Death Will Have Your Eyes (11 page)

I slept till
late afternoon, woke thinking of Gabrielle, then, more an anamnesis, an unfolding, than simple memory, recalled the dream.

Seeking a wise man reputed to live here, I moved ever deeper, through narrow, branching tunnels, into a cave. The cave's entrance was at the edge of a golf course encircled by ancient oaks whose limbs spidered out as much as twenty feet; some from sheer weight had gone back to ground, as though to root there anew. Vague impressions of a city skyline, of gray stone buildings, of a bell tower looming above trees, trailed behind me as I entered the cave, leaving light behind.

Descending, I passed though discrete strata of sound as well: traffic noise from streets bordering the park, the spin and whirr of bikes and rollerblades and the measured footfall of runners, the call of ducks and geese from the central lagoon.

Orderly blocks of writing in some unknown language, looking to be a mixture of cuneiform and script, covered the walls of one passageway. Touched, it came off on my hand, like newsprint or transfer tattoos.

Once, entering a chamber, I saw what I was certain was the cave's inhabitant, the wise man, moving towards another tunnel to elude me—but it was only a rock formation, an excrescence of salts.

I could hear my own blood rushing in my ears, as though heavy winds blew through the cave, as though all about me things were being said that I couldn't make out.

Around another bend I came upon a mass that blocked my way: a root system, I realized, all but filling the chamber, pursuing its own life down here, a life little concerned with that of the tree above. Dark, formless birds perched on its knuckles and knees.

I made my way past them and weaved through tooth-like crystalline formations above and below. Then emerged from one of the cave's many throats into another open space where, suddenly, light struck with the force of a physical blow and, reeling, half-blind, I found myself again outside, standing at the base of one of the massive oaks.

I looked up. High on its trunk a small brass plaque bore, both in Latin and in English, the tree's genus and species. The plaque was badly weathered and tarnished; a glare of sunlight further obscured it to the point that I was unable to make it out. I woke still trying.

But I knew those plaques and implacable oaks, knew where I had been in the dream.

New Orleans.

Audubon Park.

Back in Sheriff Pickett's office I hadn't known that New Orleans was my destination until I said it. And even then, I didn't know why.

Now the dream was trying to push through, to tell me something.

All those turns and branchings, all that darkness and disorientation, the search for a wise man,
gathering intelligence
as they say—these were my wayward, blind trip down from Washington.

And knowing that, I suddenly knew, as well, that Gabrielle was the reason I'd made my way, however circuitously and circumspectly, to New Orleans. It had little or nothing to do with Planchat and whatever others were out there. Gabrielle had family here: I remembered now. Somehow intuition had guided me. Somehow I had known, intuited, suspected, that Gabrielle would become important to the end of this affair, that I would need to find her.

I pulled on jeans, T-shirt and boots and walked across Tulane to a pay phone outside the Genghis Khan.

Johnsson himself answered.

“Checking in, sir.”

“Ah: David. We thought perhaps you had seen fit to leave us again.”

When I said nothing, he went on.

“Things have been peculiarly quiet at this end.”

“Here, too.”

“Though all the lights, insofar as we're able to ascertain, remain on.” He was silent a moment. “You are well?”

“Yes.”

Another pause. “And your plans?”

“What I believe you once called ‘creative waiting.'”

“Yes, I did say that, didn't I? In another time, one that seems far away now. Is it possible that the world has truly passed us so terribly by, David? That all the things we cared for so passionately, all the things we believed so strongly, have come to be of no more consequence than an old sweater, a stamp collection?”

“I suspect
all
our passions are mere stamp collections to those who don't share them.”

“Yes. You're almost certainly right.” He turned away, coughed. “May we expect you to check in at regular intervals, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if there is anything you need, you will let us know, let
me
know, at once.”

“I will.”

“I wish there were more I could do. I was not meant for these new games, David.”

“None of us were.”

“Take care, then.”

I was about to hang up when he said: “David.”

“Yes.”

