The Sound of Building Coffins (16 page)

Typhus waited for the bag to float up to the top. It did not. It was lost. A nominal price for bliss, he thought. Goodbye, old friend.

A stray thought. Unwelcome.

Bliss = loss?

Now Typhus thought about loss. Thoughts of loss brought Lily to mind; promises he’d made her, the guilty fact that she’d always lived up to her end of the bargain without question, complaint, argument, or negotiation.

Unexpectedly, something like fear materialized in Typhus’ chest.

What had been pink and lovely had become vaguely dreadful. The gliding grace of alien music stretched and tore into a colorless wail.

Loss = death?

He could not do this thing to Lily, would not do this thing.

sinking

Paper Lily. The girl who would neither return his love nor break his heart. The girl he had promised to keep and protect.

Death = absence of pain?

Life = ?

Just as the water reached his lips, Typhus threw his head back, pulled his arms above his head and frantically clutched at warm air.

pain?

A violent splash. Two heavy hands clasped Typhus just above the elbows, pulling his feet and legs up through cool, smooth mud, provoking a gaseous squeal from around his waist and below, the sound of resistant suction. Typhus looked down and saw his own muddy feet kicking above angry orange. Now thrown back and away from the lake of cool fire, his body smacked into a patch of moist saw grass. Typhus’ eyes blinked hard, then darted—searching for the owner of the saving hands. Finding: A black silhouette. Hearing:

“
Typhus? Typhus, you all right, boy?”

It was a voice from his past—one he couldn’t quite place.

A hulking shadow of a man.

“
Typhus?”

The face was a murk of swamp grays.

Fuzzy sparks of recognition triggered in Typhus’ mind as the phantom leaned closer. The man was kneeling. Dressed in ancient, filthy rags; nothing but the shoes on his feet offering any functionality. Typhus didn’t recognize the man, but he recognized the shoes. His father’s shoes.

The hair and beard of the phantom were long; copious grays braided and flecked with traces of green and brown. The beard stretched past his naked belly with weird purpose; little curved bumps in various shapes and sizes disrupting its thick mass from chin to tip, suggesting lumpy cells of concealed code. With a sleepy sense of dread, Typhus realized the anomalies in the phantom’s beard were, in fact, a series of woven pockets, and from their mouths gleamed the edges of mysterious implements.

“
Coco Robicheaux,
” Typhus whispered dimly.

The phantom’s shadow-saturated features ignited upwards from concern to amusement, his voice deepening with a rumble of low laughter; “
Temps moune connaite l’aute nans grand jou, nans nouite yeaux pas bisoen chandelle pou clairer yeaux
!” The words were a Creole proverb his father had been fond of, the approximate meaning; “When a man knows another by broad daylight, he doesn’t need a candle to recognize him at night.” The phantom cleared his throat with a cough, managed to collect himself, then let his smile settle into a soft grin before switching back to English:

“
Can’t go standing in the orange water, Typhus. It’ll sing to you first, then suck you down second if you ain’t careful.”

Typhus’s eyes struggled to decipher the man’s face. He knew this face. It was not his father, but it was someone his father had known.

“
You okay, Typhus?”

He knew this face. He knew that laugh. He remembered. Now, he remembered.

“
Typhus, say something. Say anything.”

Typhus meant to thank the phantom. Might have thanked him for all he’d done for his family over the years. Might have thanked him for saving his life just now. Might have thanked him for saving his life ten years previously. Might have apologized for having betrayed all past kindnesses by following him out into the bog on this night, for choosing not to respect the phantom’s simple and single condition of privacy.

Typhus said none of those things. But he did say:

“
It ain’t right to wear the shoes of a man you kilt.”

Beauregard Church fell still and quiet; breath hushed, warmth drained from his eyes as pain and regret felt their way through the gray. His heavy head lulled, then dipped. He stood, looked at his feet; at the perfectly fitting shoes of Noonday Morningstar that warmed and protected them. Turned. Walked into darkness, crunching grass and twigs beneath the shoes. Shoes once belonging to a man whose back had held and bled from a family heirloom.

