Gods of New Orleans (34 page)

“What happened, Eddie?”

~•~

The suitcase sagged against Emma’s hip as she walked, but she forced her feet to keep a steady pace. Lisette trailed a bit behind her, burdened with the heavy coat and dresses she’d insisted on taking. Her son hauled a box in his arms and another one behind him on a rope. The box scraped along the concrete like a rasp across Emma’s ears, but she forced herself to let it be.

The airship hung above the silent deck. Emma trudged up the stairs, banging the suitcase against each step. Lisette and her son struggled behind her with the coat and dresses. It took two more trips to haul up the foodstuffs to the deck.

Emma moved to the deck’s switchboard to get the gearboxes up and running. The machines clattered to life and shuffled a metallic step down to the mooring winches. Emma paused when she heard a rustle and coughing from the street below. She went to the rail at the edge of the deck and looked over.

A lone figure in a white suit stood beneath the deck smoking a cigar and clutching the dark, struggling mass of a rooster that crowed against the man’s restraining hands. The man’s pale brown face seemed to glow in a halo of burning light.

The bird’s screech cut Emma’s ears and she flung herself away from the railing, staggering back a step to lean against the switchboard for support. To her left, Lisette and her son huddled in the gearboxes’ little shed. One of the gearboxes drew up and stopped in its tracks. The other kept moving and posted beside the mooring winch at the airship’s tail end. Lisette hissed at her from where she and her son hid and shielded their faces with half-raised hands.

“That the Birdman, Miss Emma. That’s him down there, I bet my life on it.”

Emma whirled around and worked the lever to call back the one gearbox and reset its command cycle. As the automaton retraced its steps, Emma cast frantic eyes around the deck. She didn’t dare look below it again, not with the Birdman down there. She still heard the feathers, rustling like sheets of cold, dry paper moving in the midday breeze.

“Go on,” she said to Lisette and her boy. “Get in the ship and throw down the sheets from the bunkroom. Make a rope so we can haul these things up.”

Lisette nodded. She and her boy hustled across the deck and up the ladder. Emma waited for the gearbox to get back into position and cast a wary glance in every direction she could. She spun on her heel and did her damnedest to keep quiet enough so she could hear the bird or its owner. Not for the first time, and she figured not the last, Emma wished she had a gun in her hand.

Finally, the gearbox reset and marched down the deck. With it posted by the nose winch, Emma searched the deck and listened for movement. After heaving a breath into her lungs, she stepped away from the switchboard, grabbed her suitcase by the handle, and lugged it to the ladder where she kicked loose the airship’s retaining pins just as Lisette dropped down a tangle of bedsheets all knotted together.

Emma tied the sheets to the suitcase and Lisette and Julien hauled it up. Emma kept darting her eyes this way and that, fearing any second that the Birdman would come out of nowhere.

When the sheets came down again and touched her on the cheek, Emma jumped and shrieked. She caught her breath and tied a sling around the box Julien had carried. The boy hauled it up on his own while Lisette whispered down to Emma.

“C’mon, Miss Emma. Get yourself up here now. Birdman around. C’mon, please.”

Emma grabbed the rope attached to the last box and made to climb the ladder. But the rope slipped from her hands and the box tumbled off the side of the deck. She heard the shattering of glass and the metallic clatter of cans and jars.

Throwing a fast curse at the mess below, Emma went up the ladder, hand over hand, one foot up, then the next one to follow. She got into the cabin and when no attack came, no wild rooster out of nowhere to screech at her and claw away her eyesight, Emma let herself relax enough to just sit and breathe on the floor. Lisette and Julien sat together at Brand’s desk.

“We ought to be gettin’ on, Miss Emma,” Lisette said, and her boy’s face told Emma he was thinking the same thing. Emma leaned against the door housing and looked out into the grim humid morning. That same hard and hot wind shot into the cabin then and Emma felt it against her eyes and mouth. Even though she knew it was just fear that drove her, Emma whipped her head to the side. In a flash, she reached for the lever and brought the cabin door closed, feeling her heartbeat settle as the door latched tight.

She stood and went to the cockpit, letting her gaze rest on Lisette and her son for a moment before sitting down.

