A Free Man Of Color Part 13

The commander of the New Orleans City Guard looked uncomfortable. "On rare occasions, of course, Madame Lalaurie," he said. "But as Dr. Soublet says, a variety of causes can engender the same effect. Frequently if a servant considers himself ill-used-"

"Dieu, servants always consider themselves ill-used," laughed Madame Lalaurie. "If they are but chided for stealing food, they whine and beg and carry on as if it were their right to rob the very people who feed and clothe them and keep a roof above their heads. Without proper discipline, not only would they be wretchedly unhappy, but society itself would crumble, as we saw in France and more recently in Haiti."

"Servants need discipline," agreed a tall man, gorgeously attired as the Jack of Diamonds. "Not only need it, but crave it without knowing it. Even as wives do, on occasion."

"That is a matter which can easily be carried to extreme, Monsieur Trepagier." An enormous, ovine-countenanced woman, whom January would have deduced as Henri Viellard's mother even without Uncle b.i.+.c.het's sotto voce identification, turned to face him, a maneuver reminiscent of the Chateau of Versailles executing a 180-degree rotation with all its gardens in tow. "And an opinion I would show a certain reticence in expressing, were is a matter which can easily be carried to extreme, Monsieur Trepagier." An enormous, ovine-countenanced woman, whom January would have deduced as Henri Viellard's mother even without Uncle b.i.+.c.het's sotto voce identification, turned to face him, a maneuver reminiscent of the Chateau of Versailles executing a 180-degree rotation with all its gardens in tow. "And an opinion I would show a certain reticence in expressing, were I I in quest of a bride." in quest of a bride."

"Trepagier?" January glanced over at the cellist. "Not the long-lost brother?"

"Lord, no." Uncle b.i.+.c.het shook his head over his music. "Brother Claud took off right after the wedding with one of Dubonnet Pere's housemaids and five hundred dollars' worth of Aunt Paulina Livaudais's jewelry. That's Charles-Louis, from the Jefferson Parish branch of the family. He was there at the Theatre d'Orleans t'other night, but spent most of his time dallyin' in one of the private boxes with Madame Solange Bouille."

Trepagier's cheeks darkened with anger below the edge of his mask. "Well, begging your pardon, Madame Viellard, but I suspect the women who go on about it are making more of it than it is. Women need to feel a strong hand, same as servants do."

"I was never conscious of such a need." was never conscious of such a need."

Surveying Madame Viellard, January suppressed the powerful suspicion that the woman had never been married at all and had produced Henri and his five stout, myopic, and nearly identical sisters by spontaneous generation.

"Yet I must agree with Monsieur Trepagier," said Madame Lalaurie in her deep, beautiful voice. "A woman respects strength, needs it for her happiness." Her eye lingered dismissively on Henri Viellard, clothed for the occasion in a highly fas.h.i.+onable coat of pale blue and several acres of pink silk waistcoat embroidered with forget-me-nots. "There is no shame in a young man displaying it. Perhaps your young Galen, Monsieur Peralta, took the matter to an extreme, when not so long ago he took a stick to an Irishwoman who was insolent to him in the street, but ferocity can more easily be tamed than spinelessness stiffened to the proper resolution."

Her husband, pale and small and silent in the shadow of her skirts, folded gloved hands like waxy little flowers and vouchsafed no opinion.

"That incident was long ago," said Peralta quickly. "He was little more than a child then, and believe me, these rages of his have been chastised out of him." His blue eyes remained steady on the woman's face, but January could almost sense the man's awareness of Tremouille-wholly occupied himself with a cup of tafia punch-at his elbow. "These days he would not harm so much as a fly."

"It is his loss," said Madame Lalaurie gravely. "And your error, to rob him of the very quality that will one day make of him a good husbandman for your lands."

"Still," began the pinch-lipped Madame Picard the Younger, "I've heard that young Galen is an absolute fiend in the salon d'epee. He-"

"Lisette!" Aunt Picard materialized at her elbow, fanning herself and rolling her eyes. "Lisette, I'm suddenly feeling quite faint. I'm sure it's la grippe...I've felt a desperate unbalance of my vitreous humors all evening. Be a good girl and fetch me a gla.s.s of negus. Oh, and Dr. Soublet..." She contrived to draw the physician after her as she pursued her hapless daughter-in-law toward the refreshment tables. "Perhaps you could recommend to me..."