So many years ago.

away

Orange dimmed, its smooth color inaugurating a fade, then dying completely. The swamp: now black. The ground: uneventfully damp. Typhus closed his useless eyes. A thousand lonely swamp frogs warbled on.

He made his way home quickly. Despite the dark and without moon or stars to guide him, Typhus found in himself a near miraculous sense of direction. To find his way home, he simply followed the brightest thing in his troubled heart.

Lily, on a high shelf in the kitchen, was his North Star.

*

The phantom returned to the Morningstar home soon thereafter, on a night when mist stifled starlight and sky reached its richest shade of coal. Moist air corrupted the travel of sound, and so Typhus did not make note of footfalls.

That morning, the traditional bundle was found on the doorstep. No note was attached.

Malaria, always first to rise, joyfully carried the lumpy package through the threshold, gaily chirping, “A present from Father!” Typhus and Dropsy dragged themselves from straw mattresses, wiping sleep from dry eyes. Dropsy goosed a groggy smile from his lips, spoke in a cracked whisper:

“
Well, what’s in it, Malaria? Dump it out already.”

Before the contents fell, Typhus recognized the wrapping. A burlap bag made for holding coffee beans, but also good for any number of functions, including rebirthing babies in muddy rivers. Malaria held the bag from its bottom corners, pinching fingers and pulling up; spilling its contents to the floor.

Malaria screamed. Typhus’ eyes filled with water. Dropsy accepted, stating simply, “I was hopin’ fer meat.”

On the floor, lay exactly six shoes.

Fresh tracks outside betrayed the recent presence of a large man with bare feet.

Chapter twenty-three

Christ Kid is Risen

The oversized and square right fist of the big white man arced wide to connect with the unguarded cheek of the Christ Kid—and Eugene Reilly felt a twinge of panic tickle his bladder.

The Christ Kid was looking punchy and incompetent—this had not been the plan, had not been the agreement, not at all in accordance with promises made by Crawfish Bob’s allegedly disenfranchised right-hand man Stiffy Lacoume. Still, Reilly held out a hope. Maybe this was all part of the act. Just to make it look good. Believable. Everyone knew Windmill Willie was the easy favorite, a win from the Christ Kid was near unthinkable—and a
quick
win would smell like the rat it was.

The Christ Kid ducked a second windmill—but a hard right jab to the midsection followed shortly. The Kid flurried in return; sending six but delivering only two.

On the bright side, the Kid did manage the occasional connection. On the grim side, the white giant hardly seemed fazed. The bulk of the crowd, having gone with shorter odds and smarter money, whooped and hollered for the Christ Kid’s inevitable demise. Reilly tried to ignore his nagging bladder as he fantasized of slow and creative ways to end the life of that double-crossing Cajun charlatan who’d suckered him with every sucker’s favorite bait: the words “sure thing.”

Then, as if Reilly’s distress was spelled out across his forehead, Stiffy materialized in apparent response. Placing a hand on Reilly’s shoulder, he bent to the Irishman’s ear, “Pretty good show, eh, Mr. Reilly?”

“
I think our boy’s in trouble,” Reilly grumbled.

Stiffy made an injured expression. “Have a little faith, my friend. Those boys both know the score—and neither has an ounce of love ner loyalty for that shameless skinflint Crawfish Bob. They were told to make it look good, and that’s just what they’re doing.”

Reilly, unconvinced: “I dunno. The Kid looks like he’s losing his footing. Like he’s losing
consciousness,
fer chrissakes.”

Stiffy smiled wide, exposing large brownish teeth, two of which were chipped enough to expose blackened centers. “Of course he does, pardna! Of course he does!”

“
If this is Willie’s idea of a dive, I don’t like it. Not one bit, I don’t.”

