Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (27 page)

“Well, hopefully not died,” I said. “That would be sad. But it's not running.”

“Won't the rental place give you a new one?”

I exhaled a loud, annoyed sigh.

“Then
you
call them,” I said. “Maybe they can give
you
a car before noon tomorrow, which probably means four or five. Maybe for
you
they'll have a spare car of any kind at any price, because for me they certainly—”

“Okay,” Mick said. “Okay. Take a cab on up and meet me here. Give it back to me tomorrow morning.”

I went back to my hotel room and got my gun from where I'd hidden it in the box of tissues in the funny little slot hotels always have, as if there were something untoward about a bare tissue box. I gave it a quick check for functionality, and when everything looked good I went back out and got a cab on Decatur to take me uptown. Mick met me out in front of his place. He gave me the keys to his car with some instructions:
Sometimes the lights stick and you have to jiggle the thing a little. Sometimes it stalls at red lights. The driver's window only goes down halfway and then you have to push it down, but don't because it's a bitch to get back up
.

I'd forgotten what it's like to be poor.

“So where are you going?” Mick asked. “Did you get some leads, or—”

“Nope,” I lied. “No leads. No plan, really. Just figured I'd drive around and see what happens.”

Mick nodded and pretended he thought that was a good idea. I knew he didn't.

He would have liked the truth worse.

It was less than five minutes from Mick's house to Central City. Andray and Terrell were in the same place on their regular corner. Some other boys were with them, but I didn't recognize any of them.

Terrell saw me first. He nudged Andray and pointed me out. They thought, of course, that I was Mick. I drove past them and parked at the end of the block. Andray walked down the street to see what I—Mick—wanted.

He came to the car and leaned down toward the window.

I rolled it down and pointed my gun at him.

“Surprise,” I said.

Andray ran. He ran back into a house nearby, probably to go through a back door and come out on the other side of the block. I drove around the block until I saw him running out of the front yard of another house. I left the car running, jumped out,
and caught him on the corner, just as he was about to step off the crumbling curb and into the street. I grabbed Andray by the shoulder with one hand and pointed the gun at him with the other. Both of us were panting, our breath visible in the cold air.

Andray rolled his eyes and tried to look blasé and tough. But for a second he had the same look he had had on his face when I first saw him. As if he were drowning. As if he hoped I would just shoot him already and get it over with.

It passed as quickly as it had come.

“Fuck,” he said.

I pointed the gun at him and held it there while I searched him. I pulled out a nine-millimeter pistol and a hunting knife, both of which I stuck in my purse.

“We're going to the car now,” I said.

Andray shook his head.

“I'm not going to hurt you,” I said. “We're just going to talk.”

He shook his head again, fighting to keep his face calm. “If you gonna shoot me,” he said, “you can shoot me right here. I can die right here.”

I realized he was terrified. He thought I was going to kill him. Like a lot of people who thought about suicide, Andray didn't actually want to die. Dying was the hard part. He just wanted to be dead already.

By then some of the other boys had come around the corner to see. They kept an eye on us, but none of them rushed to help Andray. I saw what he and Terrell had meant about false friends. The other boys seemed more amused than anything else.

“I am not going to hurt you,” I said again, softly and slowly. “But—”

“I ain't getting with you in that car, lady,” he said again. “No fucking way.”

I looked around. I could have put my gun down. But I wasn't sure about the boys around us.

I'd done some dumb things before, but I was realizing that this was one of the dumber.

“Okay,” I said to Andray. “You're going to tell your friends
that everything's cool. When you do that, I will lower my gun. We won't get in the car. Forget about the car. Okay?”

He nodded and swallowed.

“Tell your friends everything's cool.”

“Yo, G,” he called out to one of the boys. I lowered my gun. “It's cool. She my friend, man. She just pissed off, it's okay.”

The boy, G, looked at us.

“It cool,” Andray said again. “Just back off, G. We need some space, that's all. She need to calm down.”

