The Map of Moments (12 page)

smiling and nodding at the barman and receiving a smile in return.

“What'll it be?”

“You do crustas?”

The barman's grin widened, and he uttered a deep, slow laugh. “Do we do crustas?” He went about mixing the cocktail, his movements smooth and fluid without verging on cocky, the product of experience rather than practice.

Max put the book on the bar, leaned sideways, and looked around. He caught a couple of patrons’ eyes, and swapped polite nods and smiles. Most of the people here seemed upbeat, but there were enough sad faces to remind the still air of the place that a storm had passed them by. The laughter was low but honest, and to Max it felt like an easy place.

He wondered whether Coco was down here right now, but he thought not. He wasn't quite sure
why
he thought that—he had no idea what the guy looked like—but he'd have a
feeling
if Gabrielle's other love were in the same room with him. A hint. Maybe he'd see a similar loss in that other man's eyes.

“Here you go,” the bartender said, sliding a glass across to Max.

Max nodded his thanks and handed over a ten, then took one of the bar stools and sat down.

“Nice place,” he said. “You the owner?”

“Been in my family fifty years,” the barman said. He swilled the cocktail shaker and dried it, repositioned clean glasses, wiped the bar, always on the move, always working.
His smile looked painted on, but the paint was contentment, not fakery.

“I've only just come back,” Max said, then decided not to elaborate. If he admitted to being an outsider, maybe the barman would feel less inclined to help him.

“Yeah, well…” He poured a glass of soda, dropped in a slice of lime, and took a drink. “Lotsa people still away. Lotsa people not gonna make it back.”

“Plenty.” Max drank and sighed, feeling the alcohol hit instantly. Maybe whatever shit had been in that clay bottle had lowered his tolerance. “Actually, I'm looking for a guy called Coco. You seen him around?”

Something changed. The bartender's smile remained, but the muscles used to keep it there altered, strained rather than flexed. He took another drink of his soda, perhaps so that he could look away from Max and up at the ceiling.

Max glanced around the bar again, as if looking for the man himself. He was pretty sure no one else had heard the question, and he wished he'd asked louder.

“What you want him for?” the bartender asked.

Max turned back, and the man was mopping the bar top again. It was clean and dry, but obviously it needed to be cleaner, and drier.

“Just to chat,” Max said.

“Don't know any Coco,” the bartender said, shrugging.

Max frowned. What was this? The guy was obviously lying. He'd just asked what Max wanted with him.

“What about Gabrielle Doucette?”

“Who?” This time the man's shrug seemed genuine.

“Guess not,” Max said.

“Refill?” the bartender said, taking the empty glass. Even his smile had slipped now, and it was clear that he really didn't want to serve Max another.

“I'm good,” Max said. “Just hoping to meet an old friend.”

“Well, good luck,” the bartender said, even before Max had slid from the stool.

Max nodded, then walked slowly back toward the stairs. He glanced around as he went, trying to see what had changed, why this place no longer felt at ease. Maybe it was simply the bartender's abruptly altered manner.

So who the fuck is Coco?
he thought. On the bottom step he paused and turned back, considering asking out loud if anyone knew him.

Several pairs of eyes flickered from him, and a swell of loud talk and laughter rose up. Digg's suddenly looked and felt like a very different place.

Max hurried up the stairs and back onto the street, turned left, and headed away from Bourbon Street. He remembered he'd left the book about the Biloxi on the bar, but he had no desire to go back. He was confused and frustrated, because every time he looked into part of Gabrielle's life, it revealed more mystery. The bartender down there had known Coco, he was certain of that, and he'd clammed up as soon as his name was mentioned.
He knew I was an outsider.
But there was more to it than that.

If only Corinne had known more, or trusted him enough to tell him whatever else she
did
know. But he was starting to wonder now if, cousin or not, Corinne had really known Gabrielle any better than he had. There were family
secrets and secret histories, but perhaps Corinne had been too far away from both sides to be immersed in either. Maybe the sadness in the woman's eyes was for herself more than for Gabrielle; for her city, and a family she had betrayed for a girl she'd never understood.

