Gods of New Orleans (22 page)

Aiden silently thought about his mother and what her face would look like when he told her how much money he’d brought home, and then how it would look when he told her he’d won it gambling.

“How’d you know?” he asked.

“Know what, Dove?”

“About the can. And that he’d pay up.”

“Ghost don’ mess around, like I said. He say he gon’ do somethin’, he do it,” Julien said, pointing at a sign tacked up on the wall beside the metal door. Aiden hadn’t spied the sign before, and reading it now he felt his heart skip a beat.

ALL BETS PAID, GUARANTEED

HOUSEBOYS ESPECIALLY ARE ENCOURAGED TO PLAY

100 TO 1 ODDS

“Hold out your hands now,” Julien said. Aiden did as he was told and his eyes nearly fell out of his head when a torrent of coins spilled from the mouth of the can and splashed off his fingers. Julien kept up his pouring and the coins kept up their jingling and jangling on the pavement at Aiden’s feet.

Chapter 23

Being careful not to press too tight, Emma slid her hands down Eddie’s body to rest at his waist. He’d healed up good, sure enough. But she still caught him moving slow now and then, and he winced whenever he leaned to the side. Emma let her eyes drift to the window. Rain fell in sheets outside.

A good old fashioned Gulf Coast downpour.

Emma thought about the rain like it had been brought in just for them. Just for tonight.

“You don’t have to go again, do you Eddie? It’s pouring down outside, and you’re still‌—‌”

He stiffened and placed his hands on her arms. His touch was soft, be she felt the pressure to release him all the same. Too late she realized she’d clasped her hands to his sides. He gave a short cry and breathed in sharp.

“I’m sorry, Eddie!” she said, leaving her hands where they were even as she relaxed her touch.

It was worse when he was up on stage. The music inside him had to come out, and if he wasn’t playing, he’d sway and tap his feet to the rhythm. After that first gala house session, the krewe boss had given Eddie a new horn. He’d started playing on the side of the stage, but tonight Eddie would be out front, like he was the band leader. Emma was happy he had his music again, even if the demands of playing caused him pain, and she couldn’t let herself feel anything but guilt about that.

“Gotta get on, Lovebird. Krewe waitin’ on Mr. Collins to bring his horn to the show. Can’t disappoint, you know?”

Emma knew, and she kept her fear and resentment hidden behind a thin smile. Ever since the krewe had adopted Eddie as one of their own, he’d been more and more ready to fly from their nest on a moment’s notice. That first time he’d asked her to go with him, and Emma had believed he truly felt torn between staying home with her and heading out to play with the band.

That hadn’t lasted long. One week and three shows later and Eddie was champing at the bit to leave her alone on the wettest night she’d seen since they arrived.

“I know, Eddie,” Emma said, looking around at the mildewed pile of sticks they called a house. “We’ll never get a better place around us if we don’t have the scratch to buy one. But‌—‌”

Emma was interrupted by a heavy knocking on the front door.

“Guess the krewe got tired of waitin’ on me,” Eddie said, pushing her arms away and turning to open the door. Emma bit her tongue and kept her hands hovering in the air in front of her.

Eddie opened the door and froze. When Emma saw who was standing on the stoop, she went still, too, only moving her hands to smooth her skirt.

The krewe boss rapped the end of his gold-tipped stick on the threshold and opened his wide mouth in a toothy grin. Another glimmer of yellow metal adorned his waistcoast. Emma held her breath as the man who all but owned her and Eddie’s lives lifted a dazzling pocket watch and checked the face.

“About forty minutes left, my very good man, Mr. Collins. Forty minutes. Before the very big show.”

“Yessir,” Eddie said, stepping aside so the bigger man could enter. “We was‌—‌I mean, me. I was just on my way now, Mr. Bacchus. I was just‌—‌”

The krewe boss waved a hand, his gold-flecked eyes glowing with reflected gaslight. “Never you mind about what you was just, Mr. Eddie Collins. Never you mind. Tonight you ride with Mr. Bacchus in his chariot.”

Eddie’s eyes rounded in surprise tinged with worry, and Emma felt her eyes being drawn into the same tight circles. The krewe boss pursed his lips and then erupted with laughter that shook the house. Emma’s feet tingled with the motion in the floor and her ears rang deep with Bacchus’s bellowed gusts.

