The Map of Moments (23 page)

Now it was about getting out alive.

But the closer he got to the end of the map, and the more recent the Moments became, the more he felt a part of them. And last time…

Last time, amongst all the sickness and rot, the Tordu man had sensed him.

If the trend continued with the Fifth Moment, Max might find himself in mortal danger from the past.

True, forward was the only way to go. But he needed to discover as much as he could about the Tordu's past before he walked into it again.

The bar reminded him of the place where Ray had given him the map. Physically, it was much different, because it had not been touched by the floodwaters. But it
had
been irrevocably changed by Katrina. The owners played jazz through a stereo that sat behind the bar, but the drinkers’ minds did not seem to be on music. They stared into a middle distance at something far away.

He approached the bar. The barman was short and fat, his bald head bubbled with perspiration, the pale skin of his jowls seeping sweat. His eyes bore an impression of lifelong fear, and Max wondered how someone like this could come to run such a place.

“Getcha?” the man asked. His voice was high, and any other time Max might have smiled.

“Coffee'd be fine,” Max said. “Do you have a phone I could use?”

Something changed in the man's demeanor. He seemed to stand up taller, lifted his chin, and his eyes grew sharper. “Booth at the back, by the john.”

Max nodded his thanks and weaved his way through the tables and chairs. Had he really upset that guy just by ordering coffee? He supposed it was possible. Everyone here nursed a beer or a whiskey. Maybe not drinking was enough to set Max apart from the rest. That, and the absence of a thousand-yard stare.

The phone was in an old booth at the end of a short hallway, restroom doors heading off left and right. Max tried to close the door, but it was rarely used in these times of cell phones, and it stuck halfway.

He sat there for a beat, eyes closed. The quiet jazz washed over him and took him back to the times he'd visited places like this with Gabrielle. A rush of memories came, their pureness pleasing him: Gabrielle grinning as they downed their fifth cocktail of the night; her delighted laughter as they were rained on rushing from one bar to the next; her softer, more sensual smile later, arms around his neck, lips brushing his as they waited for a cab. Good memories, untainted by what had happened recently, and as yet untouched by his discovering her with Joe Noone.

Noone's name shattered the memories into a thousand bloody fragments.

Max's eyes snapped open and focused on a piece of graf-fitti on the wooden wall of the booth:
fuck suck pussy anal,
it said, and then a number that had been scratched out. He sighed. The grime was always so close to the surface, but in that, at least, New Orleans was no different from any other city.

The receiver was cold and greasy, and he wondered who had used it before him. He rooted around in his wallet, looking for a business card that had sat in one of the slots behind his medical insurance card for over a year. The card belonged to Cornelia Trask, who'd been head of the Tulane English department when Max had taught at the university. He'd never called the number on the front, but over the duration of his employment at Tulane, on the back he'd scribbled eight or nine other numbers of colleagues and friends he'd made. Since moving back to Boston, he'd never so much as drawn the card out of his wallet, never mind called any of them. It stuck to the leather as he tugged it out now.

There would be other ways to track down Charlie, if he had long enough, but this was his first hope. Max had once mentioned that he'd never visited Houston, and Charlie had given him his parents’ phone number, saying that if he ever went, they'd happily put him up for a few days. They had a big house, Charlie'd said, and rattled around it like two peas in a pod. Max never would have taken him up on it, of course. Southerners might really be comfortable offering that kind of hospitality, but boys raised in the Northeast would never be comfortable accepting it.

He'd dutifully written down the number, so as not to appear rude. Now he stared at the digits and thought of the
organs he'd found pinned to Charlie's office door. Cattle organs, he'd tried to convince himself at the time. Not human.

Max took a deep breath, then tapped in the number.

An old man answered—Charlie's father, Max figured. When he put his son on the phone, Max wasn't really surprised.

“Hey, it's Max.”

Charlie was silent for a long time. Max could hear his friend breathing, fumbling at the other end of the phone, and in the distance he heard the sound of a child's voice, raised in delight or distress, he could not tell. Tempted though he was to prod a response from Charlie, he knew he should give him time.

“Max,” Charlie said at last. “You home?”

“Not yet,” Max said. “I'm still in New Orleans, and I need—”

“What the hell are you still doing there?” Charlie tried to sound angry, but his voice came across as scared.

Max looked along the small hallway. Although there was no one there, he had the sense that someone was listening.

“I've got a feeling you know what I'm doing, Charlie. You were pretty adamant about staying in New Orleans yesterday. Today you're in Texas.”

“Yeah. Drove all afternoon and half the night. There was no way I could stay. I'll never know why I ever thought of it as somewhere to bring up a family. It's …not a place to call home, Max.”

Max frowned. “You were born and raised here.”

“Yeah,” Charlie replied. “Yeah, I was.” His voice sounded
strange, forced. Charlie's breathing came faster, and Max was sure he heard the beginnings of a sob. Then it became muffled as Charlie covered the mouthpiece at his end.

“Charlie, I need your help,” Max said. “The Tordu. I need to know what you know.”

“There's nothing I can tell you.” Charlie covered his mouthpiece again, as if afraid the truth would bleed through the lines.