"Please do not betray me," Madeleine Trepagier had begged, on the gallery of that dilapidated, worthless plantation. To betray her, January understood-as he led the musicians into a light Schubert air and the talk in the room drifted to other matters-would be to cut her off entirely from both the Picards and the Trepagiers. She had rejected their help already, help that would reduce her to the status of a chattel once again, and he guessed it would not take much to widen the rift. Madeleine Trepagier had begged, on the gallery of that dilapidated, worthless plantation. To betray her, January understood-as he led the musicians into a light Schubert air and the talk in the room drifted to other matters-would be to cut her off entirely from both the Picards and the Trepagiers. She had rejected their help already, help that would reduce her to the status of a chattel once again, and he guessed it would not take much to widen the rift.

Without the families behind her...

What? he asked himself. he asked himself. They'll hang her instead of me? They'll hang her instead of me? He didn't think it likely. And in any case, he knew that whoever it was who'd twisted that scarf or cord or whatever it had been around Angelique Crozat's neck, it hadn't been her. He didn't think it likely. And in any case, he knew that whoever it was who'd twisted that scarf or cord or whatever it had been around Angelique Crozat's neck, it hadn't been her.

Near the buffet table a woman was saying, "...Well, of course I knew Caroline had actually broken it, but I couldn't say so in front of the servants, you know. I mean, she is is my niece. So I slapped Rose a couple of licks and told her never to let it happen again." my niece. So I slapped Rose a couple of licks and told her never to let it happen again."

Cold stirred within him, a dense dread like a lump of stone in his chest.

No matter how many of its younger scions Madeleine Trepagier refused to marry, her family would stand by her if she were accused of a colored woman's murder. And in the absence of hard evidence of any kind, the city would much prefer a culprit without power, a culprit who wasn't white.

January's head ached, fear that it was hard to banish coming back over him in the music's gentle flow. What made it all worse was that he liked Madeleine and respected her: the child he had taught, with her eerie pa.s.sion for music and her grave acceptance of him as he was; the woman who was fighting to keep her freedom, who trusted him.

He did not really want the decision to come down to a choice between her or him.

He suspected he knew what the choice of those in power would be.

FOURTEEN.

The Peralta town house stood on Rue Chartres, not far from the Place des Armes. A stately building of lettuce-green stucco, it stood three stories high and three bays broad, ironwork galleries decorating the second and third floors and a shop that dealt in fine French furniture occupying the ground floor. At this hour the pink shutters over the shop's French windows had just been opened. A sprightly-looking white woman with her black curls wrapped against the dust swept the banquette outside her doors, while an elderly black man set out planks over the gutter in front of the flagstone carriageway that ran from the street back into the courtyard.

January watched from the corner of Rue St. Philippe until the shopkeeper had gone inside, then walked casually along the banquette, looking about as if he had never seen these pink and yellow buildings, these dark tunnels and the stained-gla.s.s brightness of the courts at their ends, until he reached the carriage entrance.

It was not quite eight in the morning. Only servants, or market women in bright head scarfs, were abroad, and few of those. By the smoke-yellowed daylight the street seemed half asleep, shutters closed, gutters floating with sodden Carnival trash.

In his most Parisian French, January said, "Excuse me, good sir. Will this street take me to the market?" He pointed upriver along Rue Chartres.

The slave bowed, frowned, and replied, "I'm not rightly sure, sir." The sir sir was a tribute to the accent: January was not well dressed. "I'm new here in town. Yetta!" He called back over his shoulder. "Yetta, gentleman here wants to know where the market is. You know that?" was a tribute to the accent: January was not well dressed. "I'm new here in town. Yetta!" He called back over his shoulder. "Yetta, gentleman here wants to know where the market is. You know that?"

A hara.s.sed-looking woman appeared, drying her hands on her ap.r.o.n, from the courtyard. "Should be down that ways, I think...." She pointed vaguely in the direction of the river. Her French was the kind called "mo kuri mo vini," heavily mixed with African idiom. "I'm sorry, sir," she added. "We're all of us new here in town, just this week, we're still findin' our way around our ownselves. You from outa town too?" She gave him a sunny gap-toothed smile.

"Paris." January shook his head. "I was born here, but that was some while ago. I haven't been in Louisiana since I was no higher than your knee. I thought I'd remember more, but I confess I feel I've been set down in Moscow."