“You two,” the big man said between laughs. “You two got no reason to fear. Mr. Bacchus means you no harm. Not an ounce, not a sliver.”

The krewe boss snapped his thick fingers and rapped the tip of his stick on the floorboards. Two liveried white servants appeared, both dripping wet. One entered and quickly snatched up Eddie’s horn in its case before exiting just as fast to stand on the stoop. The man opened an umbrella he’d held by his side and used it to keep the instrument case dry.

The second servant entered carrying a paper-wrapped bundle in his arms. He held it out and carefully peeled back the wrapped so that Bacchus could lift the contents in one of his thick mitts. With a quick shake, he unfolded a heavy fur coat, nearly as fine and fancy as the one the gangster wore draped around his thick frame.

“Miss Emma,” Bacchus said. “To keep out the cold, I thought this coat would suffice. May I?” He gestured as if to drape it around her and Emma felt herself turning her back to the man, like her body knew what it wanted even as her mind screamed at her to run out of the room.

The coat sat heavy on her, and the warmth instantly came through to her bones, filling her with comfort like she hadn’t known since she was a child in Chicago City. Her father had given her a coat just like this one for her sixteenth birthday.

Heavy, warm. And nothing like what she’d really wanted.

“It’s . . . it’s very nice, Mr. Bacchus,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome, Miss Emma. Very welcome. Now, if you will accompany me,” Bacchus said, extending his hand as if to usher her and Eddie outside.

The servant stayed just inside the door with an umbrella in one hand, held outside to cover the stoop. Emma watched droplets of water fall from the man’s clothing to mark the dirty wooden floor beneath his feet. In a flash, faster than his bulk should have allowed, Bacchus whipped a hand out and across the servant’s face, sending him stumbling out the door.

“Damn stupid white boy,” Bacchus said. “Getting wet on the floor inside Mr. Collins’ home. The very ground he walks on is worth more than the two of you put together.”

Emma’s face went stony as the scene before her recalled a childhood memory, and the coat felt more and more like a cage she couldn’t leave. On that same sixteenth birthday, her father had taken issue with a member of their household staff. She cried when her father hit the man. She’d never known what he had done, but she saw the same look of resignation on the white servant’s face now, and it burned a hole inside her heart.

The krewe boss turned to face Eddie. “I do apologize for my boy’s behavior, Mr. Collins. But let us not delay. We should all be going,” he said, his eyes flashing on Emma as he finished his statement.

“All?” Emma said before she knew the word sat on her tongue.

“Oh, yes. Miss Emma,” the krewe boss said. “We all have work that awaits us. In fact, I have a proposition for you in particular. And should you accept, then this”‌—‌he motioned around the room with his gold-tipped stick‌—‌”all this will be but a memory. A new home has been prepared for Mr. Collins and his . . . companion. If, as I said, you accept the proposition.” He ended with a question in his eyes, and a set to his mouth that told Emma she’d better just nod and play along like a good girl.

Emma regarded the krewe boss with the only expression she felt safe showing the man, something between awe and admiration. Even if all she truly felt was terror.

“Well, yes, Mr. Bacchus. Yes, and th-thank you.”

“Very well, my Lily White,” he replied. “Very well. Now shall me depart for a venue more . . . befitting your new found station?” He offered Emma his arm and she moved slowly to accept it, watching Eddie for signs of objection. But he’d seemingly fallen under the same spell and had his eyes on the rain outside.

The servant holding the umbrella over the stoop walked Eddie to the car first, then returned and held the shelter over the krewe boss while the other servant used his umbrella to shield both Emma and Eddie’s horn. As they walked, Emma forced herself not to look at either of the sodden men beside her, and she was both surprised and horrified to find it didn’t take much effort to ignore them. As much as she hated what this ‘new station’ meant about the people around her and what she knew would be expected of her, she couldn’t deny the relief the familiarity brought.

Comfort, care. Authority. The trappings of her life in Chicago City. And she didn’t miss a beat as the word
trappings
went through her mind.

But it was the life given her at birth, and the life she had let fall away without much thought to the consequences. Now, after just two weeks of playing second fiddle to Eddie’s life, she was ready for anything if it meant she’d be stepping into the world on her own two feet again.

