Elise Blackwell - The Lower Quarter

“Going against tradition, you know, in a place where tradition matters . And so we’re wondering how you, as an outsider, feel about it.”

Eli had no idea whether they were talking about how to make gumbo or talking about something bigger that he didn’t understand, but the word outsider confused him. He decided to stick to the literal but allude to something grander, just in case. “I’m of the opinion,” he said, imitating their intonations as best he could, even though he knew from prison that trying to fit in is a mistake and that it’s better to win respect for your differences, “that in most things in life, the outcome is the best means for evaluating the process.”

“I like that!” Fatty said. “And I can think of no better way to get a roux that dark without burning it.”

“Except, dear, the problem is that the resulting gumbo just doesn’t taste quite right. Roux is not meant to be that dark. I guess what I’m saying is that sometime there are no shortcuts worth taking.”

“Well, I say the darker the better, so long as it’s not actually burned.”

“It was great to see you again,” Eli said, backing away slowly and then more abruptly.

He found a seat inside the auction room, toward the back and left side, where he could watch those attending — people who wore their wealth in different styles and levels of ostentation. He figured the richest man to be the underdressed man in worn corduroys and sloppy lace-up oxfords, but that was an uneducated guess. Besides the Broussards, he recognized two faces, both of which belonged to antique-shop keepers he’d met on his second day in the city and neither of which acknowledged him.

The auction itself was fairly dull. Many of the items were bid on by only one person, as though the attendees had worked out in advance who wanted what. A few items were bid up, but Eli sensed none of the tension or passion of art auctions he’d seen in movies. There were no jetsetters, no international spies, no obscenely wealthy men from enemy nations, and Felicia Pontalba was the best-looking woman in the place by a good bit.

He felt more at home than he would have expected, yet also vaguely disappointed. He had been able to ditch most of his punch in the men’s room, but the few sips had soured his stomach. He hadn’t been eating enough, he knew, and he knew it was because of Johanna.

His watch showed that she’d likely be home by now, but he knew that he should stay and meet Clayton Fontenot.

In the end, he’d delayed for nothing. Clayton Fontenot had slipped out before the auction even started, Felicia told him when she came to say good-bye. “I’m not sure how much longer you’ll be in town, but I am expecting you to take me out for a drink.” She held both his hands, and he realized she was full-on flirting with him.

“Something with a kick,” he tried, but he couldn’t get himself to wink.

Out front, while waiting in the short taxi line even though his inclination was to sprint toward Johanna as fast as he could, Eli fielded a call from Ted. He moved down to the farthest bench flanking the semicircular drive in front of the elegant old auction house and sat under an oak tree, cool from the stone bench pressing through his trousers.

“It’s done,” Ted said, “so you won’t have to take care of it.”

The discomfort in Eli’s stomach magnified.

“I could tell by the sound of your voice that you weren’t going to take care of it. Before I recruited you, they told me your weakness was women. A philanderer is what I asked them, but they told me no, that the problem was serial at best, that you were the worst kind of all — the falling-in-love kind.”

“What do you mean? You got someone else to do the job?”

“What I mean is that I spared you from making a poor decision because I like you. The painting will now be returned to its rightful owner.”

Johanna’s name caught audibly in Eli’s throat.

“No harm will come to Ms. Kosar if you behave professionally.”

Eli saw that Ted had planned his final sentence carefully, that he figured he had Eli with it. “Why’d you even send me to New Orleans if you could have taken care of it here all along?” he asked.

“Honestly, I had no idea where the painting was, and it’s also the case that we didn’t realize there was already a supportive player on the ground there. He was away due to the storm, it turns out. Had we known we would have someone on location, we would never have sent you there at all.” He said on location as though it were code and not merely a synonym or euphemism. “But the point here is that our work on this case is done.”

The cold seeping into the backs of his legs and ass was uncomfortable now, yet Eli stayed seated, letting the chill spread up and through his torso until he felt genuinely cold all over. He would not have guessed that the city held so much winter so early.

“Take the rest of the week off there, if you’d like. Keep the hotel on the company card, our treat. Or better yet, we’ll get you a room at the Ritz or the Monteleone. You’ve earned it, and I know for a fact you haven’t had much fun of late, and by late I do mean the last decade or then some.” Ted paused. “So enjoy yourself, and we’ll expect you back in the office next Monday.”

Ted’s tone didn’t match his words — he sounded more annoyed than anything else — and Eli found it strange that he had adopted the plural first person. Ted had always been more of an I than a we sort of man.

“You said that no harm will come to Ms. Kosar,” Eli said slowly. “Can I assume that means legal as well as physical?”

“No harm of any kind will come to Ms. Kosar so long as things proceed smoothly. The client will have his painting returned to him, but he’s paid only for that and not for the story of where that painting has been. We are not in the law enforcement business. We’re in the recovery business.”

Whether Eli believed Ted or not really didn’t matter because Ted could not speak for Gerard Fontenot or the man whose painting was being restored to his questionable ownership. And these seemed to Eli like men who might very well bring harm to someone.

Johanna

Johanna had agreed to meet the client because she was uptown anyway, but she would have canceled if she’d had his phone number on her. On the other hand, it bought her a little time — if only a delay that could make what she had to do feel like a decision and not something coerced. She hated the idea of losing the painting, but she hated almost equally the idea that she was being forced to do anything by someone who had power just because he was a rich man. The thought that Elizam could save her occurred to her, but she knew she would have to give up the painting. If she could get the name she needed, it would be worth it. Maybe Elizam would give that to her after all. Or Clay. In the end, it didn’t really matter who.

The second meeting was peculiar. Its location was a small coffee house that sat next door to a small residential-neighborhood-style gas station that had been hit hard by the storm — its lot buckled, one pump down and one removed. The husband had wanted to discuss the work Johanna was doing to restore his drawings and also to apologize for his wife’s withdrawal of her work from Johanna’s care, which was new information he presented as though she already possessed it. “She’s high maintenance,” he explained, “and she needs to blame someone other than herself or fate or the weather. She does better with a human target, and even better if that human target is female.”

“It isn’t a problem for me,” Johanna said, “though I do expect to be paid for the work I did.”