"Try askin' by the shop," suggested Yetta. "Helga-Mamzelle Richter, what owns the place-she knows this city like a mouse knows the barn. She can tell you the best place to buy what you're after, too."

"Thank you." He smiled and slipped them each a couple of reales, then went into Mademoiselle Richter's shop and asked, just to make sure, commenting that Carnival seemed an odd time to entirely change one's household staff.

"So I thought," said the German girl frankly. She spoke French with an accent indistinguishable from the Creole ladies of Monsieur Hermann's ball last night. "Myself, I think there was a contagion of some sort among the servants. Monsieur Peralta kept the lot of them closed up behind doors for all of one day, until his new lot arrived in two wagons from his plantation on the lake. Then all piled into the wagons, all the old servants-stablemen, cook, laundress, maids, everyone-and left, early on Sat.u.r.day morning. Did I not live along the street here I would not have seen it at all-I only did because I was coming early to do the accounts. Later in the morning the last few left with a carriage, I think containing Monsieur Galen, for I have not seen him either."

She shrugged. "Me, I lived through the cholera last summer and the yellow fever-and two summers of my husband's sister predicting predicting yellow fever that never came. I keep my eye on the newspapers, and listen to what the market women say, and I have heard nothing to frighten me. In any case it's the wrong time of year. So I a.s.sume it was something inconvenient, like measles or chicken pox, particularly now at Carnival time. Besides, Monsieur Xavier is still here, coming and going as if there had been no coming and going, if you take my meaning." yellow fever that never came. I keep my eye on the newspapers, and listen to what the market women say, and I have heard nothing to frighten me. In any case it's the wrong time of year. So I a.s.sume it was something inconvenient, like measles or chicken pox, particularly now at Carnival time. Besides, Monsieur Xavier is still here, coming and going as if there had been no coming and going, if you take my meaning."

Measles or chicken pox? thought January, as he turned his steps along Rue Chartres toward Ca.n.a.l Street and the American faubourg of St. Mary beyond. Or something someone heard or saw, that he or she was not supposed to see?

He remembered again the blood under Angelique's nails.

Tomorrow was Ash Wednesday. Lent or no Lent, there were always small sociabilities on Ash Wednesday from which one could not absent oneself without comment. If he made arrangements this afternoon with Desdunes at the livery, he could leave tonight, after the Mardi Gras ball at the Theatre d'Orleans was over, riding by moonlight for Bayou Chien Mort.

With luck Xavier Peralta would not leave New Orleans until Thursday.

By then, he thought, he would see what he would see.

The Swamp lay at the upper end of Girod Street, just lakeside of the genteel American houses and wide streets of the faubourg of St. Mary. It was, quite literally, a swamp, for much of the land beyond Ca.n.a.l Street was undrained, and in fact many of the drains from the more respectable purlieus of American business farther down the road, though aimed at the turning basin of the ca.n.a.l not far away, petered out here. The unpaved streets lacked even the brick or packed-earth banquettes of the old city, and the buildings that fronted them-grog shops, gambling dens, brothels, and establishments that seemed to encompa.s.s all three-were crude, unpainted, and squalid beyond description. Most seemed to have been knocked together from lumber discarded by the sawmills or salvaged from dismantled flatboats. It was here, among these repellent shacks and transient men, that the yellow fever struck hardest, here that the cholera had claimed dozens a day. The air reeked of woodsmoke and sewage.

Mindful of Hannibal's philosophy of proper timing, January had paused at the market long enough to consume some gingerbread and coffee, hoping to be ahead of most of the Swamp's usual excitement. He hadn't reckoned on the stamina of Americans, however, and the effects, even here in the American sector, of the celebratory spirit of Mardi Gras. Most of the grog shops were open, barkeeps dispensing Injun whisky from barrels to long-haired flatboat men across planks laid on barrels, white men grouped around makes.h.i.+ft tables playing cards, and small groups of black men visible in alleyways, on their knees in the mud and weeds, shooting dice. In several cottages the long jalousies already stood open, revealing seedy rooms barely wider than the beds they contained, the women sitting on the doorsills with their petticoats up to their knees, smoking cigars or eating oranges, calling out to the men as they pa.s.sed.

"Hey, Sambo," yelled a mulatto woman, "you that big all over?" She gave him a broken-toothed smile and hiked her skirt up farther.