He had to find this Coco guy.

Max reached the end of the street and paused. He could hear the sound of a funeral procession, the slow dirge and hymns echoing between buildings, and he stepped up onto the raised sidewalk to show respect. As the procession approached, he wondered whether this was another victim of the floods only just recovered from the ruins.

Funeral marches in New Orleans were usually accompanied—once away from church—by vibrant, upbeat music celebrating the life of the deceased. He was surprised there would be any processions at all in these dark days. But in New Orleans, tradition was everything. The music was an expression of sadness and loss, but he knew that this somber sound would soon turn into a celebration of the life of a lost loved one, not a mourning of their death.

Gabrielle should have had this,
he thought. Max glanced at his watch, amazed that it was still only mid-afternoon. He sighed, looked up at the sky, listened to the funeral procession passing by, and then sensed someone standing behind him.

“Don't turn round,” the voice growled.

Something pressed against the base of Max's spine. It could have been the person scaring him with their fingertip, or it could have been a knife or gun.

“Lookin’ for Coco?” A waft of garlic breath washed over Max, indicating just how close the man was.

Someone in the procession looked at him with sad, heavy eyes, then glanced at the face behind his shoulder and looked quickly away.

“Yeah.” He scanned the street, desperate to set eyes on a cop.

“You buyin’?”

Max had no idea what he was talking about, but he nodded.

“Keep walking and you'll find him.”

“Which way?”

The man pushed at Max, sending him stumbling into the street. “Just keep walking.”

Max was tempted to turn around and ask more, but just because he no longer felt the touch on his back did not mean the threat was gone. So he walked, and as he crossed the road and mounted the opposite sidewalk, he heard laughter.

He turned around, but several pedestrians had gathered on the corner he had just left. They looked toward the disappearing tail of the funeral, and any one of the men could have been his assailant.

Max gasped, breathing deeply and slowly to try and settle his sprinting heart. Then he started walking again, passing shops and bars and restaurants, waiting for inspiration to strike.

You buyin?
the guy had asked. Drugs? Is that what Gabrielle had been mixed up in? It was frightening, and it
might explain the way her family had turned their backs on her, but in a way there was also something anti-climactic about it. Gabrielle's mystery was growing in his mind, and something as prosaic as drugs just did not feel right.

Keep walking, you'll find him.
But where? And how, if he didn't even know what Coco looked like?

He crossed an intersection and kept moving, staying on the same street, wondering what he'd do when he reached its end. Five minutes later he did, and he waited there for a while before turning around and walking back along the street. He browsed shop windows, then bought a coffee and sat on a wooden bench outside a café, watching the world go by. He stayed there for half an hour, thoughts slowly turning to that Second Moment once more. He could be at Jackson Square in fifteen minutes if he started walking now, and maybe—

Someone sat down on the bench beside him, and he discovered what the unseen man had meant.

Coco
had found
him.

The man lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, relaxing back on the bench and not once looking at Max. His manner spoke of complete control.

“What's your name?” Coco asked at last.

“Max.”

“And you want to buy something?”

“Well…” Max trailed off, hit by a moment of indecision. If he pursued this false line, he could get into trouble. Maybe it was better just to ask outright.

“Don't be shy,” Coco said, laughing softly. He had a smooth, coaxing voice, nothing like the gruffness of the man who'd pressed something into Max's back.

“Should we be doing this out here?” Max asked. People walked up and down the street, cars passed by.

Coco looked at him for the first time, and there was something about his eyes that shocked Max. They were intelligent, yet distant, as though he'd seen something somewhere else that was much more interesting than the here and now.

“You afraid,” Coco said at last, and it was not a question.

“I've had a bad couple of days,” Max said.

Coco put his head back and laughed, and Max was conscious of a few faces turning their way. The man rocked on the bench, dropping his cigarette and seeming not to notice, and he had to wipe tears from his eyes. “Haven't we all?” he said, then laughed again.

