William Kennedy - The Flaming Corsage

“I can’t tell you how much it’s meant, Maginn, seeing all this,” he said. “Ever since I met you I’ve overpraised you, especially that beastly fiction no one ever published. I got you a job you weren’t equal to, and even abided your envious tirades. I concluded you were the eternally inadequate man, Homo invidiosus , but all things keep striving for that higher form that nature designs for them, and I see tonight that you’ve climbed up from pigsty to pimpdom, up from creative myth to a career in vice, up from skulking whorehound to grand cuntmaster with a troop of trollops. Do you like that phrase? It’s very Maginnish. Vaudeville tonight! The Grand Cuntmaster Maginn and His Troop of Twisted Trollops. One night only! When the matter is ready the form will come, as I’ve been saying for years, Maginn, and you’ve evolved into absolute parity with nullity. In any world worth inhabiting, you now mean nothing at all.”

“Very good, Edward, very droll. Are you finished?”

“Not quite. There’s Cully’s confession that you incited Giles to murder. Poor Cully. He asked you for bail money and you failed him.”

“I didn’t have it. And there is no confession.”

“True, his confession disappeared from the New Orleans police files, in the same way you disappeared when police came to The Argus to ask you about Cully. But my investigator turned up the detective who took Cully’s confession, and he’s got his notes and he’ll testify. So will Clubber. So will I. And I wouldn’t put it past Melissa to put in a good word for you. My man also found a fellow who says Cully’s killers were paid to hang him, paid by somebody who looked like you.”

“You’re pathetic, Daugherty.”

“I often tell myself that. Even so, I’ve documented this, and when I got your letter I gave my report to The Argus. They’ll print it this week, with an editorial urging the case be reopened.”

Maginn picked up the spittoon beside his chair and heaved its cigar butts, slops, and globs of phlegm in Edward’s face. Edward snatched the spittoon from Maginn’s hand and swung it in a backhanded smash against his head. As Maginn staggered, Edward swung forward and smashed him full in the face, and Maginn’s face exploded with blood.

“Nell!” Maginn called up out of his weakness, collapsed sideways over his armchair, spitting out pieces of broken teeth, “Nell, do him! Do him!”

Edward turned to look for Nell and saw her right arm swinging a piece of lead pipe. It hit high on the left side of his head, and as he went down he saw Cherry moving toward him with a rag and a bottle of what he already knew was their chloroform.

HE FELT THE tongue on his face and thought of a deer at the salt lick. He’d been walking down the sloping corridor after Katrina and saw steam shovels moving great slabs of broken marble to block the exit. The way out now was down, down the high, grassy slope past the broken statuary. It led him to the edge of a high precipice over an abyss, and he felt the onset of his vertigo. A finger touched his outer thigh and he turned to see the beautiful young whore. “Pressure makes it pop out,” she said. “You’re less of a sybarite these days, but nobody cares. The sinners are too chaotic.” He realized the paper he’d had in his hand was missing. He looked where it might have fallen, then saw it in his other hand. He touched his hip. His wallet was gone, as was the whore, and he knew that from here forward, something would vanish with every breath he took.

He opened his eye into pain and moonlight and the breath of the animal licking his hair. Will it bite my face? He closed his eye, felt in the dirt and found a small glass bottle at his fingertips. He dug it out and knew from its shape it once held paregoric. The planet Neptune was discovered by mathematical analysis of the movement of another planet. Such has happened. The tongue is a dog, not a deer, licking my pain. He licked his own lips and realized the dog was licking his blood. He tasted a sweetness that was not blood. The chloroform. He raised his hand and swiped the dog’s jaw with the bottle. The animal yelped and Edward opened an eye to see it standing off, waiting. It barked once. Edward growled and the dog ran, a whelp.

He could see tall weeds, but the earth was bare and moist beneath his face, and smelled of ashes. The pain was an ax blade. He did not recognize the weeds or the buildings beyond them. He knew only the moon, and the heat of the dark, early morning, and the burned earth where his cheek touched it. He raised his head into new pain that might kill him. If it did not, he would raise himself. Do not go too fast. Up, and roll. Now sit. He saw light in an upper room of a house, another light at street level. By the light of the moon he saw that the weeds around him had grown over, and through, charred remnants of trash. He closed his eyes to see how to get down the precipice to where Katrina was.

The light at street level came from a window whose painted lettering announced “Saloon.” Edward saw two men talking with the barkeep. He pushed open the half door, went to the bar.

“A double whiskey.”

“Christ, what happened to you?”

“Somebody hit me with a pipe.”

“You know who did it?”

“A woman I knew a long time ago.”

“They don’t forget, do they?” the barman said.

He wet a towel and handed it to Edward.

“Wipe your face, pal.”

Edward took the towel while the barman poured whiskey. The blood on the towel was abundant, streaked white with ashes. He wiped his eyes, his mouth. He drank the whiskey, returned the glass for a refill.

“What street is this?” he asked.

“Dallius.”

“How far are we from Division?”

“Three blocks.”

“They didn’t carry me far.”

“Who didn’t?”

“You know a place called the Good Life?”

“Dorgan’s. They closed early tonight.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m gettin’ their regulars.”

Edward drank the second whiskey. The barman gave him another wet towel. He wiped his ear, blotted his head, blood still oozing. How much had he lost?

“You wanna go the hospital? I’ll get a cop’ll take ya,” the barman said.

“I’ll go later. What do I owe you?” He reached into his pocket, wallet gone. “I can’t pay you. They robbed me.”

“You had a big night.”

“I’ll come back and pay.”

“If you ever get home. You want another shot?”

“The pain is terrific.”

“Have another.”

Edward drank his third double.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Grady.”

“You’re a man worth knowing, Grady. If I don’t die I’ll be back. Can I keep this towel?”

“Take a new one.”

He wet a third towel for Edward.

“I’ll pay your laundry bill, too,” Edward said.

He walked up Dallius toward where Division crossed. The pain was awful but easing. Why did he want to go back to the whorehouse? Explain the riddle of the goat. He turned on Division and walked until he came to Dorgan’s. It was dark. He broke a panel of the glass door with a high kick and entered. By the light of the streetlamp he saw the back bar empty of bottles. He walked across the dance floor toward Maginn’s, opened the whorehouse door, and stepped into darkness. He found a window and raised a shade, letting in light from the street. The rugs, lamps, chairs, and drapes were all gone. One sofa and small bar, without bottles, remained. He moved the bar and found nothing on its one shelf. They took the lead pipe and the chloroform. On the floor he found a large envelope.

He went outside and left the front door wide open. Let the rats out. On the street he lightly touched his wound. The blood seemed to be coagulating. He stood under the streetlight and opened the envelope, to find two dozen identical postcard photos of a woman in a flat, flowered hat, black stockings, shoes, and a white blouse she was holding partly open. She wore no skirt and was facing front, taking the viewer’s picture with her fluffy black camera. Nellie. He would recognize those thighs anywhere. He pocketed one postcard, tossed the rest.