Gods of New Orleans Read online

  Aiden was happy enough not to have seen or heard from the larger boy since the night outside the Ghost’s window. Hearing Julien’s words now just made Aiden more hopeful he’d never see Theo again.

  “Okay, so if it ain’t Sorry I’m gonna hear, what is it?”

  “Rest of the lesson, fool. Listen, you gotta keep your eyes on the floor when you workin’. The floor where the work is at, so don’ go gettin’ distracted by them pretty things and fancy stuff you be seein’ in them houses. Shoot, Mama Shandy’s eyeglasses? Ain’t half as pretty or fine as stuff you gonna be seein’. And get this, when you see your first girl in there, you don’ look at her no way. You hear?”

  Aiden nodded and figured he should leave it be, but the way Julien said the word girl nagged at him. Something in the other boy’s voice sounded wrong, like he didn’t want to think about the girls they’d be seeing or wanted to forget about them.

  “What gives, Julien? About the girls?”

  “Huh?” the other boy said, and then he let on in a steady run of words, fast and angry as a freight train heading off the rails.

  “Damn krewe got my sister in them houses. Gonna put her on the block someday soon. My momma ain’t got money to bid her out. And that damn fool call hisself my daddy. Man’s about as useful as a sandwich made of soup. But damn, Dove, ain’t you hear me? I mean it. You wanna keep both eyes in your head, you pay mind what I’m sayin’ to you about them girls. Forget about ‘em.”

  After Julien’s breathing went back to calm, Aiden asked the question he’d had on his mind the whole time. “Who does it?”

  “Does what?”

  “Takes the eyes. You said the Birdman does it, but who is he?”

  “I don’ know. He s’posed to be around, though. Always is, just where you can’t see him ‘til it’s too late and he on you with his bird and takin’ your eye.”

  “Why does he do it? I mean, what else do I gotta worry about not doing so I don’t lose an eye?”

  “Pretty much everythin’ I guess. Like I said, just keep your eyes on the floor and don’ go lookin’ any higher than somebody’s belt if they talkin’ to you. ‘Specially not a house mother.”

  Aiden nodded and pushed. At the next corner Julien left him with a wave and a promise to meet up at the Ghost’s window next time they got work.

  “Gotta get a few more pennies in my pocket, and ‘specially now. Mama Shandy short us both tonight for you pullin’ that starin’ contest in the kitchen. I only get ten cents thanks to you.”

  Aiden tried not to think about the nickel that he pinched between his fingers in his pocket. He watched Julien wheel his cart away down the near empty street. A streetcar waited outside another gala house half a block along, and Aiden saw another houseboy pushing his cart in the opposite direction from Julien. The two met in the middle of the street and exchanged some kind of greeting, some fast talk. Then they separated, each to the opposite side of the street and pushing their carts along home.

  When the boy came abreast of Aiden he stayed on his side of the street and kept his eyes on his path. Aiden thought about calling to him, trying to make some sign of friendship with this boy who did the same job as him. But the boy’s step said he wanted no part of any greeting, much less a conversation, with someone who had Aiden’s color of skin.

  Chapter 25

  Emma sat in the pilot’s chair of the Vigilance and looked out the windscreen at their new neighborhood. The two-story brick house they lived in sat a block away. Her view of it was centered on the bullet hole in the cockpit windscreen.

  The Vigilance hung above a nicer mooring deck now. It was even nicer than Celestin Hardy’s deck, and Emma liked that about it. She felt she and Eddie deserved something for their troubles, even as she wondered how long she’d be able to hold out as part of Bacchus’s krewe. That night he’d taken her and Eddie away from their little house, Bacchus offered a job. At first, Eddie seemed like he might object, but he sat back in his seat when Emma opened her mouth and said she’d do it.

  Bacchus hadn’t even told her what it would be before she was nodding her head and saying Yes, but something in her had known the work would be honest. Not the kind that has a girl looking at the ceiling. And she was right.