As Max waited for the laughter to subside, he had a chance to appraise him. Coco was smartly dressed, with hair cut close to the scalp, and a goatee. His skin was smooth and unmarred. He looked strong and fit. There was something chilling about him, but it was more in his manner than appearance.

Max realized there and then that he did not want to fuck with Coco.

“So, decided what you want yet, boy?” the man asked. Max found it strange being called “boy” by someone probably younger than him, but with Coco it seemed to fit. “Got stuff that'll make you see the whole world. Got stuff, it'll take the pain away, if pain's your worry. Got girls who'll suck the pain right outta you.”

A drug dealer? A pimp? Surely not Gabrielle …surely not.

“Gabrielle Doucette,” Max said.

“Ah.” The last of Coco's smile filtered away. He withdrew another cigarette, lit it, and leaned back against the café wall, looking along the street past Max.

“You didn't go to her funeral.”

“She's dead?” Coco asked, his expression unchanging.

Max was sure he knew the truth. Either that, or Coco was completely unconcerned. Yet there was opportunity here, he could sense that. A chance to find out more of Gabrielle's background, delve into those dark parts that even she had wanted to keep from him, and perhaps to know the woman as he had never known her before. Right then, that seemed so important. It was all part of the mystery that Max sensed nestled around him. And the thicker it grew, the more he wanted to solve it.

“One of your hookers?” Max said, hating the idea, dreading the answer.

“Gaby?” Coco smiled, and perhaps there was even a hint of sadness there. “You really think that, boy?”

“No,” Max said.

Coco nodded and smoked some more. Mention of Gabrielle had changed his whole manner, and Max thought it might be caution. Coco looked him up and down, a very frank appraisal that Max found uncomfortable.

“Friend of hers?” the man said at last.

Max nodded. A few more people were sitting outside the café now. It felt busy, but it did not feel safe. He wondered how much of that feeling grew from inside rather than without.

“The people she hung around with…” Max said, trailing off, intending it as an opener rather than a question.

But Coco's answer was instant. He flicked his cigarette into the street, stood, and pressed a flick-knife hard against Max's throat.

Max leaned back, head pressed against the café's wall, but Coco came closer, and for a beat Max was sure the man was going to slit his throat there and then. He grunted, trying to call for help but unable to talk. He looked around, certain that someone must be seeing this, but everyone was looking away. People sat drinking coffee, smoking, walking past, driving slowly along the road, and not one of them seemed to be looking at him and Coco. Conversation was louder than ever …perhaps to drown out the sound of his imminent death.

He looked up into Coco's face, just a few inches from his own. The man's eyes seemed to be searching deep. He looked all around Max's face, coming to rest on his eyes, his expression totally blank.

“Tordu don't take kindly to people asking after them,” he said at last.

“Tordu?”

Coco pursed his lips and tensed his arms, and Max brought his hands up, terrified that this was his last moment on Earth.

Coco batted his hands aside and pressed his nose against Max's. Max could smell his smoky breath, and beneath it something more spicy and exotic.

The knife edge was cold against his throat. It was only them, and the rest of the world. No one interrupted, nothing was said, and Max had never felt so far from the heart of this city.

“Your only warning,” Coco said. Then he stood slowly, folded the knife, lit another cigarette, stared at Max for a few more seconds, and walked away. Never once did he look around at the patrons of the café, or those people walking along the street, and he did not look back.

Gasping, pressing his hands to his neck and dreading what he would feel, a sudden faintness blurred Max's vision and dried his throat. He leaned forward and checked his hands, but they were not bloodied. Breathing deeply, head between his knees, he looked down at one of Coco's crushed cigarettes.

Tordu?

When he sat up again, a few people were looking at him. “Did you see that?” he asked. But none of them had. Maybe in the wake of the storm they had become blind to violence and death, like Charlie, who'd walked around a dead woman on the sidewalk at Tulane for weeks. Or maybe, like Max, they were terrified.

Coco was gone, just as quickly as he had arrived. And in his wake he left even more mystery.