At the car, a long sleek Duesenberg, Emma wondered if Bacchus knew who she was. Had he found out that she’d once been a society gal in Chicago City? The thought stung Emma’s gut. She’d escaped the city of her birth, leaving behind nothing but the ruins of her family name. As much as she wanted to blame her father for all of it, she couldn’t deny she’d played her role just as well as Josiah Farnsworth had.

He’d lost the family’s money and killed himself. She’d killed two men, and one of them was a copper. A filthy copper who’d had a noose around Eddie’s neck, but a copper just the same.

“Won’t you precede me into the vehicle, Miss Emma?”

Nodding, and accepting the hand Bacchus offered, Emma put a foot on the running board. Eddie sat inside on a rear-facing seat. His half smile showed he was just as unsteady as she felt, but in that moment Emma’s mind quickly skipped away from fear and worry. The car was like a piece of her childhood come back to her, all welcoming with warmth and luxury.

Smooth leather and polished wood decorated every surface and seam, with shining brass trim around the windows. A decanter of glimmering amber liquid stood on a tray suspended from the wall of the car just inside the door. A leather strap held the glass container in place along with two glasses.

Emma leaned forward, reaching for Eddie’s hand so he could pull her inside. As their fingers touched, Emma’s foot slipped on the rain-slicked metal surface and she fell back a step.

The servant to her right put an arm out to catch her, but in doing so he dropped the umbrella covering Bacchus. Emma steadied herself and saw the servant fumbling with the umbrella on the ground. He hoisted it, covering the krewe boss again, and stood upright, staring straight ahead. But the damage was done.

Bacchus swiped at the rainwater that had pelted his fur-lined coat. He removed his hat and shook it to release a spray of droplets in the servant’s face. Emma thought she should just get into the car, but she stayed rooted in place. Something inside her forced her to wait for Bacchus’s reaction, to witness it because it was due to her mistake that the servant would be punished. Her eyes went wide when she heard the gangster’s words.

“Ain’t got time to be callin’ the Birdman in. Give me your hand, boy,” the krewe boss said as he replaced his hat.

The servant hesitated a second, and Bacchus snatched up the man’s free hand even as he was lifting it from his side. Emma saw tears fall down the servant’s cheeks, mixing with the rainwater that Mr. Bacchus had spattered onto his face. Then the servant’s face twisted with pain and he let out a howl as Bacchus drove a knife through his palm.

The umbrella wavered in the air over Bacchus’s head, but it continued to cover him as he withdrew his blade. Emma felt an urge to comfort the servant, wrap his hand somehow. But she had nothing to use, and the look on Bacchus’s face told her it would be unwise to do anything but watch.

So she watched. And she felt that old agony burn anew inside her. Servants treated like filth. A man beaten because the color of his skin didn’t make him a full man in his attacker’s eyes. The servant took his beating on his feet, all the while holding the umbrella above Bacchus’s head as the krewe boss’s stick cracked against the man’s shins and ribs.

Finally it was done and Bacchus again extended a hand for Emma to enter the car before him.

“I do apologize that you had to witness that, Miss Emma,” he said, shaking his heavy jowls. “Discipline. It is a nasty business, but sadly a needed one.” As he ended, Bacchus stared daggers at the servant who now stood shuddering and sobbing, clutching his crippled, bloodied hand to his chest, but still holding the umbrella above the krewe boss, sheltering the man from the rain.

Wanting to voice her objection, but knowing better than to do so, Emma stepped up into the car and joined Eddie on the rear-facing seat. At first, she thought Bacchus would have the other servant precede him as well, but the krewe boss instead took a step forward and turned his back to the car door, obscuring Emma’s view of the injured servant. Bacchus spoke then, and his words sent fingers of fear across Emma’s scalp.

“You made one mistake too many, I am sorry to say. Good bye, boy. Maybe your next employer will take pity on you and end your miserable life.”

Bacchus arm made a swift pushing motion as he backed into the car. He moved like he was made of air, billowing into the space without actually stepping a foot up to the floorboards. He took his place on the seat opposite Emma. She and Eddie both recoiled from the man as the ghosts and phantoms began swirling around his head.

Wispy images of knives and gun barrels swam in the air, flashing out to strike, or exploding in blasts of remembered crimes. Then Bacchus seemed to dissolve where he sat and all that was left was the red mist that she had seen in Hardy’s tavern, just like what Emma had seen hovering around Celestin Hardy himself that morning they’d arrived.