The first official visitor Sandhill saw was the fire inspector, Gillard; a
spontaneous incendiary inspection
, Gillard termed the visit, the first Sandhill had heard of the term. Though Gillard had been through twice before and found wires, conduits, oven placement, ventilation and fire extinguishers all in checkmark order, something had changed.
“Out of compliance in these areas—” Gillard snapped a sheet from a carbon-insert form and presented it to Sandhill. “The place is a threealarmer waiting to happen.”
“How long to comply?” Sandhill asked.
“One week.”
“Then?”
Gillard tapped the door as he left, enjoying himself. “We nail this fucker shut.”
Sandhill stared at the closed door, thinking,
Here it comes…
The second visitor was Wentz from the Health Department, who took an hour to scratch up three
violations. Sandhill listened calmly as the inspector, a fortyish guy with a whiskey nose, recited arcane statutes, some of them on the books for over a century. Sandhill knew the only restaurant in the city that could pass all codes would be a place that blossomed afresh nightly, a new and perfect restaurant every sunrise.
The inspection ended on a discordant note, Sandhill’s patience wearing out when Wentz made a reference to cockroaches. Sandhill grabbed Wentz by the shirtfront and held the inspector’s nose an inch from the heat-shimmering oven door, threatening to roast the man’s face.
“I just do what I’m told,” Wentz howled, eyes closed against the heat, urine dribbling down his leg and across the floor, probably another code violation.
Two days after his first meeting with Sandhill, Ryder pushed through the door a second time. He’d called earlier, requested a meeting. Sandhill had grunted something vaguely like assent and hung up.
Sandhill sat at the table below the sign, shuffling through mail, not acknowledging his visitor. Ryder pulled out a chair, watching Sandhill arrange the mail in precise stacks. The tallest stack was bills. Ryder figured running a small restaurant was like walking a tightrope.
“They’re putting heat on me, Ryder,” Sandhill said without looking up. “Sending inspectors. You didn’t have anything to do with this, I hope.”
Ryder felt a flush of anger. “Did you expect anything else from Squill? He’s desperate. The mayor keeps asking if he’s gotten you to come in.”
“What a pair, an interim mayor and an acting chief of police. Must be like working in a madhouse.”
“Actually, Sandhill, I think the mayor’s pretty good.”
Sandhill rolled his eyes. Ryder said, “Take a look at things, Sandhill. Read the reports. That’s all. Jesus, the guy from the Health Department says you tried to jam his face into an oven.”
“Only because my deep-fryer wasn’t on.”
“He could have filed a complaint, had you arrested.”
Sandhill snorted. “Wentz has been dirty from payoffs for years. He’d overlook botulism for a roll of nickels. He won’t do anything to call attention to himself. Besides, he’s just an automaton.”
Ryder pulled a photo from his pocket and slid it across the table, picture side down. Sandhill looked from the white square to Ryder.
“What’s that?”
“Turn it over.”
Sandhill picked up the photo, winced. “Don’t do this to me, Ryder. Don’t you fucking dare.”
Ryder scraped his chair forward and put his elbows on the table. “Maya Ledbetter, disappeared two weeks ago while walking to her grandmother’s.”
Sandhill jumped up and began pacing like an angry lion in a tight cage.
“I am not a cop any more. Check the sign on the window: The Gumbo King. I like my life, Ryder—it’s peaceful and I
feed
people.”
Ryder produced a second photo, the one he’d pulled from the frame in the room with the stained mattress. He held it high.
“LaShelle Shearing. Someone pried the bars from her window…”
“You’re sandbagging me, you bastard.”
“…found burned beyond recognition in an abandoned house—”
Sandhill grabbed a napkin dispenser and fired it over Ryder’s head into the wall, napkins spilling across the floor. Ryder pulled a third photo from his jacket and held it high.
“Darla Dumont, disappeared one year ago without a tra—”
A timer bell rang from the kitchen. Sandhill said, “That means it’s time for you to leave, Ryder.” Sandhill strode to the kitchen and the swinging doors closed behind him.
When they didn’t re-open, Ryder sighed, tucked the photos in his pocket, and left.
