife Rosalia cowered in a corner of the room clutching her two-year-old daughter, Mary. Mary was screaming, clutching at her mother’s long black hair. As the Axeman turned away from her husband’s body, Rosalia began to scream too.

“Not my baby! Please, Holy Mother of God, not my baby!”

The axe fell. Mary’s little face seemed to crack open like an egg. Rosalia was unconscious before her skull felt the blade’s first kiss.

D’Antonio lay naked on the floor. The apartment was a wasteland of dirty clothes and empty wine bottles. But his body was relatively sober for once — they’d run out of money — and as a result he was sharp enough to be carrying on an argument with the wraith.

“Why in hell do we have to kill the women? You can’t be worried one of them is Cagliostro.”

“He has consorted with a number of dangerous women. When we find him, his wife will bear killing also.”

“And until then, you don’t mind killing a few innocent ones?”

“It is necessary.”

“What about that little baby?”

“If it had been Cagliostro’s daughter, he would have raised her to be as wicked as himself.”

D’Antonio got control of one fist and weakly pounded the floor with it. “You goddamn monster — you’re just gonna keep wasting people, and sooner or later I’ll get caught and rot in prison. Or fry in the chair. And you’ll go on your merry way and find some other poor sap to chase down that shadow of yours.”

“The next one must be him! He is the last one on the list!”

“Fuck the list.”

A bolt of excruciating pain shot through D’Antonio’s head, and he decided to drop the argument.

Cagliostro was reading by candlelight when he heard the chisel scraping at his door. He smiled and turned a page.

The creature crept into his room, saw him in his chair with his head bent over a book. When it was ten feet away, Cagliostro looked up. When it was five feet away, it froze in midmotion, restrained by the protective circle he had drawn.

By looking into its eyes, he knew everything about Joseph D’Antonio and the Archduke Francis Ferdinand. But the creature upon which he gazed now was neither D’Antonio nor the Archduke; this was a twisted amalgamation of the two, and it could only be called the Axeman.

He smiled at the creature, though its eyes blazed with murderous rage. “Yes, poor Archduke, it is I. And you will not harm me. In fact, I fear I must harm you yet again. If only you had accepted the necessity of your death the first time, you would be Beyond with your beloved Sophie now.

“No, don’t think you can desert your stolen body as it lies dying. You’ll stay in there, my boy. My magic circle will see to that!” Cagliostro beamed; he was enjoying this immensely. “Yes, yes, I know about unfortunate ex-Detective D’Antonio trapped in there. But why do you think it was so easy for the Duke to take hold of your body, Mr. D’Antonio, and make it do the terrible things it did? Perhaps because you care not at all for your fellow human beings? When they came for the Jews, I did nothing, for I was not a Jew ... ah, forgive me. An obscure reference to a future that may never be. And you will both die to help prevent it.”

He reached beneath the cushion of his armchair, removed a silver revolver with elaborate engraving on the butt and barrel, aimed it carefully, and put a ball in the Axeman’s tortured brain.

Then he put his book aside, went to his desk, and took up his pen.

The letter was published in the Times-Picayune the next day.

Hell, March 13, 1919

Editor of the Times-Picayune

New Orleans, La.

Esteemed Mortal:

They have never caught me and they never will. They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the ether that surrounds your earth. I am not a human being, but a spirit and a fell demon from the hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police call the Axeman.

When I see fit, I shall come again and claim other victims. I alone know whom they shall be. I shall leave no clue except my bloody axe, besmeared with the blood and brains of he who I have sent below to keep me company.

If you wish, you may tell the police to be careful not to rile me. Of course, I am a reasonable spirit. I take no offense at the way they have conducted their investigations in the past. In fact, they have been so utterly stupid as to amuse not only me, but His Satanic Majesty, Francis Joseph, etc. But tell them to beware. Let them not try to discover what I am, for it were better that they were never born than to incur the wrath of the Axeman. I don’t think there is any need for such a warning, for I feel sure the police will always dodge me, as they have in the past. They are wise and know how to keep away from all harm.

Undoubtedly, you Orleanians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am, but I could be much worse if I wanted to. If I wished, I could pay a visit to your city every night. At will I could slay thousands of your best citizens, for I am in close relationship with the Angel of Death.

Now, to be exact, at 12:15 (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans. In my infinite mercy, I am going to make a little proposition to you people. Here it is:

I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether region that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people. One thing is certain and that is that some of those people who do not jazz it on Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the axe.

Well, I am cold and crave the warmth of my native Tartarus, and as it is about time that I leave your earthly home, I will cease my discourse. Hoping that thou wilt publish this, that it may go well with thee, I have been, am, and will be the worst spirit that ever existed either in fact or realm of fancy.

Tuesday was St. Joseph’s Night, always a time of great excitement among Italians in New Orleans. This year it reached a fever pitch. The traditional altars made of a hundred or more kinds of food were built, admired, dismantled, and distributed to the poor; lucky fava beans were handed out by the fistful; the saint was petitioned and praised. Still, St. Joseph’s Night of 1919 would remain indelibly fixed in New Orleans memory as the Axeman’s Jazz Night.

Cafés and mansions on St. Charles blazed with the melodies of live jazz bands. Those who could not afford to pay musicians fed pennies into player pianos. A popular composer had written a song called “The Mysterious Axeman’s Jazz, or, Don’t Scare Me, Papa.” Banjo, guitar, and mandolin players gathered on the levees to send jazz music into the sky, so the Axeman would be sure to hear it as he passed over. By midnight, New Orleans was a cacophony of sounds, all of them swinging.