G looked at us long and hard. Then he turned to the other boys and led them toward the corner. I inhaled and put my gun away.

Andray shifted his weight from one foot to the other, eyes wide. He reminded me of everyone I knew in New Orleans—scared of everything he shouldn't have been and accepting what should have terrified him.

“Where can we talk?” I said.

He shrugged. He tried to swallow but couldn't and instead he spat.

“Listen,” I said. “I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to shoot you. And I
really
don't want to kill you. But if you hurt me again, if you
try
to hurt me again, I will do any and all of those things. Okay?”

He nodded.

“And if you don't, I won't,” I said. “I like you, Andray. I'd rather be friends. Or at least not kill each other. Okay?”

He nodded again.

“Will you get in the car now?” I said.

“No fuckin' way,” he said, shaking his head.

“Okay,” I said. “We'll walk.”

The daiquiri was the national drink of New Orleans. Different chains of daiquiri shops sold them like slushies, in sixteen- or thirty-two- or sixty-four-ounce plastic cups from big machines. There were even daiquiri drive-thrus, although not in this neighborhood. The nearest daiquiri shop to Andray's corner was on St. Charles and Josephine. We walked there silently.

Inside the daiquiri joint everything was painted black. We got a table in the corner and I got us each a daiquiri, strawberry for Andray and coconut for me. Old soul music came from the speakers, which suited the clientele, mostly my age and up. A few drunk couples danced, but mostly people sat at tables, talking loud and laughing or talking quietly and looking very serious.

I'd put Andray through a confusing and stressful hour, and when I looked at him now I saw what every foster parent and drug dealer had seen in him before—an ache that would never be relieved but that he would do anything to dull for a while. He looked at me with big, pretty eyes.
You did it
, the eyes said.
Now fix it
.

“Andray,” I said. “I know you didn't kill Vic Willing. I'm pretty sure I know what happened to him. But I still need to know why you took me that night, and I need to know what you know about Vic. Because I know you've been lying, and I have to find out the truth. That's what I do. No matter what it is, I promise, no going to the cops, okay?”

He nodded. I didn't know what he was thinking.

“Don't believe me because I'm an authority figure,” I said. “Believe me because I'm friends with Mick, and he's never been anything but good to you. Believe me because you know me, at least a little bit, and
I've
been pretty good to you.”

Andray looked away, then looked at me and nodded. He took a deep breath and relaxed a little. So did I. We'd made a deal.

“What the fuck?” I said. “What was that all about?”

“Shit,” he said. “I'm sorry, Miss Claire.”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “But what the fuck? Why'd you do that?”

Andray sighed deeply. “Shit,” he said again. “Those boys I was with—they was looking for you. They heard you saw that kid Deuce almost get shot on Frenchman Street the other day. They wanted to, you know. When I hear them talking about crazy white lady there, see the whole thing, I figure it was you. I told 'em I handle it.”

“You mean they were going to kill me,” I said. “They thought I was a witness and they were going to kill me.”

Andray nodded.

“You stopped them,” I said.

He didn't say anything.

“That is so fucking noble,” I said. “My heart is bursting, Andray.
Bursting
. As we speak. Why—” I paused. “You hear that? It's the pieces of my heart, falling to the floor.”

He laughed. He looked at me, and for the first time he looked to me like an ordinary boy, with an ordinary smile on his face. In a quick vision I saw what Andray might have been if he had been born anywhere else but here. An endless arc of possibilities flashed before my eyes. None of them involved guns or foster parents or jail.

“Andray,” I said. “I need to know the truth. What happened between you and Vic Willing?”

He sighed and looked around the room.

“Look,” I said. “I could have had you arrested twice already—once for Vic and once for the other night. I didn't do it either time. Use your head. Can you trust me, or not?”

He sighed again. I could almost see his mind waver: yes, no, yes, back to no again.

“Stop sighing,” I said. “It's annoying. Think. Can you trust me?”