“One other thing. I had not intended to tell you this, but you will want to know. Blaise is missing.”

“Missing?”

“He was last seen during a routine room check two nights ago. When the nursing assistant went in the next morning to get everyone up, he was gone. His bed, seemingly, had not been slept in. His wallet, a small suitcase and select clothing were also missing.”

“How much money could he have had squirreled away there?”

“Not much, according to the doctors. Not that it matters.
You
never had much trouble getting money when you needed it. None of you did.”

“Any notion at all where he might be?”

“Quite frankly, I can't imagine Blaise going anywhere but right back here. He had no family, no friends or particular place. The agency's
been
his life.”

“No sign of violence, I take it.”

“None. There does seem to be a car, a Plymouth Reliant belonging to the night orderly, also missing.”

“He broke out.”

“That is our assumption, yes. Though of course we have a number of men pursuing every possible lead. I'll keep you abreast, naturally.”

We listened for a moment to the line sweepers.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, and hung up.

I walked back across Tulane to my room, stripped and showered. Then, still wet, I lay on the bed thinking about Blaise, about Gabrielle, about the kid who had died out there on the service road—Adrian?

I decided that I needed, in approximate order: food, people and music.

The first is always easy to take care of in New Orleans, where even rat-hole cafés and corner groceries are likely to have some of the best food you'll eat. Both the other items on my list, I found at a Cajun-music bar in the warehouse district.

Actually it was more of a dance hall: a vast, long room with picnic tables along the periphery, at one end some sagging flats stacked for a stage, at the other a door to the kitchen with a window alongside through which you could order drinks. But the sign outside said
BAR
. And that's
all
it said.

The fiddler looked like something carved from hardwood and left out in years of bad weather; his hair was the wavy, peaked kind you see in forties photos, still jet black. The accordionist was younger, early thirties, with longish hair and a red sport jacket, sleeves pushed up, over a Jazzfest T-shirt and black jeans. The guitarist fronted for the band and sang, working in five or six jokes Hannibal probably told his troops. The bass player picked and slapped at his instrument as though he were somewhere else far away watching all this.

I pushed into
BAR
through tides of smoke, a gaggle of children and the sound of “La Porte dans Arriére.” Most of the audience joined in to shout out the repeating last line of each verse.

A dozen or so older children sat at a corner table, some of them over card or computer games, one reading a Dr. Seuss book in French. Women swept about with plates and bowls of food—
boudin,
red beans, jambalaya and gumbo, fried catfish—or with mugs of thick chicory coffee and hot milk.

I grabbed a beer, an Abita, at the window and sat at one of the tables. Cajun music was what I needed just now. The band threw in something country every third or fourth number, Hank Williams mostly, but these songs came out sounding much like the rest, even the familiar lyrics bent and clipped to strangeness.

A baby crawled beneath my table, pursuing a rattle that rolled away whenever it was touched. A young couple who'd been dancing every song finally quit the floor and went outside, probably to hose themselves down.

With a long warble from the accordion, the band struck into an achingly slow “J'ai Passé Devant Ta Porte.”

I walked by your door and cried bye-bye. There was no one to answer; my heart was sick. When I knocked at the door, when they let me in, I saw the bright candles all around your casket.

That's all: two verses. And a waltz. Only Cajuns would make a waltz of something like that.

Having tugged every possible sob from the fiddle, having wrenched from the accordion one final wracking sigh, the band hove without warning into a headlong instrumental before taking its break.

I drank, listened to music and watched dancers through another hour-long set and another break, then left
BAR
for streets so humid that lights were shelled in hazy rainbows and every window ran with condensation.

Getting into Lee Raincrow's VW on Julia, still amazed the thing was running at all, I glanced up and thought I saw someone pull back into the dark of a doorway.

As I parked on Tulane half a block down from Fountain Bay, I caught a glimpse of a face looking out from a passing car, turning quickly away.