“You ready for this?” she asked.

“Yes I am, Miss Emma. Yes I am.”

Emma smiled at Lisette. Then she winked at the boy, who still had a hand up near his face. He didn’t seem to know what she meant by her gesture, so Emma let her face go stone cold again, figuring he’d know tough talk better than soft.

“Let’s go get your sister, Julien. And then let’s get the hell out of New Orleans.”

Chapter 34

The mechanic’s cot in the airship felt just as close and tight as when Aiden had slept in it back when they were coming down from Chicago City. But it was the only safe place he could remember in all of New Orleans.

He and Mr. Brand spent a few moments in that tunnel, after Aiden ran off from his ma‌—‌from
Hatred
. When his old boss left him there to deliver his message, the mud men had showed up and gave Aiden a good run. While he’d run, he’d thought about how they’d started out, his folks and him on the airship with Miss Farnsworth and her jazz man and the other Negro. Then, as he’d run down the tunnel, the door to the airship appeared in the wall and he wound up here in the mechanic’s space.

Aiden had no idea where the ship was, or who even owned it anymore. Still, something about the airship felt right, even though just about everything else in his life felt wrong.

What had happened to his ma? She went from angry to goofy to crazy and at the end there Aiden figured she’d been all of those things at once.

And a whole lot worse. She’d called me
boy
, just like Mother Sophie had.

Struggling and with his shoulder still aching like hell, Aiden got himself off the cot and went to the hatch. He should find out where the
Vigilance
was berthed. Maybe the ship wasn’t the safest place after all. He put his good hand on the hatch clasp. Then his mind went sleepy and the night caught up with him. Aiden settled onto the cot. He slowly wrapped himself up in the blanket he’d left there the last time he’d come to hide in the tight space.

He woke with a start and knew he’d been asleep for a good long while. The engine room felt warmer, like the day had had time to grow. A heavy wind outside buffeted the
Vigilance
and Aiden rocked in the cot with the swaying of the ship.

He heard voices then, from inside the cabin; at least three, and he wasn’t able to recognize any of them. He listened and waited. Two heartbeats passed and the engines started up all around him, rumbling and humming heavy and deep.

~•~

In between working the ballast or the radio, Emma kept her hand in her pocket, touching the envelope and tracing the letters of her name with a fingertip. She’d taken it and the one to Aiden out of Brand’s desk in case Lisette or her son got curious.

Brand, you damn lazy bum. I never should have put a hand on those letters.

She’d open hers soon, Emma promised herself. And then she had to figure out some way to get the other one to the Conroy kid.

Just then, Emma startled as she realized she hoped Aiden was close. And that he’d be the same kid he’d been the last time she’d seen him. New Orleans had a way of changing people. Emma knew that better than most, and she knew those changes never really turned out the way you’d like.

Lisette stirred behind her and Emma looked to see the woman helping her son get settled in the corner of the cabin near Brand’s desk. Julien had a blanket pulled up tight around his chin. Emma tried to send a smile his way, but she felt it only get halfway up her face.

Turning back to the controls, she focused on the flight ahead. It wasn’t more than a handful of minutes before she got them to the boarding house and set down on the deck. Once they’d been moored she suggested they all get some shuteye.

“It’ll be a fine thing if we all sleep through the show later, so let’s catch whatever winks we can. Lisette, you and Julien can take the big room on the right. I’ll be across the hall from you. We’ll keep the ship locked up tight just in case, but I don’t think anyone’ll hassle us here on one of Bacchus’s decks.”

“You sure about that, Miss Emma,” Lisette asked. Her eyes seemed to spin in her head and looked every which way as she spoke. Emma glanced left and right out the cabin windows at the quiet night.

“I don’t think the Birdman will come after us. He plays for keeps if he plays at all, at least the way I’ve heard it. Since we’ve still got all our eyes in our heads, I think he was just there to scare us. We’re setting up like usual to do a job, so if anybody asks we’ve got plenty to back us up.”

Lisette nodded and seemed to accept what Emma was saying. Taking Julien’s hand, Lisette led the boy quietly down the hall where they disappeared into the main bunkroom.

Emma was surprised to find that she almost believed her own words, too.