Walter Hutchinson Mattoon stood at the prow of the
Petite Angel
and watched the sun rise over the glassy morning sea, the sparse clouds bright as hammered copper. The only sounds were a low rumble of the ship’s engine and the hull cleaving water five stories below. Though his suit was dark and the day equatorially hot, Mattoon showed no sign of sweating. He ran a hand over his spearpointed widow’s peak, patted down a wind-blown lock of black hair, and clasped his hands behind his slender back.
He heard a muffled
ahem
a dozen paces behind and turned to a diminutive man in a captain’s suit. The man pulled his five-foot-two toward five-three and snapped a crisp salute.
“Yes, Captain Sampanong?” Mattoon enquired.
“I think we have solved a mystery, Mr Mattoon.”
Mattoon followed Captain Trili Sampanong into the body of the ship and down two flights of stairs,
finding a tucked-away space between two towering containers. An overturned wooden chair was on the floor, beside it several pornographic magazines and an upended ashtray.
Mattoon looked to the corner to find his steward, Pierre Valvane, in a crumpled heap, his mouth a smear of blood. The man was moaning. Above the steward stood a tall man with a shaved head, shirtless, his muscles like iron cords and his rotten-tooth mouth a festering parody of a grin.
Most of the crew had been drawn to the commotion, and Mattoon saw the world in his employees’ faces: Asian, European, Slavic, African, Middle Eastern. All were silent and impassive, more curious than anything.
“What is this?” Mattoon said.
“I find him in here drinking,” the bald man said, jabbing a finger toward the steward at his feet.
Mattoon raised a dark eyebrow. “Drinking is not prohibited, Tenzel. Not if done on the first shift of a double shift off duty.”
“I find him drinking this.”
The bald man reached beneath the steward and produced an empty bottle of Mattoon’s Château d’Yquem, part of a case that an inventory had revealed either missing or miscounted.
The steward moaned again. The bald man kicked him in the knee.
“Steady, Tenzel,” Mattoon said. “Don’t render him useless.”
Mattoon stepped closer and considered the situation. On the one hand, he hated thievery and could not in any way countenance its appearance on his ship; on the other hand, he employed thieves. Mattoon approached the steward, setting the toes of his sleek black loafers a meter from the man’s nose.
“Mr Valvane, do you hear me?”
“
Oui
, yes,” the man said, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry, it won’t hap—”
The bald man stepped on to the steward’s ankle. “You don’t talk. You listen.”
“Tenzel, please.”
The bald man reluctantly stepped from the steward’s leg. Mattoon lowered to a crouch. “Are you upset with me, Mr Valvane? Do you not find the accommodations pleasing? The working conditions satisfactory? Has the food not been to your liking?”
“I make a terrible mistake. I’m sorry.”
“It’s good that you recognize your error, Mr Valvane. Redemptive. Am I to understand that it won’t happen again?”
“
Oui
. I mean,
non
.”
Mattoon patted the man’s shoulder. “Very good. You are to return to your cabin, and I expect you to remain confined there for two weeks. Your meals will be supplied and you will be expected to shower daily. Stand him up, Tenzel.”
With an upward swoop of a rippling arm, the
bald man seemed to levitate the steward to his feet by little more than will. The steward trembled on wobbly knees.
“M-May I return to my cabin by myself, Mr Mattoon?”
Mattoon considered the request, then shook his head as if saddened by his upcoming words.
“No, Mr Valvane. I want Tenzel to accompany you.”
The steward’s eyes widened in fear. Mattoon saw the front of the steward’s pants darken with urine.
“P-Please. I can—”
“Shhhh. Go with Tenzel, Mr Valvane.”
“Please, Mr Mattoon, sir. I beg you—”
Mattoon turned his back. The steward began weeping. The bald man, his grin incandescent, led the bawling man away.
“To your stations, gentlemen,” Mattoon said to the captain and circling crew. Tenzel Atwan’s visit to Valvane’s room would result in a blinding dose of pain, but no structural damage. Mattoon glanced at their faces. He saw no anger, only acceptance of the rules. They filed away.
It had to de done. The rules of the ship were spare and easy to remember: Hard work, no thievery, no telling tales when off the ship, and absolute obedience to Mattoon. In return, the pay was quadruple the going rate, the crew quarters furnished with the comforts and amenities of a four-star hotel. The meals were prepared
by a Cordon Bleu-trained chef. Prostitutes were procured in every port at ship’s expense.
