A Twisted Ladder (7 page)

Zenon fell silent.

“Look man,” Josh said. “I mean it, be cool. You do what I say and no one can touch you. It’s for your own good. Have I steered you wrong yet?”

Zenon cut his eyes toward the street.

“No,” he finally said. “You done me right.”

“All right then, brother. We cool?”

“Yeah, brother, we cool.”

“Good.” Josh looked up at the window, then back at Zenon. “Let’s get this started.”

HAHNVILLE, 1912

S
OMETIME DURING THE NIGHT
, a knock at the front door startled Rémi from sleep. Before he was even fully awake his mind registered that it had to be Jacob out there. In Creole tradition, men entered a house through the men’s parlor; ladies through the ladies’ parlor. The only ones who used the front door were Americans and dogs. Rémi smiled, rubbing his eyes. Perhaps the Americans weren’t the only ones capable of a little cultural arrogance.

Rémi sat up suddenly, emerging from the sleep fog, realizing that a knock at this hour meant something was wrong. He heard rain hammering at the tin roof above.

He donned his pants and shirt, and could hear Tatie Bernadette opening the front door. Through the thick walls of his room, he caught Jacob’s voice and the muffled word “levee.” A chill ran down Rémi’s back. Two levees existed in this part of River Road; one across and upriver near Glory, his in-laws’ plantation, and one that bordered the river here at Terrefleurs. Rémi hastily pulled on his boots and coat, and stepped outside onto the gallery. Even under the protection of the extended roof the soaking wind tore at him.

Jacob Chapman turned toward Rémi and grabbed his elbow, shouting above the buffeting gusts: “The river’s gonna crest at Crow’s Landing! We need every man!”

Rémi jerked his head toward the pecan allée behind the house. “Come!”

He and Jacob turned and raced toward the field workers’ cottages, though Rémi felt relief knowing the levee at Crow’s Landing bordered Glory, not Terrefleurs. He had personally supervised the renovation of the Terrefleurs levee, building it higher and stronger than any other in this part of the lower Mississippi. If there had to be a weak spot, let it not be at his home.

He had cautioned his in-laws to do the same when they first purchased Glory Plantation, but the Chapmans preferred to rely on the Army Corps of Engineers, refusing to invest their own funds in, as they phrased it, “the government’s burden.” He glanced at Jacob and noted that his felt hat had become something of a downspout, with water shearing down the center. High time his brother-in-law broke in that hat.

He roused Francois from sleep and returned to the main house with Jacob to fetch some lanterns, while Francois summoned the able-bodied men of the plantation. Rémi found Helen in her night clothes worrying on the gallery.

“Don’t fret,
ma chère
,” he told her. “We will bolster your parents’ levee.”

He led her back to her parlor door and saw her inside. And then he and Jacob pushed against the wind to the barn, and rode into the tempestuous night.

AT CROW’S LANDING, THE
Glory field workers were already toiling, filling sandbags and heaving them up the mound. They waded through ankle-deep water in the rain and darkness. Elrod Chapman, Rémi’s father-in-law, greeted Rémi and saw to his mare. Rémi dismounted and climbed to the top where, in the flickering glow of the lantern, he saw the water roiling a scant two feet from the crest.

“Mon dieu.”
He turned to work alongside the others.

Jacob and his hired hand, still atop their horses, exchanged awkward glances before following Rémi’s lead.

It occurred to Rémi that perhaps the two had not intended to actually participate in the work to be done here. He shook his head and bent his back to the task.

NEW ORLEANS, 2009

M
ADELEINE SHOOED JASMINE OUT
of the truck and walked up Magazine Street to the old warehouse. Magnolia blossoms loomed heavily in the trees, and the heat caused man and beast alike to move slowly. Even Jasmine trotted at half her usual pace.

Madeleine’s stomach was still knotted with anger and worry over her father, whom she hadn’t seen or heard from in the weeks since he’d left her twisting in the wind in D.C. She’d had to take his place at the podium and testify alone before the House Ways and Means Committee. And God, how she’d swayed and stammered. She would never forget the feeling of cold sweaty knees in her pantyhose, and how every time she moved her arms a puff of hot, moist air erupted from the inside of her suit jacket. In the end, some money had been appropriated, but the amount was drastically lower than the Association had anticipated. This meant that the Department of Psychology at Tulane would receive nothing, and that the cognitive schizophrenia project was at serious risk for getting cut.