“They're more than gangsters, Charlie. More than drugs and violence, aren't they?” Charlie said nothing. “You
have
to tell me!” Max continued. “Don't do this, man. They're after me.”

For a while, Charlie's end of the line remained silent. No heavy breathing, no shuffling of his hand over the mouthpiece. Eventually he said, “I know.”

“They warned you off.”

Silence again. And then, “My family needs me here. There's nothing for me in New Orleans anymore, and there's nothing for you there, either. I told you, Max—

“I
can't
leave.”

“Then that's on you. If I were you, I'd get the fuck away from there, and never even think about going back.”

“Charlie—”

“That's me talking as a friend.”

“It's gone too far for me to leave.”

“You're still alive, aren't you, for fuck's sake? It hasn't gone too far yet.”

“Why would they cure the yellow fever?” Max asked.

“Because they think the city is theirs!” Charlie shouted.

“Its
people
are theirs! And you sticking your damn nose into places it shouldn't go …You've pissed off Mireault.”

Mireault? The name those nuns were calling before they hanged themselves?
Max frowned and shook his head.

“Mireault ran things two hundred years ago. Unless you're telling me he's risen from his grave.”

Charlie said nothing. From shouting to silent, as though scared that someone would hear.

“Charlie?”

A man came around the corner from the bar, staggering slightly, pushing himself from the wall and through the door into the men's restroom. He didn't even seem to notice Max.

“Charlie?” More shuffling on the other end of the phone, more breathing, and in the background Max heard one of Charlie's kids screeching. “I'm only asking for your help. You're away from here now, and—”

“He doesn't have a grave, Max. He'll never need one.”

Max frowned. “What are you—”

“I can't keep talking to you. It's not safe for me. No one's beyond their reach,” Charlie whispered. “Just because they can't leave the city doesn't mean they won't send someone for me.”

“Jesus, listen to you. I don't get it, Charlie. Why doesn't anyone do something? Talk to the cops, something? You need to help me!”

“You aren't listening. You need to comprehend what I'm saying. You can't fight them! Nobody can. The only thing they're scared of is Seddicus…”

He trailed off, and Max waited for Charlie to say more. The man stumbled from the bathroom and back out into the bar, and just before he disappeared around the corner he glanced back at Max.

“Everything I find out confuses me more,” Max said.

Silence from Charlie; breathing; something scraping the mouthpiece.

“They kill people,” Max rasped into the phone. “Rip them open and take their organs.”

There was a click as Charlie hung up. Static for a while, then another click and the fast, annoying tone that came with disconnection.

Max hung up, then picked up the phone again. He dialed the number and let it ring and ring. No one answered. He imagined Charlie sitting there in his parents’ home in Houston, his kids bustling around him, his wife pleased that they were together again and doing her best to make home of somewhere far away …and Charlie staring at the phone, perhaps regretting what he had said, and fearing everything else he
should
have said.

Max hung up and dialed again, just in case he'd gotten the wrong number. He got a busy signal, so rare in these days of call waiting. The phone had to be off the hook. Charlie had unplugged Max from his life.

He stared at the graffitied wall and thought through the little that Charlie had told him. The Tordu were old, he knew that, and it seemed that they were run by the Mireault family. So was it really just that? A crime family, twisted by their dabblings in dark magic, and using fear to control the people of New Orleans?
Because they think the city is theirs,

Charlie had shouted.
Its
people
are theirs!
And what was that business about the Tordu not being able to the leave the city? And Mireault …
He doesn't have a grave.

Max shivered. Did Charlie believe Mireault was still alive? He hadn't just said Mireault didn't have a grave, he'd said the man would never need one. So he was …immortal?

Only days ago, Max had not believed in magic at all. He'd been forced to change his view. But even magic seemed to have rules, patterns, and limits. Immortality …that was something else entirely. Could anyone or anything really live forever? He couldn't imagine it. The first rule of the universe was entropy. Things fell apart. Deterioration, death, and rot, these were constants. All anyone had to do was walk the streets of New Orleans in these days of disaster and learn a little about the sinking of the city, the ruin of the wetlands, the negligence of the government, and it seemed obvious that sooner rather than later
everything
ceased to be.

It was the way of things.

But rejecting the idea of immortality didn't necessarily mean Charlie had been wrong. Hell, maybe Mireault really was still alive. Or maybe it was just a myth the Tordu created about themselves, with the man's descendants posing as him down through the years.

Max realized it didn't matter. The answer to that riddle would not keep him alive.

He stood and walked back out into the bar. The fat barman nodded at Max's coffee, steaming on the bar. Max dropped a five-dollar bill and went to leave.

“Not staying?” the barman said.

“No, I've got to—”

“Best coffee in New Orleans.” The man was smiling, but it was as if someone had painted the expression there; it touched only his mouth. He was sweating more than ever.

Max looked around at the other patrons. A couple were watching him, and they glanced away casually, lifting drinks to their lips.
Am I really so paranoid?

He left the bar, jumped back into the RAV4, and pulled away. There were no more reasons to wait. Charlie had told him little, but the very fact of his fear communicated plenty.
Just because they can't leave…
he had said, and whatever that really meant, the same words now applied to Max.

For the first time in his life, he wished he owned a gun.