Turnover was almost non-existent, lessened further in that all crewmen were fugitives from somewhere. Mattoon had bought his master steamfitter and oiler, both smugglers, out of life sentences in Rwanda for five thousand dollars each. The chef had ducked his
gros bonnet
out of Paris just ahead of an Interpol drug investigation. Scotland Yard wanted his communications officer for black-mail, his electrician for forgery. The only man not wanted by name was Tenzel Atwan, and only because his crimes left no accusatory fingers pointing.
Mattoon took the stairs back to the weather-deck, the main deck. It was bare of cargo, the two up-thrusting crane posts resembling vestigial masts. The decks of most container ships held hundreds of metal boxes stacked high, hundreds more in the holds. The
Petite Angel
, diminutive at a length of 91 meters, currently carried only sixty-seven containers, all below, all loaded in Montevideo.
Making a profit didn’t matter with the
Petite Angel
; Mattoon owned a fleet of huge container ships, the rail lines of the shipping lanes, and they ran full, hard, and ceaselessly. The
Petite Angel,
a bulk carrier converted to containers
,
was Mattoon’s sole residence, a home that traversed oceans. Still, a businessman makes money, and
Angel
always carried freight to pay the bills. Within days her
cargo would be offloaded at the Mobile docks, with the ship taking on containers for the return trip.
In addition, Mattoon would pick up one more item in Mobile—much smaller, though infinitely more valuable.
He checked his watch and a horizontal smile touched his lips. Dear would be waking up and getting ready for her day. His steps gained speed as he returned to his quarters.
Mattoon occupied the entire level beneath the bridge, the space as much museum as lodging, the gray of the ship transformed into teak walls and blood-red carpet. The main room was three-fourths of the living area, heavy maroon drapes covering the windows, four overlooking the weather-deck, two on each side of the door. Full-length mirrors with gilded baroque frames stood between the windows. Furniture held one corner, an L of couch sections facing twin chairs across a low table, leather and mahogany the dominant materials. In the opposite corner was a waist-high map cabinet with a roseate marble top.
The visual center of the room was a burled walnut desk spanning three meters in length, two in width. Though it seemed a Dickens’-era piece that might have graced the offices of Lloyd’s, it had been crafted five years prior at the cost of seventeen thousand British pounds. The desktop held only a hard leather writing pad, a multi-buttoned communications station, and an antique
ship’s clock of gleaming brass, its spring-driven mechanism replaced with electronics.
The room would have been dark but for track-mounted spots pinpointing glass cabinets of yellowed scrimshaw. Wall-hung shadow boxes displayed antique navigational equipment, astrolabes, sextants, compasses; Walter Mattoon was a collector of small objects of beauty, utility, or both.
Mattoon sat in the leather chair behind his desk and opened the top drawer to display a panel of switches. He touched one and the curtains retreated from the windows, the boundless horizon revealed. He touched another and low music fell from hidden speakers, Scarlatti.
“Dear?” he called toward a curtained doorway at the rear of the main room. “Are you awake yet? Have you dressed?”
A young black girl stepped into the room. She wore a flowing designer gown, mauve, the décolletage high and demure over the modest swell of her breasts. A red silk orchid floated behind an ear. Mattoon rose in acknowledgement.
“Shall we take the morning breeze, Dear?” Mattoon said, sliding a slender arm behind her and guiding her toward the door. Though he knew Dear had gone by the name of Darla Dumont for the eleven years of her life in Mobile, he never used it, the name part of a life that no longer existed. She was Dear. They were always Dear.
The girl’s eyes looked through Mattoon, out a window, across the sea and beyond. She walked
as if in a gray and meaningless dream. Her look troubled him and he stopped. “Dear? Are you all right?”
She continued staring out the window. Mattoon regarded her with sad eyes; knowing from experience she had started dissolving. His love could do that, Mattoon knew. None of his glorious Dears had endured even a year before dissolving into nothingness.
“Love is such sweet pain,” Mattoon whispered. “But we are blessed to receive it.”
The girl had slumped forward. Mattoon sighed and sent her back to her room. He went to his desk calendar and, for the third time that morning, counted the days until the ship reached Mobile.
