Nevada Barr - 13 1/2

“Yes.”

“Kind of theatrical. What with cell phones, faxes, instant messaging and whatever, you’d think somebody in trouble would be able to do better than this.”

The same thoughts had plagued Polly. The grubby card, the lack of a return address, the melodramatic words in red paint; it had more to it of a trick or trap than a genuine plea for assistance. A game designed to draw Polly into something she’d rather not be a part of.

“Do you have any idea what it is about?” Polly asked.

“Monkey business,” Emily said succinctly. “And I don’t even need the cards to foresee that. What kind, I can’t say. Smacks of evil, though. Would you like me to read your cards and see?”

The offer was well meant, but Polly had had enough of the tarot for several lifetimes. “Thank you, but not today. Do you know where she lives?”

“Red is a loner, doesn’t mix much with the rest of us. That’s not unusual for the dilettantes, but it is for those of us who’ve worked the square for a while. We kind of need to hang together.”

“Or we will most assuredly hang separately,” Polly said.

“No shit,” Emily said. “Greta,” she called to a woman two tables down. “Do you know of anybody who might know where Red lives?”

As Emily and Greta discussed the possible whereabouts of their fellow practitioner of the dark arts, Polly found her eyes and mind straying to the cathedral, to the clean, white stone of the façade and the solid safety of the great double doors. St. Louis seemed to offer shelter and decency, a respite from the Devil in his hairy crouch, the muck of the world’s weaknesses caked under his painted nails, crazy lies behind his oily smile. It interested her that a momentary belief in the Devil brought with it a momentary belief in the church.

“Greta thinks that Red’s got a place in Center City, off Jackson on Loyola,” Emily told her.

“Thank you,” Polly said politely. “And thank you, Greta.”

The part of the city where Red was reputed to live had been an unheralded slum before the hurricane. Now it was famous for its murders. The streets were broken and filled with potholes, the houses in various states of disrepair, some ruined by fire or collapsed by the wind. Cleanup in this part of town had not moved with the speed it had in wealthier neighborhoods.

At one time, the area had been middle-class, lined with charming homes and apartments. Only their bones remained, their souls cobbled up into duplexes, quadraplexes, and cheap rooming houses. The residue of fast-food lunches and blasted buildings littered the gutters. Lawns were bare dirt.

Polly parked her Volvo in the shade of one of the live oaks-the last of the gentility living in this part of town-but left the ignition running for the air-conditioning. Not knowing quite what to do next, she studied the street where the Woman in Red was said to have her lair.

Abode, Polly corrected herself. It was hard not to think of the poor, raddled woman as a beast.

The decaying buildings told her nothing. She was not sure what she had expected. Perhaps to see the woman in all her fiery glory sailing down the street or, in a Valentine-red robe and fuzzy slippers, having a cigarette on her porch. The only visible life at the moment was a small girl squatting on a broken walkway having an earnest conversation with a dog who outweighed her by at least fifteen pounds.

Little girls saw much and were seldom averse to talking about it to anyone who would listen. Reluctantly, Polly left the cool of her car. The child was tiny-four or five maybe-and small for her age. The dog was large, black, and apparently devoted. Polly didn’t guess at his age.

“Pardon me for interrupting your conversation,” she said to the two of them. “But I am in need of assistance.”

Both child and dog looked up at her.

“You lost?” asked the little girl. She stood and smoothed down the hot-pink tank top she wore over lime-green shorts with a pink frog appliquéd on the pocket. Barefoot, she padded down the walk to where Polly waited. Her little feet had to be hard as rocks. She didn’t flinch at the burn of the superheated concrete. The dog, his head as high as his mistress’s shoulder, walked beside her. The child’s face was open and trusting. The dog’s was not, and Polly was relieved. Children needed bodyguards.

“I am not, myself, lost, but thank you for asking. It is a friend of mine who is lost. She is very big and dresses all in red, even her hair and fingernails and lips. You looked like someone who notices things, and I hoped you’d seen her.”

“Yes, ma’am. She don’t like kids much. There’s a man comes to see her sometimes, but nobody else. He’s not from around here. I went over there one time, and she yelled at me to get off her porch. I wasn’t on her porch. Well, I was on her porch, but I was getting this thing, this round, throwy thing, like a flying saucer that Kaeisha had throw’d, and it had floated down there. And me and Newt was just going to get it, and she come out and yelled like we were going to steal things; but she don’t got nothing to steal anyways. She’s just a poor old white lady, Momma says, and to leave her be because she maybe got troubles we don’t know nothing about.”

“Your momma is a very smart lady,” Polly said.

“Yup.”

“Which porch did you and Newt chase the Frisbee onto?”

“Yeah, a Frisbee, that was the throwy thing. We chased it up there.”

The girl pointed back the way Polly had come. Three houses down, on the corner, was a two-story pink quadraplex, porches below and balconies above, forming a wooden shadowbox front. Nothing on the building was straight. Shingles shagged off the roof’s edges; the porch and balcony posts tilted drunkenly; the ridgeline sagged like the saddle-back of an old nag. Raw and sunburnt, pink paint peeled from eaves to foundation.

“The top one?”

“Yeah. Kaeisha’s real strong, stronger than a boy. She threw it up there, but she’s a scaredy cat and, even though she’s bigger than me, she said I should go get it because I’ve got Newt, and Newt won’t go with her. He’ll go with her, but only if I go with her; and so me and Newt got it ourselves, and we were about to throw it back down, and out comes the lady that lives there and starts yelling.

“She called me a bad name,” the little girl added, more in shame than anger.

“Her momma must not have taught her good manners like your momma taught you.”

“I guess.”

“Thank you, you’ve been most helpful,” Polly said and reached out to touch her hair. Newt bared his teeth. “Good boy,” she said.

Stairs led up a dark passage sandwiched between the two downstairs units. The stairwell was unlit and stank of lives lived out in clouds of cigarette smoke and boiled sausage.

Having climbed to a narrow landing with a door on each side, Polly paused, straightened her collar, and ran her tongue over her teeth to dislodge any unsightly foodstuffs or migrating lip color. Habits from a lifetime of benevolent seduction.

Then she rapped loudly. No one answered, but the door moved inward, and icy air poured out of the dark apartment. Blinds had been drawn and drapes pulled.

“Hello?” Polly called. “Is anybody home?” There was no answer. Probably the Woman in Red had moved out when whatever was troubling her caught up with her.

Polly pushed the door, and an unseen barrier gave way with a slithering noise. The scant light from the landing didn’t penetrate the darkness. Reaching around the doorsill, she fumbled for a light switch, found it, and flipped it up.

“Lordy!” she whispered.

It was a garbage house. Polly remembered one in Prentiss, the children taken away by county services, a photo of the parents and their living room on the front page of the local paper. Carver, the father of Emma and Gracie-and all the atonement Polly thought she would ever need to guarantee her a place in heaven-had a mother like that. He spent nearly a month literally shoveling out her house. The Woman in Red’s shotgun apartment was half the size of Polly’s ex-mother-in-law’s, but it would take more than a month to clear it.