“
Well, perhaps business of this sort is conducted less subtly in the Great State of New York, Mr. Reilly. Here in the South we enjoy adding a little dramatic flair to everything we do.”

Shit-grinning swindler
, thought Reilly. “If this is a double-cross, I swear to Christ…”

Stiffy gave Reilly another firm pat on the shoulder, followed by, “Just relax and enjoy the show, friend. You’ll see.” Stiffy vanished into the crowd, waddling with confidence.

“
Smug bastard,” Reilly hissed under breath, although he had to admit the old coot’s confidence had bolstered his own somewhat.

The Christ Kid failed to block a quick succession of brutal blows to the ribs and fell hard to his knees, gasping for air. The pudgy, balding man who functioned as referee angled his body between the two fighters and began the count:

“
ONE…… TWO……THREE…….”

“
Goddamnit,” said Reilly through clenched teeth.

“
FOUR……”

If this was part of the show, it was too damn convincing. A one-sided workout at best, Willie was only slightly winded, a thin sheen of sweat lightly coating him from forehead to ankle. The white boxer easily caught his breath and casually examined his swollen knuckles while the Christ Kid wheezed in apparent agony on the canvas. This couldn’t be happening, Reilly thought. He had five thousand dollars riding on this “sure thing.” Someone would pay for this, by God.

“
FIVE……”

He couldn’t look. Reilly’s eyes surveyed the room, eventually settling on the kid they called Ratboy, who immediately preceding the boxing match had dispatched a record forty-three rats in three minutes with a wide, nail studded stick. Ratboy was now sitting on the floor near the bar dabbing a collection of small, bloody ankle wounds with a moist cloth. At first glance, Reilly mistook the expression on Ratboy’s face for a pained grimace—but after a moment he deciphered the expression more accurately: The kid was grinning from ear to ear.
Holy Jesus Harold Q. Christ
, thought Reilly.
Does the whole state of Louisiana need to be fitted for a rubber hat?
Oh, how he longed to return home, to the place he’d always considered the toughest, most dangerous place on earth, his beloved New York City. Up north, at least, the dregs of society retained the smallest crumb of dignity. Up north, they only pitted dogs and niggers against rats in the fight pits. Not light-haired children snatched from the looney bin.

In his prime, Reilly had been considered one of New York’s finest short-con operators. His game had been faro, and he was damn good at it—hell, he practically invented its modern version. In its early days, faro was considered the fairest of all gambling endeavors, the dealer’s advantage being a mere two per cent. Reilly had single-handedly coupled creativity and skill to subvert this fairest of games, his innovation being the manufacture of a special dealing box—a handcrafted steel and brass affair complete with hidden levers, plates, and springs—that allowed the dealer to not only preview the deck’s order, but to manipulate it. It was the physical beauty of the box itself that had the marks lining up; its shiny authority and fine detail reflected upon its owner—a thieving shyster could not possibly own such a beautiful gadget.

That was long ago, though, before the game’s reputation had been tarnished by the hundreds of tag-a-long imitators and their own clumsy variations and ham-fisted executions. The new generation of unimaginative bums had ruined the system for dignified entrepreneurs like Reilly. He’d made his fortune, but had spent it too fast—and now he was looking for a quick way to multiply what remained. This trip to New Orleans was supposed to be a simple holiday—like so many Northerners, he’d been enticed by tales of Storyville’s legendary feminine delicacies. But a trusted friend had urged him to contact Stiffy Lacoume while in town, had assured him Stiffy was a reliable man and an excellent source of quick investment opportunities. And so here he was.

“
SIX……”

Goddamnitall straight to hell.

Reilly’s dumbfounded eyes located Stiffy’s puffy mug across the ring; poker-pussed and unblinking, looking straight at him. Then: the slightest nod, followed by an almost imperceptible wink.

In an instant, everything changed.

The Christ Kid had risen.