The Cottoncrest Curse (31 page)

“Hey,” a siren's voice called down, almost directly overhead.

Jake looked up. On a wrought-iron balcony right above him, a woman lowered the strap of her dress, revealing a brown breast with a dark-brown nipple. “Yes, you. You want to see more? Come inside and ask for Lulu.”

Next to her, a pale white girl, looking no older than fourteen, if that, swirled her skirts so that Jake could see she had nothing on underneath. “You ask for Betsy, now, sugar, and I'll show you a good time.”

Lulu laughed, and her mouth opened into a wide grin revealing three missing teeth. “Hell, if you got enough in your pants—your pants' pockets, that is—” she cackled, “you can have both of us.”

Jake planned to keep moving on down the street, but he stopped. Lulu and Betsy gave each other a knowing glance.

But it wasn't Lulu and Betsy that made Jake pause. It was the sign hanging from the balcony, visible in the glow coming through the open door next to it.

There was no writing on the sign. It was merely a picture of a large chair with a wide seat. On the wide seat was a crude picture of a tiny naked lady holding a large bottle with xxx on the label.

The chair was red.

Today

“I was planning it all out, you see. I knew it was dangerous to go to Petit Rouge Parish. I didn't know whether he would meet with me when I got there or, if he did, what might happen.

“It wasn't just that there had been beatings during my trip down on the bus from Washington with the Freedom Riders. There were a lot of us, and if we were going to pursue a non-violent approach in the face of violence, at least we had the strength of numbers and the ability to get word to the press and to our families.

“But now I was on my own. If I got into trouble, there was no one to send out a call for help. We didn't have cell phones in those days, and making a collect long-distance call was a time-consuming and expensive proposition, even if you got to a phone and even if your mother up north could afford to pay the charges, which mine couldn't.

“But this was something I had to do. Now that my father was dead and now that Grandpapa Jake had died, I was the only one who knew.

“Of course, Grandpapa Jake had never told me about him, and I'm sure my father and his mother never knew either. I had found it out by going through Grandpapa's papers. It was only right that this be done now, now that all of them—Grandmama Roz and my father and Great Uncle Moshe—were all dead and there was no one left to hurt. Grand-papa Jake would have wanted it this way, I was sure.

“I stopped in Des Allemands at a gas station and bought a Rebel flag, which I propped up on the dashboard. I bought a couple of bags of cracklins. Although I had stopped keeping kosher when I went away to college, I couldn't bring myself to taste fried pork skin, but I hadn't bought the cracklins to eat. I dumped part of the contents down the toilet at the gas station and put the half-empty bags on the seat. I bought a bottle opener, a couple of bottles of Jax beer, and a few Dixie beers and left them on the back seat as well.

“I also bought two MoonPies and an RC Cola. Now, those I did consume, leaving the empty bottle and the MoonPie bags on the floor of the front seat. If anyone stopped me, if anyone looked in my car wherever I might park it, I wanted it to look ordinary. Messy. Southern. I wanted it to fit in.

“ 'Course, while I could try to make my rented Oldsmobile look like it was being driven by a good ol' boy, with its Louisiana plates and the flag and the other stuff, I couldn't make myself look like I belonged here. I stuck out like a geisha at a bar mitzvah, like someone dropped in from another world. Which I was.

“It was almost an hour-drive from Des Allemands up the west bank River Road to Parteblanc. I knew I was there when I saw the signs at the city limits. There were trees set off the road where someone had tacked up a hand-lettered placard:
PARTEBLANC FEED STORE. YES, WE HAVE CRICKETS, WORMS, SHINERS, RAT POISON, AND ROACH SPRAY.
There was a big wooden railway tie set upright in concrete with the emblems of Kiwanis and the Rotary International and the Elks Club and Woodmen of the World stacked one on top of each other, like a totem pole for white men's clubs. There was a rusted steel shaft with a sign covered with mildew, reading,
PARTEBLANC, PARISH SEAT OF PETIT ROUGE PARISH.