The next morning Sandhill pushed his key into the restaurant door when he felt a tug behind the knees of his jeans. He turned and looked down. A little girl, lean as a twig, dressed in pink jeans and a white tee, some current cartoon animal on the shirt.
“Jacy Charlane?”
Jacy stared mutely at her sky-blue sneakers.
Sandhill frowned. “Well, what is it?”
She shuffled her feet, wrung her hands. Sandhill tapped a finger on Jacy’s head. “Talk, girl. I know you’re in there. The Gumbo King’s got chores to do, vittles to cook. What do you want?”
Still studying her shoes, she held her hand up and finger-waved him closer. He sighed and
lowered to a knee. Jacy cupped her hands and encircled Sandhill’s ear.
“I have to tell you a secret, your highness.”
Her breath was warm on his ear. He hoped she wasn’t carrying a cold or some childhood affliction.
“One quick secret, then I have to get busy. Is today your birthday? Did I guess it?”
“My birthday’s not for three weeks,” she whispered. “It’s a bad secret.”
“Did you lose something? A toy? I’ll bet if you retraced your steps—went back where you—”
“Someone is stealing little girls, Mr King.”
Sandhill froze. He took a deep breath and nodded slowly. “I’ve, uh, heard about that. It’s a sad thing. Listen, Jacy, I wouldn’t worry too much about—”
“One was in a burned-down house. On the TV they told her name was LaShelle.”
“Jacy, uh, maybe your aunt could explain—”
“Did LaShelle feel the burning, Mr King?”
Sandhill put his hand on her shoulder and felt her shaking like her breath should be visible in the air. “Jacy, I don’t really know anything about that.”
She said, “I touched my hand on a hot pan once…I picked it up and it hurt terrible…” She put her hands to her eyes and started crying.
Sandhill scanned the street. Ted Spikes’s grocery was half a block away. “Would you like an ice cream, Jacy? We could head to Teddy’s. Does that sound good?”
Tears poured down her cheeks. “Why would someone steal little girls and burn them? Did they feel the…”
Sandhill swooped her into his arms and stood. “Ssssh. Don’t cry,” he said, wondering what the hell to do. Jacy tucked her face under Sandhill’s chin and wept softly, kitten sounds, her tears dropping hot on his neck. He pushed open the door of the restaurant and stepped inside, cool and dark and perfumed with spices.
“It’ll be fine, Jacy,” he crooned. “I talked to a policeman yesterday and he said they’re doing real good in finding the bad person.”
“Then how come the little girl got burned up?”
Sandhill paused, closed his eyes;
good question
. “They’ll do better soon. It takes time to learn things.”
“You could help look for the little girls. You could do that.”
“There’s nothing I can do, Jacy. Only the police are allowed to investigate. It’s the rule.”
Jacy squeezed Sandhill’s neck. “You don’t have rules. You can do anything you want. You’re a king.”
She started sobbing. Sandhill carried her around the room for several minutes. He noted the time.
“Hey Jacy, you ever turn on the lights in a restaurant?”
She kept her face buried in his shoulder, shook her head.
“Let’s go over here to the switches,” he said.
“You can make the place come alive. Is that cool or what?”
She nodded, sniffling, wiping away tears with her wrist. Sandhill held her to the wall switches. “Flip ‘em all up. Don’t be afraid.”
She looked at him instead of the switches. “Can you help find the girls, Mr King? Please?”
Sandhill closed his eyes.
“I’ll see what I can do, Jacy. No promises, though.”
She reached out and snapped the switches. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling sputtered awake. The sign hissed. Hummed. Flickered.
Paused as if gathering force…
The Gumbo King
wrote itself large and red against the sky.
Photos from the fire were spread across Ryder’s desk, companions to those tacked to the gray divider beside him. The pictures showed charred joists. Seared floors. Carbonized walls. Several shots centered on a small object that resembled a…Ryder didn’t want to think what it resembled; he had no words for it.
Pressed against his desk was Harry Nautilus’s desk, its surface empty and desolate. Ryder looked away as his phone rang. Bertie Wagnall, the phone jockey, burped: “You got a call on four, Ryder. Some guy says he’s Henry the Fifth. The fifth what?”
Ryder’s heart dropped a beat. “I got it, Bertie.”