The Birdman was just making a showing for Bacchus. He was just incentive. Encouragement
.

That was a word that Frank Nitti had used with her father once. Emma hated herself for thinking it now. She waited a few breaths before going back to the bunk Eddie and Otis had shared on the trip down. She grabbed the pillow there, went back to Brand’s desk and folded herself across it. Sleep came in an instant and stayed with her until the afternoon sun warmed the cabin like an oven. When she woke, she felt the envelopes stabbing her in the side, so she pulled them out of her pocket and stuffed them back in the desk drawer.

Who cares who finds the damn things
.

A harder wind than before shook the ship and sent currents of heat through every crack and crevice. Emma steadied herself as she stood and went to check the time on the clock in the cockpit.

Just before 7:00 PM. Time to start the show.

Taking a breath to settle her hands, Emma started up the engines and went back to wake up Lisette. The woman and her son came out of the bunkroom as Emma got to the corridor entrance.

“Just about time,” Emma said.

Lisette nodded and wiped the sleep from her eyes. She went to the windows by Brand’s desk and looked out at the boarding house. Emma rushed to her side when Lisette snapped a hand over her mouth and burst into tears.

“My baby girl!” she cried and crumbled to her knees, sagging against the wall and sobbing.

Outside, on the ground, Bacchus and his torpedoes were leading a girl from the boarding house. They stepped down the walk to Bacchus’s sedan, which was waiting at the curb. Another group of girls waited by the front door of the house with the house mother.

As Emma’s fury built, Bacchus and his group got into the car and drove away. Emma took Lisette’s hand and tried to put some comforting words on her tongue. But all she had to give was rage, and Lisette’s heart was the wrong destination.

Julien came up beside his mother then. Emma let the woman’s hand go as Lisette held her son close and the sobs shook her. Then the house mother was on the radio asking why the chaperone wasn’t down there to collect the girls. Emma and Julien had to coax and pull and finally force Lisette to her feet, all while the house mother screamed at them over the radio. Finally, Lisette had herself together enough to go and do her part.

Emma shooed Julien back into the small bunkroom. Then she undid the cabin door and helped Lisette onto the gangway. She followed the woman with her eyes, waiting at every step for the Birdman to show up. But the night stayed calm and silent. Except for the grumbling of the house mother from the street below.

As Lisette stepped slow and steady down the mooring deck, Emma promised herself they’d still get the girls out. But she had no idea how they’d do it. Her hand went to her pocket without her even thinking about the letters, and the next instant, Emma was on her feet and backing away from the shimmering wall of the airship cabin.

~•~

Brand stumbles into the
Vigilance
and lets the curtain drop into place behind him. He has the door at his back, and he remember the last time he was in this position.

A thousand feet up with nothing but the Chicago City skyline to break my fall.

Brand doubles over and coughs into his lap. He keeps one hand on his hat so it won’t fall off his head. When he looks up, he sees Miss Farnsworth staring him down like a prize fighter ready to land the last punch of the night. Brand almost wishes she would belt him a good one. Anything to shake the sense that he’s lost the last bit of hope he had left.

“Miss Farnsworth,” he says, tipping his hat now and lowering his eyes to her shoes. She’s wearing nicer kicks than the last time he saw her, but nothing so fancy as what he knows she should be wearing.

All the other gods get dolled up in glad rags every chance they get.

But she’s not like the others, and he knows it. On cue, she proves him right.

“Brand,” she says. “So you’re back. And right when it looks like I’ll need a helping hand again. Funny how you seem to be here at the right time and still make it feel like the wrong place.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Farnsworth,” Brand says, still with his eyes on her toes. “I thought about taking a bath, but the other fellas told me not to bother. As much time as we spend in the mud, a guy might as well roll himself in pig slop if he wants to get clean.”

“That’s not what I meant, Brand, but now that you mention it. . .” She wrinkles her nose at him and steps back a pace, then another, until she’s up against his old desk. He eyes the drawer where he used to keep his bottle. It’s empty, and he knows it. Even if the bottle was still there, it’d be empty, too. After what’s happened to the people who rode this pig down from Chicago City, Brand’s surprised they aren’t all swimming in the mud like Al Conroy.