“But towering over the Parteblanc sign and above the railway tie with the club emblems, there was a huge billboard on a cleared field behind a fence. It read: ‘
IMPEACH EARL WARREN
. Join the Citizens' Council and stand up for your rights.' ”

1893

Inside, facing the entrance to the Red Chair, was a wide bar behind which stood a giant of a man with olive-colored skin and jet-black hair. He was at least seven feet tall. A scar ran from his left ear across his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth. Where his left eye should be, there was nothing but a mass of scar tissue, evidence of some terrible battle. His nose was flattened, further proof of a history of rough fights. His hairy arms and barrel chest were barely contained by the washed-out red shirt that he wore.

To the right of the bar there was an upright piano where a black man played at a furious pace, accompanied by a lighter-colored black man on guitar and a short man of middle age and indiscriminate race on the saxophone. Next to them a young black boy sat, coronet in hand, and every so often the piano player would signal to the boy, who would raise the coronet to his lips and blow out a string of dizzying notes that somehow meshed with what the others were playing.

The floor of the bar was filled with a half-dozen couples. Women clung to men as they drifted around, some in time with the music, others completely ignoring it.

Two of the women wore loose-fitting dresses. Three were clad only in their slips. And one had on only a beaded necklace. The men and women kissed and rubbed each other.

As Jake stood in the doorway, one of the women in a slip led her man by the hand up the staircase, passing Lulu coming down with a naked drunk stumbling behind her. Lulu called to the bartender. Her voice had a sharp and angry edge. “Coso, he woke up. He ain't got nothin' left, and he wants some more.”

Coming from behind the bar, Coso grabbed the naked drunken man by the arm, pulling him over the banister. “You want more and no pay? Out!”

Coso pointed to the door. The naked man lay on the floor where he had fallen when Coso had pulled him off the stairs. He appeared dazed. He didn't move.

Reaching down, Coso grabbed the man's left ankle. Although the man was not small, Coso's hand was so large that it completely enveloped the man's limb. Coso dragged him easily to the door, the man yelling as splinters from the wooden floor dug into his back. Jake moved out of the way.

Coso kicked the man out onto the street, where he lay in chilly October air without anything on.

Jake could see someone toss down, from an upper floor, a pile of clothes that landed near the man. He rolled over with a groan, sorted them out, and started to get dressed.

As Coso started back toward the bar, working his way through the dancers, Jake followed him.

Coso spun around. He was at least a foot and a half taller than Jake and twice as wide. “What you want?” he growled.

Jake smiled, his teeth white against his dark stubble of a beard. “What do I want? A good question in such a friendly place. A drink would be good for a start.”

Coso nodded and went behind the bar. He put a tumbler on the counter and poured two inches of whiskey into it. “You pay.”

Jake smiled again. Smiling, said Uncle Avram, was always the way to begin a conversation where you wanted something from the other side. “Gladly.” He laid a two dollar bill next to the tumbler.

Coso looked at the bill and examined more closely this strange man with the long black coat and black hat with its broad felt brim. Without taking his eyes off of Jake, Coso called out, “New one.”

The listless woman on the dance floor did not pay any attention. Jake heard a rustle from the staircase. He looked up and saw the skinny fourteen-year-old white girl he had seen on the balcony sashaying down the stairs. She came over to the bar and put her arms around him. “I tol' you, sugar, ask for Betsy, and I'll show you a good time.”

Jake uncurled her arm from around his waist. “No thank you.”

“What's the matter, sugar? A little shy maybe?” Betsy rubbed his crotch with her hand, and Jake jumped back with a start.

“You no like?” Coso grinned. “You want something else? We have lots. Lulu maybe?”

Lulu, her chocolate-brown skin glowing in the gas lamp's illumination, insinuated herself between Betsy and Jake. Gone was the anger in her voice about the naked man who wanted more and wouldn't pay. Now she just purred, “You want some sugar, maybe, from a woman with more on the upper shelves than this one?” Lulu pointed to Betsy, pulling the shift off the young girl's shoulders while at the same time dropping the straps of her own dress. Where Betsy had tiny breasts like miniature pink-tipped funnels, Lulu's were large rounded mounds of toffee topped with coffee nipples.

“I think you misunderstand. I want only a drink and one other thing.”

