higher than he’d suspected.
Tommy’s father was seated at a corner table, a potted palm providing extra shadows and allowing him to watch the room almost unobserved. The place called ANDERSON’S ANNEX wasn’t luxurious, but it was by far one of the nicer saloons Fargo had ever been in. A mahogany bar ran the length of one entire wall and a massive, gilt- edged mirror backed it.
Bottles of booze—many of which Fargo had never even heard of before—were stacked in tiers, along with numerous types of wine and other spirits. A quick count showed eight different taps for beer, and he detected the smell of steaks and potatoes grilling in the back kitchen.
At the tables, and along the couches lining the walls, women of every size, shape, and color waited to be escorted upstairs. Many of them had coffee-colored skin—some of them were probably mulatto, like Mary, while others were most likely poor Creole girls who didn’t have any other way to make a living. These were no backwater whores dressed in cheap clothes and charging a dollar a time. Their gowns alone must have cost a small fortune, and each of them had her hair and makeup done just right. Out here, they were expected to look and act like ladies.
Upstairs, Fargo knew, they were expected to be something else entirely.
Several of them openly beckoned to him or called out greetings as he and Tommy crossed the room. They reached the table, and it didn’t take a trained eye to tell that Tommy’s father was extremely angry. Not knowing who, precisely, the man was angry with, Fargo decided to keep his peace and see what the man had to say first.
“Sit down, boy,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine, sir,” Tommy said. “Thanks to—”
“Mr. Skye Fargo,” the man said, standing up. “I’ve heard.” He stuck out one large, meaty hand the size of a grizzly’s paw and Fargo shook hands with him. The man wasn’t much taller than he was, but he was built like a keg of ten-penny nails. On top of that, he was clearly intelligent, with sharp eyes that took him in and assessed him in a glance.
“News must travel fast in these parts, Mr. Anderson, ” Fargo said. “We came straight here after that little . . . ruckus up the street.”
The man laughed and shook his head. “Call me Tom,” he said. “Or Mayor, if you like. Everyone around here does. Thanks for helping out my son.”
“Then I’m Fargo,” he said. “And you’re welcome. It wasn’t a fair fight.”
“They never are around here, Fargo,” Tom said. “That’s the sorry truth of it. I’m still waiting on word for who those two worked for—Beares or Parker. Maybe both.” He tossed his hands up in the air in a futile gesture, then signaled to one of the girls.
She came over and he ordered a pitcher of beer. “I’ll be honest with you, Fargo. I’m at my wit’s end. Storyville is coming apart at the seams and if something isn’t done soon, the whole damn thing is going to come crashing down around us.”
Fargo looked at the man sitting across from him, then said, “It doesn’t seem like a great place to live. Hell, I haven’t been in town six hours and I’ve already lost everything I own.”
“What?”
“Someone stole his horse and his gear, sir,” Tommy said. “When he jumped off to help me.”
“Bah!” Tom said. He whistled sharply and two men that Fargo, even with his keen eye, hadn’t noticed before, came stepping forward out of the shadows beneath the stairs. “What kind of horse?” he asked.
“An Ovaro,” Fargo said.
Tom nodded, and when the two men reached the table, he stood up and spoke to them in hushed whispers. They both said, “Yes, sir,” then left the bar in a hurry.
“You’ll get your horse back, Fargo,” Tom said. “And all your gear. It’s the least I can do for you lending a hand to the boy.”
“I’d be much obliged,” Fargo said, “but it’s a big city, and I’m sure it’s all long gone by now.” Mentally, he was damn thankful he kept his money in his belt where it was safe.
The elder Anderson laughed again. “Fargo, there isn’t a penny stolen in this parish that I don’t know about, nor a secret whispered that I can’t ferret out. That’s why
There was a man like Anderson in every hamlet, town, and city in the country. The man who ran things. Sometimes he worked behind the scenes; sometimes he worked right out in front as a politician. It didn’t matter. He was the man you went to when you needed to navigate the politics of a place. He was the man you went to when you wanted to get rid of an enemy. He was the man you went to when events made you plead for your life. And you crossed him at your peril.
Anderson here didn’t try to impress Fargo with his importance. His importance was in the air. Every molecule in Storyville was in his control. Or had been anyway. Fargo sensed that something had gone wrong in Anderson’s fiefdom. He sensed not only a slight confusion in the man—Anderson wasn’t used to being challenged—he also saw in the gray eyes a real anger. Somebody had crossed him indeed. And whether they knew it or not, they were living at his mercy.
Fargo waited the man out, and after a long minute of silence, Tom said, “If you’re half of what old H.D. says, maybe you can help me. Hell, maybe you can save us all.”
5
For nearly an hour, Fargo sat and listened while Tom Anderson told the story of his rise to power as the mayor of Storyville. He’d started off with the very saloon they were sitting in, and not long after, he’d added the “lady companions,” which seemed like an awful fancy way of saying whores, until Anderson explained that there were many wealthy men and tourists who came to New Orleans every day.
“Some come for business, or the horse races, or even to invest in the riverboat business,” Anderson said. “But all of them like to have sex and they’ll pay top dollar for the kind of girls I employ.”
“So what’s gone wrong?” Fargo asked.
Anderson sighed. “Everything,” he said. “First, Senator David Parker from Winn Parish—which borders this one—came in here, talking on the one hand about cleaning up the city, making it respectable, while on the other, he was financing places like Hattie Hamilton’s Blue Emporium and lining his own pockets at the same time. Then Senator Richard Beares followed suit, bringing our own Catahoula Parish into the fight.”
“And the newspapers,” Fargo guessed. “Attention you didn’t want, but the politicians crave.”
Anderson nodded. “Exactly so,” he said. “So now there’re three of us vying for control of Basin Street, but I don’t hang my head in shame when I talk about what I do. I’ve built most of this area up from nothing. When I first got here, what fire hadn’t gutted, the swamp was trying to take back. Now, there are businesses, jobs, trade—it’s a real community.”
“A real dangerous one,” Fargo said. “It’s not a pretty place, at least as far as I’ve seen.”
“No, it’s not pretty. But it’s more than what it was. If those two get their way, all of the brothels will go underground, and the blue book trade will be legally banned. These girls won’t be working in a decent place like mine. They’ll be on their backs in the alleys, taking whoever will service them for two bits and a bite to eat.”
“You don’t paint a pretty picture,” Fargo said. “But what about the poker game?”
Anderson started in surprise. “How’d you know about . . .” His voice trailed off. “Are you
“I met Parker on the riverboat, coming down from St. Louis,” Fargo said. “He told me about the game, offered me a job.”
“What kind of a job?” Anderson asked, his voice filled with suspicion.
“Told me he wanted me to keep an eye on things, keep things fair, watch out for cheating, that sort of thing,” he said. “He offered a pretty damn good wage, too.”
“I just bet he did,” Anderson said. “But you can be damn sure that there’s something in it for him, if he asked
