The powdered sugar from the beignets gave my brain a boost and a café au lait warmed me up as I walked across The Quarter to my place. To call it a place is a bit of a misnomer, I guess. It barely qualifies as livable, although I am working on it.
I had stayed in the city during Katrina. Not because of a noble mindset about New Orleans being my home – it is, I was born and raised here – but simply because I had nowhere else to go. I had been renting a fully furnished house in Algiers but the owner came by on the Friday before the storm, kicked me out and then boarded up the house while I watched.
For more than a week I had been a phantom, roaming the streets and alleys of The Quarter and Faubourg Marigney and trying to stay out of the sights of the snipers. I guessed, rightly it turned out, that most of the bad guys would be concentrated on the southwestern edge of The Quarter, along Canal Street. As a consequence, I mostly stayed to the northeast. Aside from the occasional foray to check for water or food I holed myself up in the top floor of a three-story Creole townhouse that I found sitting empty on Decatur, in The Marigney. I stayed inside during the day. And at night? Well, at night I listened to my hometown come closer and closer to dying.
Eventually the owners of the townhouse returned and, when they did,, they actually thanked me for squatting in their place. The first reason for this was that I had kept the house clean and looter-free. The second, more important reason: I had found their cat and dog and kept them alive.
The homeowners, Ray and Nicholas, had been out of town on business when the storm hit and had left their pets at home, counting on a pet sitting service to look after them. Due to Katrina, Ray and Nick hadn’t been able to get home for three months and feared the worst. They were understandably grateful to me for helping the animals survive.
As a favor to me, and perhaps in an attempt to get me out of their house, they took me to see the townhouse that I eventually bought. It was, and still is, a definite step down from their place. But, because they were the listing agents, I was able to get into it for a good price.
It turns out that there is not a huge demand for a French Quarter address that is within spitting distance of North Rampart Street. Never mind the fact that there is an NOPD substation a block away and a church on the corner, when prospective buyers find out that a young woman was murdered across the street, they tend to take their money elsewhere.
Sandwiched between a corner store and another empty house my house had been sitting vacant since the previous owners got foreclosed on, nine months before. Those months hadn’t been kind to the structural stability of the house. And the mold didn’t help either.
The first thing Ray (C.C. the cat is his) told me about the house: “We have to put these masks on.”
The first thing Nick (Eddie the dog is his) told me about the house: “And these rubber gloves.”
It’s a common saying among natives of New Orleans that you don’t love the city in spite of its faults, you love the city because of them. And it’s the same with me and my house. The first step I took inside the door saw me falling through a rotten floorboard. The second step, after Ray and Nick drove me to the ER for ten stitches and a tetanus shot, was onto a dead rat. And that’s all it took.
In my life I’ve been kicked and left for dead and forgotten about and spit on and just generally abused, so I felt an instant kinship with the house. It’s a Grande Dame of the old south tradition that cried when Robert E. Lee surrendered; Blanche Dubois in wood and brick and Emily Grierson with floor to ceiling windows. She was a little past her prime, but one look could still bring you to your knees and make your heart ache for Dixie and I instantly loved her for that.
Now, on my way home (and loving the sound of that word), with a cup of coffee in my hand and my mind full of questions, I was looking forward to sitting on the balcony and mulling over my problems. But, alas, it was not to be.
The best thing about living in the south when you’re in my line of work is that your neighbors will see things while you’re not home, and will then proceed to tell you about them. As I approached the carriageway gate that led to my courtyard I was hailed by Ms Alston, my neighbor. She was sitting up on her balcony across the street. Because of all the hanging plants and the fog you wouldn’t know she was up there, unless you happened to catch the flare from the end of her cigar. A Grande Dame in her own right she had, more than once, invited me over for what she liked to call “dinner.” And I’ll admit freely that I had, on several occasions, taken her up on the offer.
“Marlowe,” quietly from the darkness behind and above me.
No, my name isn’t Marlowe but Ms Alston claims an affair with Raymond Chandler. She says calling me Marlowe makes her feel young. I don’t know if she’s joking or not but she also says my chubby face and sad eyes make me look like James Cagney, so go figure.
I walked across the street and stood under her balcony with my back against the wall of her house, “Yes ma’am?”
“Someone came looking for you a half-hour ago, dear. I didn’t quite catch his name but he seemed rather interested in knowing if you were home. Although, he didn’t bother to ask the neighbors when you’d be back.”
With anyone else Ms Alston’s age I would have put this mystery visitor down as an Alzheimer induced fantasy but, seeing as how I had made a new friend tonight, I was willing to listen. Plus, knowing of her past with Mr. Chandler and her own late husband’s years as a detective, first in Los Angeles and then in New Orleans, I understood implicitly what Ms. Alston had just told me.
Basically, a half-hour ago a man had come to my house, tried my front door and, when he found that locked, had gone around into my courtyard and looked around for a while.
“Did you notice what he looked like?”
“For shame, Marlowe. That’s a trick question and you know it. From up here, the fog makes everyone look the same.”
“You’re right, of course. I apologize.”
“Accepted. I do have an answer of sorts for you, though. As he walked his coat billowed behind him. I believe he was wearing a trench coat.”
All of a sudden I realized that I was involved in something that I hadn’t faced before. I was used to following cheating spouses and tracking down runaway kids but this case could be trouble. If the man I had been following, and then been assaulted by, not only knew what I looked like but also knew where I lived he may be more dangerous an adversary than I first thought. And he may have more connections and resources than me, too. Wondering if I had been followed and then pick-pocketed while at Café du Monde, I reached down and touched the hip pocket of my pants; my wallet was still in place. So how in the world could I have been identified so quickly?
“…information?”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am. I was wool-gathering.”
“I was wondering if that was good information, what I told you about your visitor.”
“Yes ma’am. Yes, it was. Thank you.”
From overhead I heard a slight rustle of fabric and a faint creak as Ms Alston got out of her chair.
“My cigar and rum are now finished Marlowe and I shall retire for the night. I’m glad I was able to assist you.”
“Yes ma’am and thank you again. I’m lucky to have a friend like you.”
“Think nothing of it.”
I had pushed myself off the wall and started back across the street when she called me again. I turned and looked up toward her balcony, where I could just make out her shape in the fog.
“Would you like to join me for dinner tomorrow evening, Marlowe?”
“I would love to, Ms Alston. Red or white?”
“Surprise me, my dear boy, surprise me.”
“Yes ma’am.”
As I answered I heard her door click shut and wondered if I was making a bad move. From what Ms. Alston told me, and if Mr. Trench did know who I was and where I lived, I needed to be ready to expect the worst from this case. Dinner with my neighbor might not be the best course of action right now.
On the other hand, I reasoned, if I honestly don’t know what’s going on I can’t be that much of a threat to whomever is involved in this.
“Besides,” I said to myself as I walked through my carriageway and toward my back door, “dinner with Ms Alston is always nice.”
