Sister. Daughter. Mother to Many
Marcus leaned his hands into the mud above the mambo’s heart, let his soul feel all the rage he’d held in through the years. Shouted above the din of wind and rain:
“You listen to me, old woman. You done took my nose, you took my son, you made my life a shambles and done got even with me a hunnert times over. All that, and I never cursed your name, never bothered you not-one-damn-time, never sought revenge when I coulda done plenty, never spoke ill to or about you and never asked you fer nothin’. Well, I’m asking you this one time for just one thing, so listen up and listen good. Keep my baby down in this comin’ flood. Hear me now, old woman. You do this thing and we’re even. You don’t and I’ll curse yer name to the heavens, God as my witness, till my dyin’ breath and after. Keep my baby down. She my baby but she your kin by blood, so do right by her. I already lost my son’s body to the water-ain’t found him yet and might never do-but not her, oh no, not her.
The grave next to Maria’s, slightly lower and without bricks, was already topped with a half-inch sheen of moving water. Its stone, freshly slanted from push of wind, stated simply:
Frances Latour
1818-1853
Beloved Mother to Maria
Chapter fifty-five. How Long to Return?
By twenty past five Malaria was stone drunk, the storm outside humming smoothly like a seashell in her ears.
“C’mon, papa. I’m good fer it,” she said with a flutter of lashes to the bartender who’d cut her off, a dapper fellow known to regular patrons of the Eagle Saloon as Gary the Gent. “Y’know I’m good fer it, Gary.”
“Yeah, you good, baby. But no cash, no flash. Can’t go runnin’ this tab straight up to the moon, now.”
“Hell, Gary, you ain’t no gent.”
“You know you love me, baby,” he laughed. “All wounds heal with time, as they say.”
A strong gust slammed something heavy against the side of the building.
“
Malaria wrinkled her nose nervously. “Guess I should get on up for my shift.” A flash of perfect teeth. “See you in ten hours, baby.”
“Knock ’em dead, sweetheart. Knock ’em right on out.”
“You know it.” Malaria blew him a kiss as she staggered towards the stairs, offering a drunken ass-wiggle to make up for not having tipped. Gary knew about Malaria’s hard luck this past week and so never-minded the stiff, but he did appreciate the show.
“Damn, baby,” he said with a grin. She smiled at the compliment.
At the top of the stairs she gave Black Benny a touch on the shoulder and a peck on the cheek. “What’s shakin’, sugar bear?”
Benny grunted. “What’s shakin’ is you been downstairs all day gettin’ yerself shitcanned and still can’t help but drag yer ass in late as usual.”
“Oh pooh,” she deflected with a pout, as she kept on towards the bar. Black Benny grunted once more before directing a worried eye to the pounding of water against glass.
Buddy’s band was up on the platform, sans Buddy, stomping out a lowdown gutbucket gospel blues called “Don’t Nobody Go Away” for a sparse crowd of degenerates and a scattering of whores that played cards and sucked back shots, defiantly hooting like hyenas each time the storm crescendoed menacingly outside with a slam or a bang or a wail.
Buddy had tried a few other horns since losing his old one, but when he couldn’t make any of them sing or shout the way he liked he lost heart and quit playing altogether. Sitting at the bar now with an early drunk on, Buddy winced into his glass at the noise made by some kid called Tig, his replacement, chosen seemingly at random from a legion of wanna-bees by that lousy turncoat bastard Frankie Dusen. Frankie had been Buddy’s longtime trombone player, a good old pal and partner for all those years, but had taken over the band a mite enthusiastically in Buddy’s opinion. Almost like he’d been hoping for the chance.
“Step it up, dammit!” Buddy bellowed from the bar. “I learned y’all better ’n that. Keep it poppin’. This ain’t no fuckin’ funeral.”
Frankie grudgingly obliged, stomping out a quicker rhythm till the band caught up.
Buddy spotted Malaria from the corner of his eye, turned to give her a timid smile and wave. She smiled back.
Malaria smiled back because she didn’t know Buddy had killed her sister. Couldn’t conceive of it. The cops hadn’t done much, their investigation amounting to a shrug of shoulders over another dead whore killed, presumably, by another rogue sailor on shore leave. These things happened. There’d been rumors about Buddy’s involvement, but Diphtheria’s best friend Hattie Covington had supplied his alibi-telling the cops he’d been busy fucking her six ways from Sunday on the night in question. That was enough for the cops and enough for Malaria, too. No way Hattie would tell tales out of school about the murder of her very best friend. Even Buddy wasn’t that charming, or so she believed.
Malaria shoved herself quickly behind the bar to make change and pick up her tray. “Refill, Buddy?” she sang, noting his empty glass. But he didn’t hear her, his eyes staring hard toward the line of windows that overlooked Perdido Street. Following his gaze, she determined the distraction.
There sat the kid. That lowdown dirty scoundrel brat, Jim Jam Jump, soaked to the bone and sitting at a table with Buddy’s old cornet in his lap, wiping off stormwater with a dirty cloth, grinning defiantly and directly into the line of Buddy’s glare.
“I never consented to the sale of that horn, kid,” Buddy said, loud enough to turn most heads in the joint.
Black Benny readied for trouble, focusing on the path of electricity that crackled between the two.
“Ah, g’wan, ya big sore sport. Took my money without complaint if I recall. Ain’t my fault you done spent it up already on some whore. Higgle biggle wutch and such.” Jim licked the cornet’s mouthpiece like a lollipop, the ugly intimacy giving Buddy cause to shudder as he turned his face back towards the band. Downed the rest of his glass in a gulp.
A boom and a rumble like a runaway train gave the building a good rock and moan, drawing a long crack in the ceiling near the back wall on the Basin Street side. The train kept rolling as the gust failed to pass; angry water less like rain and more like waves as it shoved its way through unimaginable crevices between brick and mortar. The hall went quiet with worry ten seconds before the first window shattered. All but one female in the dancehall let out a shriek.
Malaria stayed quiet as a mouse. Still as a statue, staring at Jim Jam Jump, seemingly unfazed by the storm’s alarming progress.
“Murderer,” she said under breath. No one heard this over the din, but Jim kept a close watch on her lips and saw, and so smiled. She walked towards him on surprisingly steady feet, her mind clearing of alcoholic fog as miraculously as this morning’s fog had not. Wind and wet whipped through the hall through broken glass, creating havoc and a righteous mess of the place. The band played on, their tempo picking up with the pounding of their hearts.
“Murderer.” The word spun like a top in her mind. The cops had believed Jim’s story about
