Sam Bourne - The Chosen One

New Orleans, Thursday March 23, 00.06 CST

The cab threaded its way first through the streets close to the hotel, where blues licks still drifted through the air wreathing themselves around the wobbling groups of miniskirted girls, drunk in their stilettos. But then it left the French Quarter behind and the streets slowly became wider and more desolate. Soon they were passing boarded-up shops and whole blocks that seemed abandoned.

Maggie leaned forward to speak to the cab driver, an African-American whose hair was tipped with grey. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Just where you told me to go.’

‘Is it far?’

‘’Bout ten minutes. Maybe less. You don’t want to go?’

‘No, I want to go. I just thought it was closer, that’s all.’

‘Not many tourists come round here. I’m taking you the scenic route. This is the Ninth Ward.’

‘I see.’ Everyone in America knew of the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the part of the city where Katrina had packed her hardest punch. Maggie had seen the footage on the news a hundred times, but still it was a shock to see a house that had clearly been swept clean off its pilings wedged against a tree some three yards away. It was a shock to see it was still there – and that so much of the area looked as if the hurricane had just struck.

Even in the dark she could read the warning daubed in white paint on the door of one ruined home – U Loot U Die – and the other houses still marked by crosses, spray-painted in orange, the legacy, the driver explained, of rescue workers who hastily marked those buildings they had already searched for survivors – or corpses. Harder to make out in the dark, but no less striking, were the gaping gashes visible in roof after roof: the holes people had chopped as they tried to escape the rising flood waters that had chased them up into the attic and continued to rise, even there.

Eventually there were a few lights at the side of the road: a gas station, a Denny’s, a liquor store, outside of which four men sat on the sidewalk drinking from bottles clad in brown paper bags. And then, what looked like a warehouse or a giant shed, a single-storey building of grey corrugated steel decorated by a vertical sign: The Midnight Lounge. The illuminated black-and-white graphic of a curvy, thick-lipped stripper might have conveyed glamour once. Now it just looked forlorn and tatty.

Maggie paid the driver, nodded to a bouncer the size of a fridge on the door, as if she came to places like this all the time, and walked in.

Save for a few feeble table candles, the place was cast in a deep gloom, one that matched the rancid smell in the air. She had to walk past a cloakroom and a bar in order for the dimensions of the room to reveal themselves. Now she saw what it was: a stage area, dully lit in low purple, facing a clutch of small tables, all of which lay under a blanket of darkness. A strip joint, designed to spare the blushes of the audience and – judging by the performer bending into an improbable angle at that moment – to spare nothing of those on stage.

‘You here alone?’

She looked up to see a waitress wearing a strip of material that few would recognize as a skirt and the skimpiest of bras, inside which were two unmoving globes of not-quite-flesh. She could see Maggie staring.

‘You here on business, darling? How about we get you nice and relaxed with a private dance, just us two girls, now what d’ya say?’

Maggie had her response ready. ‘I need to talk to your manager right away. A personal matter.’ Nervous, but doing her best to be friendly.

The expression on the human blow-up doll dropped instantly; now she looked as bored and surly as a checkout girl at an all-night supermarket. She inclined her head towards a table near the bar and slunk off, heading for richer pickings in the corner, where a bearded man, the sweat visible on his pate, was staring at the stage open-mouthed, as if he’d been hypnotized into a deep trance.

It was impossible to see who was at the manager’s table until she was just a few feet away. A woman, short blondish hair, Maggie’s age, dressed – to Maggie’s relief – in actual clothes. Black cigarette pants, a spangly top.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Can we speak in private?’

‘This is private.’ The voice, like the words, was firm but not quite harsh.

Maggie stayed in character for the part she had sketched for herself during the cab-ride over. She leaned in closer, then lowered her voice. ‘I need to speak about something personal. Very personal.’

‘It’s going to have to be right here.’

‘OK. Can I sit down?’

The woman gestured her into the seat opposite. A black leatherette portfolio wallet filled the space between them on the small circular table. On top were papers that looked like inventories, invoices and the like – as if the Midnight Lounge was a regular American small business. Which, Maggie supposed, it was.

‘I know you have your rules about privacy and all,’ Maggie began, her voice wavering just as she intended it to. ‘But I need something from you. I need to know if my husband was here last night.’

‘I’m sorry, we have a strict pol-’

‘I knew you would say that, but this is different.’ Maggie hoped her eyes were full of imploring desperation and, to her surprise, she saw something that was, if not quite warm, then at least not cold, in the eyes scrutinizing her.

‘I know you have a business to run, but this is about my life .’

‘I’d love to help, but we couldn’t function if our guests didn’t feel their confidentiality would be resp-’

‘You see,’ Maggie whispered, playing her trump card, ‘I’m pregnant.’

The face of the woman opposite softened, only for a fleeting second, but visibly.

‘And I need to know what kind of man I am married to.’ She looked down, examining her own hand. ‘I took the ring off my finger this morning. You see, I need to know if this man is capable of being a father to my child. Or if I need to protect myself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t want to insult what you do here.’

‘Why don’t you go right ahead?’

The tone was sardonic but the woman’s face told Maggie she should press on.

‘He said he had stopped all this: coming to strip clubs, seeing hookers. He promised me months ago. I told him I needed that if we were to be a family.’

‘But you think he’s been coming round here?’

Maggie nodded mutely, trying to look as distressed as possible, though it required an effort on her part. She had learned long ago that some men simply couldn’t stay away from places like these. That was just how they were.

‘I tell you, honey, if a woman didn’t hate men before working at this joint…I’d say you were better off without him. But you didn’t come here for relationship advice.’

Maggie gave a weak smile.

‘Like I say, I’d really like to help. But we don’t exactly take names at the door.’

‘You have CCTV though.’

‘Yeah, but-’

‘Why not let me just see the tapes for last night? You’ve got a camera over the door; I saw it on my way in. That’s all I need. Put me in a room and let me look. Please…’

‘There must be, like, a million rules against that.’

‘I won’t make any noise, I promise. But then at least I’ll know if I’m being taken for a sucker or not.’ She laid her hand on her stomach. ‘Just let me look.’

The blonde woman shook her head, with a small, world-weary smile. ‘There’s not a man in this town who would let you go anywhere near those tapes. I must be an idiot.’

Maggie let out a sigh of relief and extended her hand across the table in thanks. The manager clasped it, holding it for a long second or two, her eyes not shifting from Maggie’s. Finally she stood up and, as Maggie did the same, she saw the woman take in the full sight of her, her gaze lingering, she thought, around her bottom.