Dropsy killing West and then himself, but Malaria had bought none of it. There was no doubt in her mind Jim had killed them both. She recalled a night last week when Dropsy and Jim had come by Odd Fellows to work a table of marks. The gravedigger Marcus had spoken to Jim in anger that night, had said words she’d written off as the babblings of a crazy old coot-words that turned out a warning she might have heeded. She struggled to remember those words now and found herself repeating them aloud and verbatim.
“I got my eye on you, devil.” A flying glass chip embedded itself in her cheek. She did not flinch. “Sent here by that Voodoo witch to make my life a hell. I know you.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Jim blankly.
“Listen, devil. I got my eye on you. Don’t think I don’t. I watch yer every move.”
“You shut yer pie-hole, nigger whore.” Jim seemed spooked. “Keep on and I’ll be cuttin’ yer damn throat is what.” Then leaning forward so only Malaria could hear: “I’ll get away with it, too, just like I always done and will. Just like fappy tah.”
“Look at his eyes!” Malaria shouted for the room to hear. “Don’t you see? Red as summer cherries!”
And they were.
A nervous fear danced in Jim’s newly reddened eyes, and so she laughed. There was no good reason behind the laugh-but she did, and the laughter was a declaration, a release-not an attack upon he who meant her harm, this fiend who’d gleefully gutted and ruined her family and her personal history, ended who she was and might have been, and done it all for kicks, but a strike upon the unfair earth itself, the earth that now reared up and tore at its own skin with water and wind and spite.
She was alive. All this suffering and death-and now the fresh promise of more to come- and she was yet alive. And so she laughed.
Another mighty gust pulled and rocked the building further, shattering a second window and knocking Malaria to her knees while Jim crashed sideways to the rattling floorboards. The others had already scurried to the wall farthest from the window side, huddled together in the corner near the stairs. The wind inside was driving upwards against the ceiling now, widening the crack to let a torrent of water pour down upon the dance floor. The building adjoining Odd Fellows from the rear-a decrepit bakery called Manny’s, with cribs in the back and skank apartments on the upper floors-rapidly deteriorated then finally lurched and tumbled, crashing onto Basin Street and taking the back third of Oddfellows’ down with it. A large section of ceiling broke free and sailed above them into the terrible gray sky as the brittle screams of those still inside the apartments above Manny’s harmonized dissonantly with the continuous roar of the building’s collapse.
“Malaria!” shouted Buddy from the relative shelter of the building’s front end, terror coloring his voice. “Get yer ass over here! Stop fooling around!” The wall that Buddy cowered against held firm thus far, still maintaining a significant section of roof overhead. Malaria heard what sounded like a low rumble of applause behind her and turned to see.
Beyond the missing section of Odd Fellows lay an ocean, the streets of New Orleans obscured beneath a floor of churning black water that rushed over the fresh rubble of Manny’s Bakery, pitching the bodies of the living and the dead with absolute equality. She wondered briefly about the fate of her friend, Gary the Gent, who she’d recently stiffed for a tip in the Eagle Saloon below. Absently, she wondered how she might endeavor to settle that tab now.
On the floor in a daze, Jim felt a squeeze at his heart. Blood filled is head and nausea curled him sideways into a fetal position against rough wood. With his eyes shut tight he saw the stern face of his father, Antonio Carolla.
“Time is short, Dominick,” said the face. “What you’ve become is not your fault, but you must fight the devil now. You’ve been the instrument of much suffering, but it’s not too late. You’ve only got one shot, so don’t blow it. Do right. See you soon. Jeeka bye boo.”
Jim pulled himself up on unsteady feet, shaking off the haze of pain through sheer force of will. Along with the pain he shook out the image of his father’s eyes-and the unwelcome stain of hope they inflicted upon his soul. Muttered aloud to no one: “Stupid ghost thinks I’m bad ’cause that devil in me that one time, but I’d-a been bad whether or not. Ain’t here to blame no devil for what I am. Bein’ bad is a method done served me well and true.”
He let the cornet slip from his fingers, the wind pulling it angrily from the place where he stood. He yanked up a loosened piece of floorboard and swung it experimentally against the wind like a bat. Focused on his prey with eyes like summer cherries.
The floor behind Malaria had ripped away clean, the path before her currently blocked by Jim Jam Jump and his splintery board. On another day she’d have melted with fear, but not today. Fear was a thing designed for those with something left to lose.
“My brother counted you as a friend,” she said calmly into the brutal wind.
“I’m gonna kill ya now, and no one’ll know.” Jim smiled, but the worry in his eyes remained. “These suckers behind me about to get swallowed whole by this storm. But me? I kin swim good-just like a fish.”
“My brother counted you as a friend,” she repeated defiantly and without blinking.
“And I he,” said the devil immediately before rearing back with the board. Malaria closed her eyes, and so didn’t see him lurch forward-and then past.
“Wake up, now,” said Buddy Bolden as he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her from the precipice. With Malaria safely behind him, he held up his weapon-a battered cornet-and waved it wildly at Jim’s floundering figure in the waters below.
“I ain’t consented to the sale of this horn!” he shouted.
Jim’s head bobbed in and out of the turbulent surf, his arms splashing wildly. His mouth opened to say something but was muffled by a low wave as the current carried him sideways to Perdido Street, then off towards Basin before the undercurrent pulled him down and under.
Buddy followed Malaria to the front of the building where the others had grouped together in a shivering clump. She pulled Buddy’s head down to her own, kissed his forehead and said, “Thank you, my God, thank you.”
Buddy pulled away. “Don’t thank me, Malaria. I owe your sister at least that much.” His eyes wandered briefly, searchingly. “You got no idea what I done.”
“I always thought so poorly of you,” Malaria confessed. “I never thought that you had it in you to-”
“If you want to thank me, just get through this.” Buddy glanced up at the deteriorating section of roof above their heads. “I’m afraid this old building about to come down altogether. Hope you can swim all right.”
“I can swim,” she confirmed.
Black Benny hunkered down to Buddy’s side and said with a rare smile, “Man, you sure whacked that kid good!”
Buddy smiled faintly and lifted Malaria’s hand into Benny’s. “Take care of this one,” he told Benny. “She’s last of the good hearts. The last of the Morningstars.” Then he turned to Malaria. “Your father’s house likely done and gone now. But you gotta make it through this so’s you can build it back up, make some new Morningstars and go on.”
“Okay, Buddy. All right, but-”
“Now, if you’ll pardon me,” he interrupted, “I got some business to tend.”
Buddy inched his way towards the precipice, staying close to what remained of the inside wall.
“What’s he doing?” Malaria’s eyes widened with concern.
“Hell if I know,” said Benny.
With cornet in hand, Buddy furthered himself across the narrow remainder of floor that led to the building’s missing rear section. A cast iron spiral staircase that normally led to the roof’s railed observation deck dangled loosely from the remaining side wall, and Buddy waited for a steady gust to help carry him across before attempting the leap.
Malaria screamed as he jumped, tried to get up and after him-but Benny held her