  But even with real pay for real work in her pocket, Emma couldn’t deny the truth. Bacchus scared her. Plain and simple. He terrified her, and not just because he was a gangster, no different than Frank Nitti had been. The way Bacchus moved and talked, the weight of everything he did, it all settled onto her like the coat she couldn’t refuse and didn’t want to because being unprotected in New Orleans wasn’t something Emma dared to dream about.

  The thought of the coat brought Emma’s hands to her collar to clutch at the fine wool of the new garment Bacchus had provided her. The closets in their new house were packed full of clothing, all new and all very fine. Emma had to admit she’d liked that about the arrangement, and even found herself given to smiling at Bacchus after he opened the second closet and showed her the dresses and shoes he’d acquired for her.

  “You should look every bit the part when you step out in these fine things. Don’t you think so, Miss Emma?”

  She did think so, and she’d said as much to the man right then as his fingers danced a line across the hanging dresses and skirts, brushing them like a spring breeze through tall grass. Emma did think she’d look good in the clothes, and she’d turned to Bacchus and grinned like a schoolgirl.

  And now I hate myself worse than ever, don’t I? Smiling at that monster like he was my own father.

  Bacchus was a walking horror in glad rags. But he was the reason she and Eddie had this nice neighborhood to call home.

  Emma stared at the mooring deck, and that put her at ease. That comfort of familiar luxury had come back when she walked up the staircase to the platform and stepped along the deck to where the Vigilance berthed. The deck had the same fancy looking gearboxes as Celestin Hardy’s. But it had a brass and steel railing along its length, broken here and there to accept gangways leading up to tethered ships. A manor house like Emma used to live in stood beside the deck, and more nice homes crouched in the night in every direction.

  Maybe this is home at last.

  The radio crackled beside her and Emma gave a sharp cry of surprise.

  “Lovebird, you in the ship? I gotta get my suit on. Need some help. Now c’mon.”

  Emma fingered the radio handset before pressing the button to open a channel back to her and Eddie’s place.

  “Be there in a minute, Eddie,” she said.

  Outside, the late evening sky said spring rain was coming again, but the last fingers of sunlight still shone through the gathering clouds. It had been a fine day, Emma thought as she picked herself up and left the cockpit behind.

  ~•~

  Eddie moved slow as they got his jacket on. Emma held it out so he could slide his arm into one sleeve and then the next. He gave a careful shrug to settle the jacket into place and tugged the lapels to keep them flat.

  “How I look?”

  “You look good, Eddie. Real good.”

  “You ready to do your part? Mr. Bacchus say this a big job, good money we don’t mess nothin’ up.”

  “Yeah,” Emma said, forcing herself to hold Eddie’s gaze. “I’m all set, Eddie.”

  Eddie lifted his horn in its case, with only a slight wince this time, Emma noticed. He was getting a lot better, healing faster now they had a good roof and plenty of food on the table.

  Food she cooked. In a kitchen she kept clean.

  It wasn’t the work she resented. It was knowing that particular work would always be there and that she’d be the one doing it.

  They walked to the mooring deck in silence and into the Vigilance, side by side. Eddie sniffed from time to time, like he had a cold, but Emma knew he was just trying to get her attention. He was healing up really well. So well he’d started drinking again after his shows, and sometimes came home smelling like he’d been washed in
a tub filled with gin.

  “Where’s your show tonight, Eddie?”

  “What‌—‌? Oh, new place, Mr. Bacchus told me about. Called the Sun, out by the riverside.”

  They’d reached the Vigilance, so Emma let it go and helped Eddie get up the ladder. She had a feeling there was more he could tell her, but the set of his jaw told her it’d be a waste of time to ask. Just like when she’d asked him again about all those younger women and girls accompanying older men to these heel kicks. The girls she now flew around the city at all hours of the night.

  She’d asked and Eddie’d told her, the same as had before.

  “Girls gotta know how to walk and talk, gotta know how to dance proper, not like how you see in the speaks. These girls learnin’ the waltz and more like that. Real dancin’, for special occasions. Debutante, that kinda thing.”

