Ace Atkins - New Orleans Noir - The Classics

I was dressed in blue jeans, boots, and a jean jacket.

I wasn’t accepted.

“Sir?” a large black man asked me.

“ Sí .”

“Can I have your invitation?”

“I’m here to see Mr. Faircloth.”

“Mr. Faircloth is spending time with his guests. Can I help you?”

The man’s hair was Jheri-curled, and he wore a finely trimmed mustache.

“Aren’t you Billy Dee Williams?”

He made a move toward me.

“Tell him that a friend of Sarah’s is here.”

He looked down at me, and then left.

I walked over to the buffet line and ate three very tiny turkey sandwiches. I didn’t see any tiny quiches.

A few minutes later, a young man in his twenties walked over to me. I didn’t recognize him at first. His hair seemed slicker tonight. His movements were more polished.

“Can I help you?”

“Are you Spencer Faircloth?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t. I’ll just stay here, continue to eat, and thumb my nose at the conventions of the rich.”

“I’ll have you removed.”

“You do and I’ll propose a toast to Sarah. The finest whore that Faircloth ever had killed.”

“You’re insane.”

“Perhaps.”

Then I remembered him, the younger man from the hotel where I first met Sarah. The one who’d backed up the older man. I looked for him.

I saw the gray-headed gent laughing it up with a group of his ilk near the French doors.

I jumped upon the top of the linen buffet table, my dirty buckskin boots soiling the whiteness. I grabbed a glass and spoon and clinked the two together loudly.

“I would like to propose a toast to the hostess with the mostest. Spence Faircloth .”

The party hesitatingly clapped. A drunk elderly man hooted his approval.

“Thank you, grandpa,” I announced to the old man. “But right now, I would like to offer Mr. Faircloth a deal.”

They were silent.

The two men were whispering to Faircloth, who had his arms tightly wrapped around himself.

“You might call it the last fair deal gone down, like my old friend Fats used to say. The deal, Mr. Faircloth, is that you join me on this table and announce to the party that you are a gutless turd who had a friend of mine killed.”

The crowd stayed silent. A wrinkled old woman with huge breasts shook her head and breathed loudly out her nose.

“But where is the deal, you ask?” I said, reaching deep into the inner layer of my denim jacket and pulling out the videotape.

I held it high over my head like a Bourbon Street preacher does a Bible. I mimed my hands to pretend I was weighing the two.

Billy Dee Williams was trying to approach me from behind.

“What’ll it be, Spence?”

Faircloth shook his head, turned on his heel like a spoiled child, and walked away.

I put the videotape back in my jacket and hopped off the table.

Just like with any other unwanted guest, no one tried to stop me as I left. I think they were waiting for me to pull a red bandanna up over my nose and ask for their jewels.

I got in my Jeep and headed back to the Warehouse District, my hands shaking on the wheel.

I returned to my warehouse only long enough to grab a fresh set of clothes, binoculars, a six-pack of Abita, a frozen quart of Loretta’s jambalaya, my Browning, and Sam’s Christmas present — a 1930s Art Deco watch that I bought on Royal Street a few weeks ago.

It was so silent in my darkened space that I could hear the watch’s soft ticks as late-day orange light retreated through the industrial windows.

I tucked everything in a tattered army duffel bag and put it outside my door.

I used only the small lock near the doorknob, leaving the dead bolt open.

Walking across Julia Street, I felt a cold December wind coming from the Mississippi. It smelled stagnant and stale. I could almost taste its polluted, muddy water.

In the warehouse opposite mine, Sam slid back the door with a scowl on her face. Her short blond hair was tousled, and she was wearing an old gray Tulane sweatshirt of mine that hung below her knees.

“You’re scowling.”

“You left me wandering around the Quarter. What the hell is the matter with you?”

“I’m sorry.”

She let me in and I followed her to the second floor of her warehouse that looked down on a dance studio. The lights were dimmed on the floor below, and a stereo softly played Otis Redding.

“I’m still mad.”

“I know.”

She reheated the jambalaya in a black skillet, and we shared the six-pack of Abita. I told her about Tom Cat and about Spencer Faircloth’s dinner party. She shook her head and tried not to laugh. When I told her I had my gun, she didn’t like that at all, and walked out of the kitchen. One of her cats trailed her.

But she warmed up after a few more of Otis’s ballads and a few more Abitas.

Later, we made love in her antique iron bed, Christmas lights strung over her headboard. The beer, food, and music blended into a fine holiday mood.

The next day we opened our gifts. She gave me an old Earl King record I’d wanted for years, a gunmetal cigarette lighter, a first edition of Franny and Zooey, and a framed picture of Tom Mix.

She loved the watch.

We returned to bed a few more times that day, only leaving the mattress for the kitchen and something to eat. It was one of the best Christmases I can remember.

They came around midnight, Sam still cradled in my arms asleep. Two cats were curled in balls at the foot of the bed. I could hear the sound of the engine and two doors closing while I carefully unentwined myself from Sam and peeked through her blinds. The car, a black sedan, was still running. Two men were at my front door with a crowbar.

I walked into the kitchen, pulled on my jeans, boots, and the Tulane sweatshirt. I inserted a clip into the Browning and pulled a black watch cap over my ears.

Before clanking down the steps to the street level, I called 911, reported a burglary and shooting at my address, and hung up.

Outside, it was cold enough to see my breath.

I could see someone seated in the back of the sedan smoking a cigarette. A tiny prick of orange light and then a smoky exhaling that clouded the windows. Without stopping, I bent at the waist and jogged behind the car. I opened the back door and climbed inside.

I was seated right next to Spencer Faircloth.

I’ll never understand why he came. He was far too smart to put himself anywhere near something as dirty as this. I’m pretty sure it was just ego. The gutless turd remark must have gotten to him.

I poked him in the ribs with my Browning.

“Spencer, you old dog.”

I reached over the driver’s seat and pulled the keys from the ignition while I kept the gun pointed at him. I then motioned him outside, found the key for the trunk, and pushed him in with the flat of my palm.

My face felt cold and wind-bitten when I smiled.

They had made a real mess of my turn-of-the-century door, which had scrolled patterns around the mail slot. Splintered wood and muddy boot tracks led up my side staircase.

This time I did not run. I crept.

But I had the advantage. I knew every weakness in that staircase. Each creak. Every loose board.

I heard crashes and thuds. They were throwing my shit all around. And they must have enjoyed making a mess because they were laughing the whole time.

At the top of the landing, I straightened my right arm and fired a slug into the shoulder of the black man with curly, greasy hair. As he spun, one of my old books flew out of his hands, pages fluttering like a wounded bird before it crashed to the floor.

The young preppy white guy I’d encountered twice wasn’t ready either. It took him a full four seconds before he tried to reach inside his raincoat. His eyes were wide with fear when I fired, hitting him in the thigh.