Madeleine hoped Daddy Blank had made his own way home to New Orleans by now, but she couldn’t be certain. He carried no cell phone, and the chances that he’d be taking his medication were pretty slim.

The bells jingled on the door as Madeleine entered the flower shop in the old brick warehouse. Jasmine saw Vinny already seated in the wicker chair, and she danced in place until Madeleine unhooked her from her leash. The little terrier vaulted into Vinny’s lap.

Vinny grinned and dragged his hand through her wiry hair. “How ya doin, Jazz darlin.”

Madeleine had been leasing the space inside the old brick warehouse to Samantha’s Flowers for years. So many of these same flowers had arrived with notes of sympathy when Marc passed; among them, a breathtaking delivery from Ethan Manderleigh.

Near the wicker chairs, the broad farmhouse table stretched like an altar adorned with offerings of the day: the last of the marigolds and snapdragons and the season’s first crop of mums. Azaleas burst from one of the racks behind the little sofa, framing Vinny’s mammoth shoulders in brilliant pinks and whites. He still wore his policeman’s uniform and looked like he had come straight from the graveyard shift. His muscles stretched against his shirt with skin so black it almost looked purple, and his massive, dark form loomed over Jasmine’s tiny white body. When he petted her, she all but disappeared under his hands.

Samantha appeared with the percolator in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other.

She nodded at them, placing the cigarettes on the table, and then put her hand to her hip. “Maddy, you’re wearing your shoulders for earrings again.”

“What? Oh, got a bit of a headache.” Madeleine forced her shoulders down though she didn’t actually relax them.

“Another one?” Sam said.

Madeleine shrugged. If Daddy didn’t turn up soon she’d have shoulders like a linebacker.

“Hey Vinny,” Sam said as she poured coffee and then rested the percolator on the farmhouse table. “I read there was a shooting in Iberville Friday night. Were you there?”

He sighed and rubbed his face, shaking his head. “Yeah, that was a awful thing.”

Madeleine sank to a wicker chair and filled her own mug. “What happened?”

“Well, you know about the Walkers’ drug ring in Iberville?”

They nodded. Iberville was one of the post-hurricane ghettos that had survived, and the Walkers had emerged as one of the most notorious crime families in the area. Madeleine knew their reach all too well. The addicts landed under her care, but more poignantly, Daddy Blank had a habit of scoring heroin from the Walkers.

Vinny continued. “Ever since Jerome Walker was killed ’bout six months ago, there been all kinda trouble in Iberville. Everybody wanna take his place, be the leader and get the biggest cut of the business. So on Friday night, everything come to a head.”

He rubbed his closely shaved scalp. “The gangbangers who been battling for the top slot decided to settle things once and for all. By the time it was over, we had six dead bodies. One of’m an eleven-year-old kid.”

Madeleine shook her head.

“So who ended up being the last man standing?” Sam asked.

“A gang led by Carlo Jefferson.” Vinny sighed. “I used to play with that boy when we were kids. Then when he was about ten years old, he got caught selling pot out of the parking lot. Guess he’s running the show now.”

Madeleine nodded, thinking of Carlo Jefferson. Between Daddy’s former habits and her own work on the psych unit, she felt she’d had more interaction with Carlo than she needed in a lifetime.

The resident cat of the flower shop, Esmeralda, jumped onto the sofa table behind Vinny’s head. Jasmine sniffed at the cat, who in turn swatted her face.

Sam regarded Madeleine with reproach. “Maddy, you were gonna go over to Iberville Friday night when you were out looking for Daddy Blank. You’re lucky you didn’t get caught in that shoot-out.”

“I was worried Daddy might be there. He could be slipping.”

“But in Iberville? . . .” But then realization dawned on Sam’s face, and she seemed to register the other danger, that Daddy might have resurrected his old appetite for street drugs.

Madeleine said, “I doubt he would have slipped so far as to go back to his old ways. But the fact that he’s avoiding me isn’t a good sign.”