  Emma knew when she was being lied to, just like any girl knows when a man tells her something he thinks she wants to hear. He always makes it sound like something she needs to hear. But that’s not what Eddie sounded like, and as much as she doubted his words, she didn’t doubt he believed them to be true.

  Emma thought about the sound of Eddie’s voice as she got settled in the cockpit and radioed to the gearboxes on the deck to cut them loose. She stayed hush while she got the Vigilance into the sky and thought about everything they’d seen and done since they got to New Orleans.

  “Hey, Lovebird,” Eddie said from where he sat at Brand’s desk. “Was thinkin’ I’m a fool let you work like this, but I gotta admit. This a lot better than ridin’ some old streetcar out there in the elements.”

  Emma gave him the only thing he deserved in response: a simple grunt of acknowledgement that he’d opened his mouth and put some words into the space between them. She couldn’t argue though. Flying was a lot better than riding the streetcars. For one thing, she didn’t have to show her badge of transit anymore.

  That’s worth more than a dozen of Eddie’s ham-handed attempts at being sweet.

  They would have taken a streetcar if it weren’t for Emma’s new job for Bacchus. He had her lined up to fly girls to shows like the ones where Eddie played.

  Maybe someday I’ll get to fly Eddie to a show and see just what goes on behind those doors.

  Emma shook her head to chase the thoughts away and paid attention to the city skies around her. She heard Eddie open his case and take out his horn. In a few short moments, the airship cabin filled with notes that danced and juked as Eddie warmed up for the night.

  The ride was easy. No other air traffic as a spring storm came in. It was a quiet one, though, only a few minutes of heavy rain and then it was gone, blown off for some other patch of land.

  And wasn’t that just New Orleans, Emma thought. A place for storms to show up for a while, leave their mark, and then move on.

  Emma brought them in above what passed for a municipal deck down in the riverside districts. She’d thought that for the happening part of town, New Orleans would make a better showing. But the city must have other uses for its money. The deck looked to be ten kinds of falling down, and only had one gearbox on it.

  Eddie stepped fast to the door once the machine had them moored and the narrow gangway in place. They were down the street from where Eddie would be playing, so Emma stood to accompany him to the show before she went to do her part and pick up a group of girls who’d be dancing at another house.

  “You go ahead, Lovebird. I’ll be all right.”

  “You sure, Eddie? You’re still hurting. I can tell. Let me‌—‌”

  But Eddie had already opened the door and set foot on the gangway. “I’ll be fine, Emma,” he said, his smile wavering just a touch. “This a big job you doin’ for Mr. Bacchus. Remember? Go on now. I’ll be fine.”

  And then he was down the gangway and stepping off down the mooring deck to the staircase that would take him to the street. Emma closed the door, went to the cockpit and started to pull the ship away before she remembered it was still moored. She settled herself with a deep breath, and then another, before radioing the gearbox to release the Vigilance.

  ~•~

  The house mother’s boarding place was across the river, over in Algiers. A lighthouse beacon swept the water from the point by the oxbow. Emma spied a few ships moving out downriver. The sky had darkened while she had flown Eddie to his gig. She’d be picking up the girls under the full cover of night.

  Something still smelled funny to her, but she couldn’t tell if it was the job itself or just the idea of finally having work to do instead of living off her father’s money. One thing she had to admit was that it felt good to be flying and earning some pay for doing it. Even if she wasn’t sure about the people she worked for.

  Something was going on with the girls she flew to and fro around the city. Or maybe Eddie was telling the truth, not just what he believed was true. Maybe these dances were just how people did things down here. And could she honestly say it was any different from how things were done in Chicago City?

  Since Bacchus had set her and Eddie up in the French Quarter, she’d flown three unpaid jobs for him. The first was just taking him around the city so he could look at his 'sovereign domain.’ The second job was more of the same, but Eddie had come with that time, and the two men had talked about the gala house shows.

  “Play your horn, Mr. Eddie Collins. Play your horn so my guests can make merry. And make merry yourself if the mood strikes you.”

