“And where is he, where will they live?”
“He is fine. Crusty and ornery, but fine. And they will live on his family’s plantation, old property deeded to them after Andrew Jackson left. It lies on a tributary to Lake Pontchartrain, past Mandeville, and on the way to Covington.”
“Covington?”
“Yes. Covington, Louisiana. Why? Is there something odd about that?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “It’s just ironic, that’s all. The kind of irony that the Fleur-du-Mal might love. Has he ever been seen there? In that area?”
Usoa looked over at Unai, then back to me. “No. Not that we know of,” she said and paused slightly. “But, as you know, we have made mistakes.”
“No, you have not,” I said and walked over to where she sat in her wicker chair. I knelt down and took her hand in mine. “The Fleur-du-Mal is the mistake.”
“
I looked up at Usoa and she said, “Crush the loathsome one.”
Three days later, I watched them set sail for London and Biarritz, their final destination. Farewells had already been exchanged, and as they boarded, I thought it was remarkable they still only carried two pieces of luggage: two finely crafted pieces of Italian leather, at least four centuries old. I watched them and thought of that moment as being the last time I would see them as they were, as I was. Then I thought about the chance of seeing them after whatever awaited them and realized they would be the only Meq I had known before and after the Zeharkatu. I smiled and looked forward to seeing them again, although I had no idea when or where that might be.
I walked back to the St. Louis Hotel, making my way through the aftermath of Mardi Gras, where the exotic and the profane still lingered in every sight, sound, and smell. An ascent and descent bound so closely together, one was hardly distinguishable from the other. An almost alchemical blend of real beauty and real beasts.
Ray was waiting for me. I saw him from a block away, pacing the balcony outside our rooms and looking more agitated than I’d ever seen him. When I got within earshot, I called to him. He turned, located me on the street, and shouted, “I think I might of found somethin’, Z, you’ll have to tell me.”
I kept walking toward him. He was gripping the iron railing so hard his knuckles were changing color. A spike of fear hit me in the chest.
“What do you mean?” I asked. I was directly under him and he was staring down. I could tell he hadn’t slept much since I’d seen him last.
“Come on up,” he said. “It won’t happen until later, anyway. I’ll tell you all about it.”
“About what?”
“Come on up,” he repeated. “You ain’t gonna like it.”
For the next few hours, Ray told me about what he’d discovered and he was right, I did not like it. I was shocked and more frightened with every detail, but never prepared for what I actually saw later.
We waited until after midnight, then walked to Storyville. Ray said the “show” was only held once a night at around one A.M. We stood in the shadows of an alley behind Emma Johnson’s place on Iberville. She was probably the most notorious madam in Storyville, known for anything sexually out of the ordinary. The “Parisian Queen of America” they called her. She was a trafficker in practically everything, but specialized in young virgins and supplying young boys for aging homosexuals. There was no perversion too repugnant or difficult for her, no crime too low. She also produced what she called “sex circuses,” where deviations of all kinds were performed on a raised stage, surrounded by an audience. It was one of these we waited for, only this “show” involved a much younger girl — a child — a child Ray thought I might know. “It could be her,” he said. “It could be Star.”
Security was tight. There were three doors on the back of the building and all three were guarded by various bouncers and thugs. Two of the doors were legal fire exits and well lit, but the third was off to the side and kept dark. It was the “stage door” and the one we wanted. Ray had already “greased the wheel,” he said, by incurring a debt from the two biggest members of the security force, who he said were “suckers for three-card Monty.” They both thought letting Ray and me slip in to see the “show” was easy payment. At precisely five past one, their backs were turned as planned and Ray and I walked out of the shadows and through the unattended door.
Once inside, we instinctively found a corner of the room where we could watch without being seen. It was dark, as dark as you could get and still find your way. The only continuous light was a single, bare, blue light, hanging from a twenty-foot-high ceiling over a round stage in the center of the room. Matches flared occasionally in the darkness around the stage, lighting a cigar or cigarette and outlining the leering faces of the audience. In the brief flashes, they looked like ghouls to me. There was no way of telling how many there were. It was too dark. I asked Ray how many times he’d done this and he said, “Once.” Then the music started.
It began with rattles and shakers, then the slow and steady beat of a conga drum, then another conga with a deeper tone, playing fewer beats, and finally a hum of voices, all male and chanting an obscure African dream song.
The far end of the room was really a curtain. Two black men walked through, naked to the waist and carrying a ten-foot log between them, hoisted on their left shoulders. In their right hand, each carried a burning candle. Wrapped around the log, and clinging to it like snakes with their heads entwined, were a man and a woman, completely naked and glistening with oil from head to toe. They were motionless on the log, as if they were sleeping. The woman seemed to be a quadroon or octoroon and the man was coal black. They made their way slowly to the stage, through the audience, which was beginning to stir. I heard at least two low whistles from somewhere in the room.
Once on the stage, the first man holding the log turned to face the other and they stood that way in silenceblack man reached orgasm. for several moments, then the rhythm of the drums changed pace slightly and two more men appeared, carrying stone posts, which they set on the stage at precise positions and the log was laid between, then secured, so it was resting a few feet above the stage. All four men turned and walked back through the audience and disappeared behind the curtain. The human snakes on the log remained motionless and silent under the single blue light.
A female voice; a lilting, beautiful soprano began what sounded like an aria over the tribal chant. Finger cymbals were added, then a lone violin came out of nowhere, weaving its way melodically through the rhythm of the congas. It was East and West, good and evil, pain and pleasure, discordance and harmony. I glanced at Ray. He was extremely uneasy and shifting from one foot to another, as if he could run away without moving.
I looked back at the stage and the blue light flickered out, followed by the sound of a gong that reverberated through the room. The drumbeats picked up tempo and five red lights descended from the ceiling slowly, until they stopped in a circle above the stage. At the same time, something was rising out of the stage, directly opposite the sleeping snakes. It was in the shape of an oyster, maybe four feet wide and three feet high. When it came to a rest, the top half of the oyster unlocked and began to open. The sleeping snakes awoke, then fondled each other and began writhing and undulating on the log in very much a human fashion. Three-quarters of the way open, I could tell there was something in the oyster, something or someone where the pearl should have been. I took a step toward the stage and Ray grabbed my arm.
“You make sure you’re sure, Z,” he said. “This ain’t no place for mistakes.”
I took another step and stumbled, tripping over an outstretched leg. I fell to the floor in the dark. Whoever I tripped over kicked me with his boot and said, “Scram, kid!”
On my hands and knees, I looked up at the stage; the oyster was completely open, exposed in the circle of red light from above. When I saw what I saw, my body jumped, as if I’d been electrocuted. I felt rage, shock, terror, and pity all at once, and violation in the deepest sense. There was Star, dressed as a miniature Aphrodite in a white gown, sitting on a raised bench inside the oyster, staring across at the human snakes achieving every possible sexual position on and around the log beam. Her eyes were glazed, but not from drugs. It was something else, something worse. It was as if she were sitting at the bottom of a dry well, staring up at a light, an escape that was too distant to believe in or hope for, a light without salvation.
I screamed inside at the Fleur-du-Mal and his evil, his “aberration,” as it had been so delicately described. I stood up and started for the stage again, grabbing the Stone in my pocket as hard as I ever had. This could not go on.
Suddenly the drums became thunder in my head and the finger cymbals sounded like great glass panes