Yes, no, yes, no.

He sighed again.

Yes.

“Okay,” Andray finally said, decisively. He looked me straight in the eye. “I was there. I knew that fucker have beer and water and shit like that. So I went to get some. I—I been there before.”

I gave him time but he didn't say anything. “When?” I said gently. “When had you been there before?”

“Mr. Vic,” he said, looking at the table. “He paid—shit. If he got you in a case he would. You know. You could work that off. And sometimes, he also paid guys to come to his place with him and, you know.” I nodded. I knew. “So I went there a few times—I mean, I didn't do nothing. I mean,
nothing
. But he liked people to watch, so I watched. It was easy money. But I only did it a few times. I ain't like that shit at all. Not just 'cause
it's two guys. I—I don't know. It was just sad. Just sad all around. Like, one person needing one thing so bad—money—and the other person just needing something else so bad. I—I don't know. Just sad.”

I nodded. I doubted he was telling the truth about just watching, but I didn't care. That was his own business.

“Why'd you tell people not to talk to me?” I asked.

“'Cause I knew you ain't believe me,” Andray said. “You had your mind already made up. I told everyone they help you, they dead. Besides, most people, they know that without me saying anything. They know you don't talk to cops.”

I mulled it over. It made sense.

“How did you meet Vic?” I asked.

“First working on his pool,” he said. “That was the truth. And then, like I said, he took me in. We had a nice lunch, told me about the birds and stuff. At first I thought—I thought he was just being nice. He said I reminded him of an old friend. We hung out a few times. I thought he was cool. But then, you know, he said if I needed money we could. So I didn't hang out with him no more after that. But then, once, I really did need the money. I was hungry, I didn't have nothing. So. I think—I think he knew it wasn't right. I do.”

“Why?” I said.

“'Cause he always apologized afterward,” Andray said. “And give you extra money, more than he promised.”

I nodded.

“So when the storm comes,” Andray said, “me and Peanut and Slim and some other boys—you ain't know 'em—we go to get food and water and shit, and we go to Vic's house. We broke right on in.”

“When was that?” I asked. “Exactly?”

“Wednesday night,” Andray said. He swallowed. “'Bout ten, twelve. See, from over there, most people gone by then. Fucking open house over there. So I went over to see what I could get. And Vic, he ain't there. House totally empty—whole neighborhood empty, almost. That it. That the real story.”

I looked at him. “You're sure,” I said. “Wednesday night. You're absolutely sure?”

Andray nodded and held his right hand up like he was taking an oath, or proving he was unarmed. He looked me right in the eye. “I lied to you, Miss Claire. God's honest truth, I lied to you. That's why my prints all over that place. I was looking for shit.”

“Find anything?” I asked.

“Just beer and water,” he said. “Just like I thought. But shit, we needed that. I remembered he had a whole closet of bottled water in there, so we went for that. People had kids, babies, with nothin' to drink. People need water out there, food for kids and shit. I took some beer, water, shit like that. Vic's house, lady next door. Both of 'em. I took whatever I could. Put out some birdseed.” He laughed a little and shook his head. “I got a lot of shit to feel bad about. But not that. I broke into a lot of places those days. I ain't feel bad about one of 'em.”

I looked at him as it dawned on me what he was saying. “Where else you break in?” I asked.

“Me and some boys,” he said, looking at his daiquiri. “We got into that Walgreen's on Magazine. We got into Sav-a-Center, Whole Foods—that place
crazy
. We took water, juice, food, stuff for the babies, shit like that. We each took a shopping cart and bring it back downtown. One of the boys, he got a car, and we put stuff in there, too, but then he left town, and it was just carts. We could get cars, but ain't no gas. Then when that was all gone, we went to houses—houses we knew we could get into easy, like Vic's. People needed food—old people, babies. People was dyin' in there. We couldn't just . . .”

He shook his head and swallowed and didn't finish his sentence.