January grinned and raised his cap to her-he was wearing his roughest clothes and the sloppy cloth cap of a laborer-and shook his head. He started to move on but a bearded flatboat man was suddenly in front of him, piggy eyes glittering with a half-drunken hangover and tobacco crusted in his beard.

"You leave them hoors alone, boy." He stepped close, crowding him; January stepped back. As usual, the Kentuckian wasn't by himself. They always seemed to travel in twos and threes, and his friends emerged from the nearest barroom door, like sullen dogs looking for something to do.

January was startled into replying, "I was," which was a mistake, he realized a moment later. It hadn't been accompanied by a grin and bow.

The man smelled like a privy; the hair of his chest, hanging through his open s.h.i.+rt, was visibly alive with lice. "You was lookin'," he said, stepping forward again. "And you was thinkin'."

About THOSE women? January wanted to say but knew the man-the men, all of them-were actively spoiling for a fight. He managed the bow, but the grin was difficult. "I wasn't thinkin' nuthin', sir, no sir," he said, keeping his eyes down and reflecting that if he ended up in the Calabozo now, he was in serious trouble. There were those in the city guard who might decide his confession would be the shortest way out of everybody's problems, and the thought of what they might do to obtain it turned him cold inside. January wanted to say but knew the man-the men, all of them-were actively spoiling for a fight. He managed the bow, but the grin was difficult. "I wasn't thinkin' nuthin', sir, no sir," he said, keeping his eyes down and reflecting that if he ended up in the Calabozo now, he was in serious trouble. There were those in the city guard who might decide his confession would be the shortest way out of everybody's problems, and the thought of what they might do to obtain it turned him cold inside.

He backed from the Americans, stepping with all appearance of an accident into the stream of sewage down the middle of the street. Hating himself, furious, knowing he could pick his a.s.sailant up and heave him through the nearest shed wall and not daring to raise his hand, he mocked a little jump of surprise, looked down at his boots, and cried, "Oh, Lordy, now my master gonna wear me out, gettin' my boots all nasty! Oh, Lordy..." He pulled a kerchief from his pocket and began to scrub at the filthy slop.

In contempt, the bearded man stepped forward and shoved him, throwing him full-length in the stream. January caught himself on his hands but rolled and sprawled, flinging up his legs to make the fall look worse than it was. He lay where he was, breathing hard, not daring to look up at the laughing circle of men who had gathered, knowing his eyes would betray him. It's an alternative to being beaten It's an alternative to being beaten, he repeated to himself. It's an alternative to being hanged. It's an alternative to being hanged.

They moved on after a moment, whooping among themselves and shoving each other: "Lordy, Lordy, mah ma.s.sa gwine wear me out...."

He heard the wh.o.r.e's voice, "You sure put it to that black buck, handsome," and, a moment later, the ringing sound of a slap and the smack of her body into the doorjamb behind her.

"You keep your b.i.t.c.hy eyes where they belong, n.i.g.g.e.r."

He got to his feet and moved on, as quietly and inconspicuously as he could. I will leave this place I will leave this place, he thought, his hair still p.r.i.c.kling with anger that the only choice he had had was to let himself be struck, to degrade himself in order to get away. The world is wide... The world is wide...

...and contains nothing.

He shook away the old despair. At least most of the world doesn't contain Kentucky swine with their bellies over their belts and no more reading than Livia's cats have. A hundred and fifty dollars. At least most of the world doesn't contain Kentucky swine with their bellies over their belts and no more reading than Livia's cats have. A hundred and fifty dollars.

Provided, of course, that he survived this at all.

Past another row of cribs-only a few of which were open-he turned right down an alley, glancing behind him to make sure his erstwhile tormentors were not watching. A drunken Choctaw snored under a straggling cypress tree, naked as Adam without even a blanket to cover him. Someone had taken one of his moccasins, but evidently found it wanting-it had large holes in it-and discarded it in the weeds not far away. The other was still on the Indian's foot.