  Emma had pretended not to hear what the gangster had said, but she had to bite her tongue to keep from complaining about the two men talking like she wasn’t right there in the airship with them. Eddie didn’t say much that Emma could say was out of line, but he didn’t say anything against the words coming out of Bacchus’s mouth either.

  It still gnawed at her guts that she hadn’t asked Eddie if he was staying true to her. But then, in a way, it gnawed even more to suspect that he wasn’t.

  The third job she’d done for Bacchus was ferrying a group of young ladies to a social event. The women had all been stern-faced and solemn while they stood in the cabin on the flight. And only one of them acknowledged Emma with a wave of her hand.

  The others acted like Emma was just hired help, and not particularly good help. She’d overheard whispered comments about ‘doves fouling the nest’ and somebody needing to ‘find a new jellyroll.’ In the moment, Emma told herself the women were talking about someone else. It wasn’t until they’d left the ship that Emma let her heart key in. She had flown home looking at a city stained with tears.

  Now, coming down over a mooring deck off Delaronde, Emma swallowed back fresh tears inspired by the memories and forced herself to keep a good face on for tonight’s job. She hated to admit it, but Eddie wasn’t the only one worried about keeping Bacchus happy.

  The boarding house was supposed to be nearby, and Emma reached for the radio to let the house mother know she’d arrived. As Emma opened the channel, she spotted the chaperone climbing the stairs to the deck with the girls in tow. A dozen at least.

  As the group approached the gangway, Emma unlatched the door and opened it. The chaperone ushered her charges forward and followed in their wake. The girls stepped on uneasy legs, all of them with mixes of worry and wonder on their faces. Maybe it was their first time in an airship.

  Or maybe it’s where this airship is taking them.

  Emma couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, but as the chaperone came up the gangway she forced her face into a weak grin.

  “I’m Emma Farnsworth,” she said, but kept her hands by her sides.

  “Good evening to you, Miss Farnsworth. My name is Adelaide Roche. You may call me Miss Roche.”

  Emma nodded and bent to work the lever to close the door. Miss Roche took a seat at Brand’s desk while the girls milled around the cabin space.

  “Washroom’s in back, just down the hall,” Emma said to the girls.

  “They won’t be going nowhere’s,” Miss Roc
he said. “Not if I can’ see ‘em. And you don’ need to be talkin’ to ‘em anyway. Just fly us on, if you will.”

  Feeling that familiar burn of resentment mixed with fear, Emma settled herself into the cockpit and radioed the gearboxes on the deck. Moments later they were airborne and sailing through the New Orleans night. Emma’s mind swam with worry for the girls. They were mixed, with faces running from light-skinned to dark and all points between. The girls looked about the same age, and not one of them more than two years passed coming into season.

  Emma remembered her own innocence. She also remembered the way her father’s friends and the men at the power plant would look at her once womanhood began to peek out from behind her child’s face. And when she’d turned sixteen, dammit if some of those men hadn’t tried to do more than look when they knew nobody else was.

  Eddie hadn’t asked her if she would come join him tonight, after she was done with her job. But Emma knew the next time Eddie opened that door and she could spare the time she’d be walking straight through. Whatever went on with these girls, she’d find out about it. And then she’d decide if staying in New Orleans was still in the cards.

  Chapter 26

  Days and nights felt nicer all around for Aiden as springtime had come to New Orleans. He had heard from Julien that was the best season in the city. Plenty to see and do, and the storms wouldn’t come in for a couple months more. Of course, they still had to clean the gala houses for Mama Shandy.

  “Girls be ‘round the houses more now, so watch your eyes, Dove Conroy. Don’ go lookin’. Not ‘less you wanna give half what you see with to the Birdman.”

  Julien took to calling Aiden “Dove Conroy” after Aiden’s latest win at the Ghost’s window. Julien was still down on his bets, but he’d won a couple recently. Aiden, however, had a solid winning streak. That didn’t sit with the other boys, especially not Theo Valcour. But for Julien it was like Aiden was doing some magic trick. The guy even stood up for him, telling the others, “Don’ go hasslin’ Dove Conroy” and “Leave Dove Conroy be.”