In the dream,
largely a new edition of last night's (itself transformed, translated, transmogrified), everything was change. Trees became huge shadowy spiders shouldering towards me through the landscape; or the twisted fingers and arms of old men urging me on towards knowledge and confrontations I didn't care to have. Then, without warning or transition, they were snugly furnished, carpeted rooms where I sat talking with Johnsson, Gabrielle, Planchat, Blaise. Then, like trapdoors dropping open, tunnels down which I tumbled to the very center of the earth. Lava rose towards me in the trunk as I fell, fell again, went on falling forever. If only I made it through the lava somehow, at earth's center there'd be no gravity, no air: there I'd be weightless, free; wouldn't need even to breathe.

The phone's ringing woke me, and I floundered, out of breath, still in a panic, on the bed. When I picked the phone up there was no answer.

Then suddenly it was as if I were awakened again—or was this the same time, only seconds later, perhaps? I had thought the phone to be ringing. But the phone was silent. Had I dreamed its earlier ringing? Or had it actually rung then, had I spoken into it? And just now? I tried for a time to remember some telling detail that might assure me—light at the window as I first awoke, sounds from outside my room, the feel of tangled sheets beneath me or my feet on the room's rough carpet—before finally giving up.

Cut to the chase, then. Or more accurately, after coffee and rolls at La Madeleine, to the search.

New Orleans has expansive Irish and Latin populations. They don't live in discrete communities, as they would elsewhere, but scattered about here and there throughout the city's semidetached neighborhoods.

Gabrielle would have gone to ground near family in one or the other of those populations. I decided to take a chance on the luck of the Irish, and after trying Kelly's Pub out on Airline and Mickey F's Bar downtown, wound up at O'Toole's.

O'TOOLE'S
has been
IN THE SAME LOCATION
(moving one building up Magazine towards Louisiana when the original bar burned out in the fifties, and around the corner, into an old auction house, in the seventies when antique stores moved in along that part of Magazine and property values doubled overnight)
FOR
86
YEARS
.

Some of the tables and chairs and decorations hung on the wall looked to have been here the whole time. So did a couple sitting at the bar.

I sat beside them and introduced myself, offering to buy them a drink if they'd like.

The man turned his head and looked at me a moment.

“Mary,” he said. He tilted his head half an inch back towards his companion. Then, turning away, looking straight ahead again: “Patrick.” A pause. “Sheehy. We'd be pleased enough to drink a beer with you, sir.”

Actually, they were pleased enough to drink three with me. Possibly four. They also filled me in on the bar's history.

I described Gabrielle and asked if they'd seen her.

They looked briefly at one another.

“She's here in N'Orleans, you say?” the man said.

“I think so. Yes, sir.”

“Black hair. Irish, and with a Spanish accent.”

“It comes and goes, but yes.”

“Well. There couldn't be many like that walking about, even here, could there be?”

“No, sir.”

“And would she be wantin' to see
you,
d'you think, young man?”

I told him a version of the truth. That a job had taken me away from her. That she had written she'd be waiting for me. That we were in love.

When I was through, he looked at his wife.

“John Neil?” he said.

She nodded, that same half-inch.

He looked back to me.

“A nephew of ours manages rental properties about town. Owns a fair portion of it himself, oversees the rest for others. He just might be able to help you find your young lady.”

He lifted a paper coaster from a stack of them on the bar, turned it over and scribbled an address.

“You'll be wantin' the little house out back, not the one facin' on the street. Go 'round to the right, and there'll be a gate set in just a bit, with a brick path back to the little house. That's where John Neil lives. Rents out the big house.”

I thanked him.

“I know things're some different now, young man. But if I were you, when I did find my young lady, I'd be sure to take along a nice bunch of flowers.”

He glanced at his wife. She smiled at him.

“Maybe two bunches,” he said.

In Louisiana there's an animal called the nutria. Think of a cross between a beaver and a hamster the size of a small dog, and you pretty much have it. John Neil Noel's mother, as they say, had been frightened by one. He stood on hind legs, but the resemblance otherwise, from body shape and the layer of soft dark hair visible on every exposed body part, to fitful, quick movements, was uncanny.