Came into town with his loads of pelts or file, thought January, and spent last night drinking up the profits. and spent last night drinking up the profits. He bent, checked the man for signs of exposure, but he was sleeping peacefully. With a shrug, January pa.s.sed on. In the yard behind the cribs a small group of men were gathered, watching a c.o.c.kfight. Freed slaves, January guessed, or the men who bought a kind of quasi-freedom from their owners by the day or the week, seeking employment as laborers where they could and preferring whatever sheds and alleyways they could find to sleeping in the cramped slave quarters constantly overlooked by the windows of the whites. A ragged little girl was watching the alleyway-at the first sign of police, the men could disperse leaving nothing but a splattering of chicken blood on the ground. He bent, checked the man for signs of exposure, but he was sleeping peacefully. With a shrug, January pa.s.sed on. In the yard behind the cribs a small group of men were gathered, watching a c.o.c.kfight. Freed slaves, January guessed, or the men who bought a kind of quasi-freedom from their owners by the day or the week, seeking employment as laborers where they could and preferring whatever sheds and alleyways they could find to sleeping in the cramped slave quarters constantly overlooked by the windows of the whites. A ragged little girl was watching the alleyway-at the first sign of police, the men could disperse leaving nothing but a splattering of chicken blood on the ground.

Whoever had given Shaw the task of running these men down wanted to keep him very busy.

January crossed the yard. The kitchen lay to his right, empty save for a huge mulatto woman nursing a baby while she cooked a panful of grits at the stove. He glanced briefly through the door: the room was alive with roaches and stank of rats, but the woman was crooning a little song about Compair Rabbit, and the child seemed quiet enough.

A rickety stair led up the back of the wh.o.r.ehouse to a ramshackle attic under the roof. January had to bend his tall height to edge through the narrow door, stoop even in the center of the pointed room under the ridgepole. At the far end, under one of the dusty dormers, he could make out books stacked against the wall and a mattress laid on the floor. Mice fled squeaking from the sound of his feet. Down below, he heard the thump and creak of a bed frame striking a flimsy wall and a man's piglike grunts.

"I don't know where they get the energy at this hour of the morning," came Hannibal's voice plaintively from the mattress. "The Glutton-she's the second from the far end-has been at it since eight o'clock. Even at five cents a turn she has to be making a fortune. Nine of them so far. I've been married to women who didn't perform that much in a year."

January knelt beside the mattress. In the dusty light the fiddler looked awful, his face ghastly white and sunken in the dark frame of his long hair. Blood spotted the sheet over him and blotched the rags thrown down near a water pitcher not far away, and the threadbare nights.h.i.+rt he wore was damp with sweat. His pulse was steady, however, and his nails, when pinched, returned to color quickly, and when January put his ear to his friend's chest he heard none of the telltale rattle of pneumonia.

"I'm sorry I missed the Hermanns' ball," said Hannibal, when January sat up again. "Did you get someone to replace me?"

"b.i.+.c.het's nephew Johnnie."

"Then I completely abase myself. That's the best you could do? The boy couldn't keep time with a clock in his hand to help him. I'll be there tonight, I promise."

January looked gravely down at him, the bled-out pallor and shaky hands. "You sure?"

"'How has he the leisure to be sick, in such a justling time?' I'll be there. I need the money." I'll be there. I need the money."

More thumping and rattling below. A man cried out, as if startled or hurt. Hannibal shut his eyes.

"Besides, this place was bad enough last night. Tonight's Mardi Gras, and I'd much rather be at the Theatre d'Orleans snabbling oysters than here listening to the bedstead symphony and the fights in the barroom. The Butcher came up and sat with me a little last night-she's the one who brought me the water-but they'll all be busy tonight, so I'd just as soon brush up my good coat and make my appearance in society. Which reminds me, I don't know what French privies are like, but in this country we go into them from the top, not the bottom."

January looked down at his coat and laughed bitterly. "Evidently not in Kentucky," he said, and Hannibal looked quickly away.

"Ah. I should have...Well."

"My mama'd tell me that's what you get when you go past Ca.n.a.l Street and mix with the Americans. She-"

The outside door opened. The big woman entered, having replaced the baby with a bowl of grits and gravy in one enormous hand, two cups of coffee on saucers balanced easily in the other. In spite of her size and girth-coupling with her would be like mounting a plow horse, thought January admiringly-she was beautiful, if one had not been raised to believe white skin and delicate features const.i.tuted all of beauty.

"I saw you was up here, Ben," she said, kneeling beside him and handing him the cup. It wasn't clean, but he'd drunk from far worse, and the coffee was strong enough to kill cholera, yellow fever, or such of this woman's customers as survived the woman herself. "How you feelin', Hannibal?"