“Two dollar. That get you drink and girl. You no like girl?” Coso asked, his eyes narrowing in curiosity at a man who would pay the proper price and then refuse what he had bought.

“Here,” Jake said, pushing the tumbler back toward Coso. “You can have this too. I just need some information on where I can find Antonio. Two dollars should buy me that, no?”

The olive complexion of Coso's broad face turned red with anger as Coso reached under the bar and then emerged from behind it carrying a large wooden club. His scarred-over left eye was the only part above his neck that was not crimson.

Betsy and Lulu, the tops of their bodies still exposed, moved away from Jake and retreated to the far corner of the bar.

Coso's face was a scowl. “You come in and no want drink? You come and no want girl? You come in and want Antonio? Who be you?”

Coso put his big hand on Jake's shoulder, where it rested like a slab of olive-colored beef. “You be law? Maybe you be friend of Hennessy? But I no see you before. You no be friend of Mr. Micelli, I think.”

Coso's fingers started to tighten on Jake's shoulder.

Jake forced himself to smile again. “Two dollars is not enough? I can maybe go to three. That's a lot of money. All I want to do is see Antonio.”

The band members saw Coso's expression and knew that a fight was about to begin. They played louder and faster. It would be over in a minute.

“You no see anything no more,” Coso snarled, raising his club and starting to swing it toward Jake.

That was it for Jake. He couldn't reason with this giant of a man.

Jake had been chased by Cossacks. He had hidden and escaped. Jake had been chased by Tee Ray and the Knights. He had run and escaped. It seemed to Jake that he had been running for his life for half his life. But now there were the lives of others at stake, and he was through running. Zig had refused to give him shelter and had sent him to ask for Antonio. Zig had said that Tee Ray and Bucky were here in town looking for him. Until Jake found Jenny, until he found out what he needed to know, where else could he go but to Antonio? Zig said the Red Chair was the place to find Antonio. This was the Red Chair. Jake had to make a stand.

As the club started to descend, Jake twisted out of Coso's grasp and darted for the bar.

Coso moved toward him, swinging the club back and forth like a scythe. It made an angry sound as it sliced through the air.

Coso was between Jake and the door. There was no way to get past.

Coso approached, taking large steps, his club coming closer and closer.

Jake dropped to the floor.

“You fall? I squash you like bug!” Coso took a wide stance and, raising the club above his head, prepared to pound it down on Jake's head.

But Jake was too fast. Jake scooted between Coso's legs and then, whirling around, his black coat flaring out, leaped up on Coso's back while at the same time pulling the Freimer knife from his belt.

Jake wrapped his legs around Coso's wide waist, crocked an elbow around Coso's broad neck, and put the point of the blade directly under Coso's right eye.

Coso could feel the cool metal pressed against his flesh, threatening to plunge into his eye socket, depriving him completely of his sight. He had lost the left eye years ago. If he lost the right eye, what good would he be to anyone? He stood very still, the club in his hands but now held motionless in midair.

The band stopped playing. No one had ever challenged Coso before.

Most of the dancers halted, although some, oblivious to the music, continued to sway back and forth.

“Now,” said Jake, calmly and softly, “should I remove your eye? If I do, should I also take an ear? The slightest twitch of this blade will be enough. It is so sharp you won't even feel the pain. At first.”

Coso tried not to move any part of his body. He relaxed, breathing slowly, waiting for the man on his back to make the slightest mistake, to loosen his grip even the smallest amount. Then Coso would act.

“Even if I took your eye and ear as souvenirs,” Jake whispered, his mouth so close that Coso could feel on his ear the stubble on Jake's chin, “you wouldn't look so bad. The scars I leave behind with this sharp blade will be tiny in contrast to the scars you already have. I shall gladly let you keep your sight and this misshapen ear, however, if I can only get the information I seek. So, you see, I think you should listen carefully to my questions. I've come a long way. A very long way. I've been told to ask for Antonio. I have paid more than enough for this information. I have asked politely once, and I will now ask politely again.”

Jake, still clinging to Coso's back, raised his head from Coso's ear and, tightening his grip and holding the blade more firmly, ready to plunge it deep into Coso's eye, spoke loudly enough for all to hear. “So, why don't you tell me where I can find Antonio.”