“Mm-hm,” Noel said. His pointed face went sharply from left to right, darted towards my own, the window, the floor. “Hmmmm.”

On my way there, I'd stopped by a Kwik-Kopy on St. Charles and faxed a coded request to Johnsson at one of the agency's blinds. Within fifteen minutes a clerk had gone electronically calling at the Department of Motor Vehicles, obtained a copy of Gabrielle's driver's license photo, and faxed it back to me.

I showed the photo to Noel now, eliciting another “Hmmmm.”

“I think,” he said. Looked away. “Pretty sure, really.” Looking back. “Yeah. Property down on Camp, just off Melpomene.”

“How long has she been there?”

“Week, maybe.”

“Alone?”

“You bet. Place's too small for more'n one. Walk in frontways, you gotta back back out when you leave. Hard to rent 'cause of it.”

“Lease?”

“Monthly. Six units to the building. Four of 'em, the owner's got long-term tenants, been with him for years. But there's two more tacked onto the back, and those, he lets month to month.”

“You're sure it's her?”

“She got a twin? A whatsit. Doppelgänger?”

I shook my head.

“Then it's gotta be her.”

He opened a drawer of the desk, took out a business card, wrote an address on the back.

“You hold on to this card once you're done with it, now. Be back here someday needing a place to stay, you'll know where to come.”

I drove down Prytania to Terpsichore and across to Coliseum, then curved around the knothole-shaped park, turned onto Race and, a block over, hit Camp.

Set close to the street, the disheveled Victorian house had seen many colors over the years; recently it had been oversprayed with a thin coat of white. There was a sidewalk once, and an iron fence, but the roots of a huge oak had heaved up through the former and shattered it, leaving only some fragments of concrete at the yard's edge, and the remaining couple of feet of fence, driven by those same roots, all but protruded from the ground at a forty-degree angle to it. The oak loomed above the house and stretched one long crooked arm out over the street, but it was dying now.

I followed a narrow path that curved beneath ten-foot banana trees and through thick hedges gone native, to the back of the house. The path's bricks were flush with the ground, many in fact recessed, and streamers of grass and weed grew through them all; those at the edge were worn smooth.

The apartment's door stood ajar. A window, too, was open, and a blue curtain rippled in and out of it, flaglike.

I stood stock still, listening.

Shouts from back in the park. Cars easing their way over pitted streets nearby. The bleat of a house alarm off towards Prytania.

I went slowly up to the door and again stood listening. A radio or TV was on inside, in the back room, volume turned low. Nothing else to be heard. I slipped over the sill and was in.

There were only the two rooms, with a tiny kitchen tucked away at one front corner and an even tinier bathroom at the opposite back corner. Furnished sparsely and simply—a wicker love seat, a couple of straight-back chairs, a low table—the front room was as orderly and unlived-in-looking as a motel room, yet managed, for all that, somehow to feel cozy. Foodstuffs and utensils neatly lined kitchen shelves. Clean dishes lay in a draining rack over the sink.

The back room was another story.

Here, a hurricane touched down.

Sheets and cotton blankets had been torn away from the bed and left in drifts on the floor nearby. Cosmetics, perfumes, mirrors and brushes from atop the bureau lay scattered about. A wooden chair knelt forward onto broken front legs. Capsized at the end of its taut cord, the TV cast its dim searchlight at the ceiling.

My foot nudged a music box lying on its side. Two or three notes came reluctantly out.

Bending, I pushed sheet and blanket away from a corner of something and picked it up.

Its cover showed a young man in glasses, serious as only the young
can
be, something of an intellectual, surely, but with sensuous lips and a far-off, dreamy look to his eyes behind the steel rims. Beyond, sketchy olive trees and open fields stretched to the horizon and what might with equal likelihood be clouds or encroaching city.

Poems of Cesare Pavese.