"Ready to imitate the action of the tigers." He sat up a little, poked at the contents of the dish, and ate a few mouthfuls without much enthusiasm. The woman reached into her dress pocket and produced a small bottle. "I found this in Nancy's room. There ain't much left, but if you water it some it may last you."

Hannibal held the bottle to the light, and January smelled the swoony alcohol bitterness of laudanum. The fiddler's mouth quirked-evidently Nancy had consumed most of the contents-but he said, "Thank you, Mary. At least I've been into every p.a.w.nshop in town enough that most of the p.a.w.nbrokers won't take my violin anymore," he added philosophically. "So the girls have quit hocking it. And of course the books are perfectly safe."

"I went down by Tia Hojie and got you this," Mary went on. She produced a small bag of red flannel from the same pocket, put it around Hannibal's neck on a long, dirty ribbon. "Don't you open it," she added, as he made a move to do so. "It's healin' juju-a black cat bone and mouse heads and I don't know what all else. You just wear it and it'll help you. I got a green candle to burn here, too."

"Thank you," said Hannibal, reaching out to take the woman's hands. "That's good of you, truly. What'll Big Mag say about having a candle up here? She took away the lamp I had to read by," he added to January. "When it gets dark, all I can do is lie here and listen to the fights downstairs."

"I'll put it in a gla.s.s jar," promised Mary. "Besides, Big Mag gonna be busy tonight; she won't know nuthin'. I'll put the mark on your shoes and burn this here candle while you're gone, and you feel better in the mornin'."

Hannibal coughed, fighting the spasm, then managed a smile. "I'll feel better knowing I can pay Mag her rent money," he said. "Thank you."

The woman collected the blood-crusted rags, checked to see there was water in the pitcher, and departed. Hannibal sank back on the mattress with the barely touched bowl of grits next to his hand and fell almost immediately to sleep. January shook his head, covered the bowl with the saucer, and descended the stairs. On a sudden thought he crossed the kitchen yard, to where Fat Mary was fussing around the kitchen once more. As he had suspected, there was a residue of brick dust on the kitchen steps, and a little smear of ochre on the doorsill.

"Maybe you can help me," he said, and she turned, the baby on one hip again and a square black bottle of gin in her hand.

"Maybe I can," she smiled.

"I hear there's a new girl around this part of town; skinny Congo girl name of Sally. Runaway from one of the plantations. You know where she'd be, how I can talk to her?"

"Sally." The woman frowned, searching her mind. She spoke English with a rough eastern accent, Virginia or the Carolinas, slow and drawling after the flat, clippy vowels of New Orleans speech. "Name don't sound familiar, and I know most of the girls on the game roundabouts here."

"She may not be on the game yet," said January. "She ran off with a little bit of money. She's got a new calico dress, new earbobs, maybe. She ran off with a man."

"She runned off with a man, she end up on the game fast enough." She refreshed herself with a swig of gin, and rocked her child gently, swaying on big, bare, pink-soled feet. "But I ain't seen any of the men round about here-not the ones with money to go buyin' calico and earbobs for a woman-with a new gal. I'll ask around some, though."

"Thank you, Mary." He slipped an American fifty-cent piece onto the table where she could pick it up after he left. He saw her note it with her eye, but she made no comment. He wasn't exactly sure what he thought Sally could tell him, but he was beginning to be very curious about exactly what Madeleine Trepagier had done Thursday night and in what state her clothing had been when she returned home.

Sally would know. And, if Sally were sufficiently resentful of her mistress to run away, Sally could probably be induced to talk. It would at least give him somewhere else to look, some other avenue to point out to Shaw.

"One other question? I'm trying to find a voodooienne name of Olympia. I don't know what her second name is these days, but she's about so tall, skinny, real dark, like me. She's under Marie Laveau."

"Everbody under Mamzelle Marie these days," said Fat Mary, without animosity. "She make d.a.m.n sure no other queen operatin' on her own in this town. Olympia?" She frowned. "That'd be Olympia Corbier, over Customhouse Street-Olympia Snakebones, she called. She got big power, they say, but she crazy." She shrugged. "'Course, they all a little crazy. Even the nice ones, like Tia Hojie."

"Where on Customhouse Street?"

"'Tween Bourbon and Burgundy. She got a little cottage there. Her man Corbier's an upholsterer, but he don't got much to say for himself."

"If I was married to a voodooienne," said January, "I wouldn't have much to say for myself, either."