"You don't love me any more!" Ammi whined.
"What are you, nuts? I never loved you to start with! You're not a person, you're not a dog, you're not even a pet gecko: You're freakin' jewelry! What's there to love?"
"Isn't that just like a man? The sort who kisses World Series tickets and pledges his heart to a DVD player, but can't for the life of him see how someone could love a beautiful piece of art like me."
"Oh, shut up," Dov told the amulet. "You're not convincing anyone."
"And you're not finding anyone," Ammi countered. "I'll bet your sister's made three business calls by now! In fact, I'll bet that she gets here and finds this Mr. Bones bozo before you ever—"
A gaunt, dark hand seemed to thrust itself out of thin air and thudded against Dov's chest with the force of a crossbow bolt, smothering the amulet's words.
"Little silver one, I would not be calling me a bozo. It is not polite, hein? Also it is not prudent."
Dov found himself gazing into the aged, ebony face of one of the most extraordinary individuals he had ever seen. "Mr. Bones, I presume?" he inquired. There was no need to waste the question: How did you know it was the amulet talking? Mr. Bones' various "talents" were a matter of record in the E. Godz, Inc. databanks.
"At your service, sir." The tall, skeletal gentleman doffed his shiny black top hat and made a bow that an eighteenth-century dancing master might envy, capping it with a flourish of the brightly painted wooden staff he carried. This courtly gesture set the staff's eclectic collection of bird and animal bones rattling eerily. A whole flock of feathers, tethered to the staff's head by satin ribbons, fluttered on the night air.
"You know, you're not an easy man to find," Dov said with a boyish grin.
"I don't intend to be." Mr. Bones returned the smile with interest. His teeth were a dazzling white, almost as brilliant as his impeccably starched and ironed shirt. He was clad like a clownish version of a bridegroom from another time: purple morning coat, pinstriped pants in black and red, shiny yellow spats over pointy-toed shoes of bottle- green patent leather. "As I reckon it, mon vieux, the only ones who find me are the ones by whom I wish to be found. Not a bad way to live, eh?"
"You could persuade me to join you," Dov replied. "But then, who'd there be to look after your best interests? Your financial interests, that is."
Mr. Bones shrugged and scraped his feet along the sidewalk in a halfhearted shuffle- shuffle-tap-kick. "Oh, friend, I am a silly, simple old man. My needs are few. I wander the streets of the Vieux Carre and greet the visitors to our fair city. For some reason, they find me a most interesting individual, and offer me money if I will pose with them for photographs. Thus I manage to scrape together a few coins, more than enough to keep body and soul together. Not that there is much body here to feed." He gestured modestly at his own gangly, scrawny frame.
Dov's mouth turned up at one corner. What a performance! he thought. His admiration was sincere. The old fellow's a showman from the get-go. I like him. Here's hoping he likes me. It's always easier to close a deal when you can make them like you. But that's something Mr. Bones knows too.
"Come now, Mr. Bones, sir," he said. "You know you're not fooling me with such talk. I'm Edwina Godz's son, remember?"
"Ah, yes, the fair Edwina!" Mr. Bones kissed the tips of his fingers in tribute to the absent lady's charms. Then he removed his top hat and bowed his head. "My dear boy, I cannot tell you how devastated I was to hear the news about her. I was desole, completment desole! I summoned the people to the dancing ground to see if perhaps we could not raise a cure for her, but the signs were all against it, the loa sounded quite ... cross over having been bothered with such a thing. For my life, I could not tell why.
Perhaps we did not make them a rich enough sacrifice—"
"Well, that's how it goes in this country," Ammi piped up. "One loa for the rich and another for the poor."
This time it was Dov who smothered him.
Mr. Bones leaned towards him and in a confidential tone of voice said: "You know, mon vieux, we are near enough to the river. If it would be your pleasure to drop that creature in?"
Dov chuckled. "No, thanks. He's got his uses."
"Ah. Suit yourself, then." The old man donned his top hat at a rakish angle and set off up St. Ann Street with Dov trailing after.
They went a few blocks and turned onto Bourbon Street. Walking with Mr. Bones down the most famous thoroughfare in the French Quarter was like being in your own miniature Mardi Gras parade. The old man didn't so much walk as strut down the street, his every move a loud, proud Here I am! Admire what you see and can never be! Dov took in the reactions of the passers-by with the eye of a diligent scholar. There was much about the old man that would bear imitating. He found himself walking more proudly, giving every step he took a subtle dramatic undertone. The lovely women of the French Quarter saw him and appreciated what they saw. He returned their alluring looks with his own unspoken Perhaps later, my dears. He had always been charismatic with the ladies, but as soon as he aped Mr. Bones' style he realized that he hadn't taken it far enough.
"Not bad, hein?" his venerable guide murmured. "You have the spark, the warmth that can never be taught, the charm that goes beyond any magic. And I see that you are not afraid to use it. This is good. Most boys fear their power while hungering to use it, and so they starve for love."
"Who are you calling a boy?" Dov replied, half-joking.
"To me, all men are boys," Mr. Bones said solemnly. "It happens when a body turns one hundred and twenty-three."
"Really? I wouldn't have pegged you for a day over one hundred and five." Two grins flashed across the darkness and Mr. Bones laughed.
"Petit, we will get along fine, you and I," he said. By this time they had left Bourbon for one of its many side streets. Mr. Bones stopped outside a building that looked as old as the city itself, a little worn, a little shabby, but comfortable, like a respectable old maiden aunt who had enjoyed more than a few exciting indiscretions in her girlhood. A wooden sign on a wrought iron frame swung back and forth over the battered blue door proclaiming that this was Aux Roi Gris-Gris: Voodoo Supplies, Tarot Readings, Cold Drinks and Postcards.
The woman behind the counter was young, plump and beautiful, clad in a low-cut yellow blouse, a flounced skirt, and a tignon headwrap, the whole ensemble clearly worn to fulfill tourist expectations, the better to attract tourist dollars. She looked up from a tarot layout with a practiced saleswoman's smile on her face until she saw who it was had just come into the shop. At once her smile became heartfelt and, with a happy cry of recognition, she flew into Mr. Bones' arms, hugging him to her ample bosom so hard that Dov thought there was a good chance she'd break him in two.
There were worse ways to die.
"Please, Aurore, a little restraint, if you please. We have a guest." Mr. Bones tipped his hat in Dov's direction.
Dov stepped forward and raised the woman's hand to his lips. When in Rome ... he thought. But this looks like much more fun than Rome! The lovely Aurore gave him a devastating smile in payment for his gallantry and Mr. Bones observed everything with a contented look.
"My dear, Mr. Godz and I will have brandy and coffee in my office," the old man said as he led the way around the counter into the rooms behind the store. As Dov followed, he took in the stock of Aux Roi Gris-Gris. As advertised there were plenty of postcards and a cooler full of cold drinks. There were also piles and piles of mass produced bric-a- brac for the tourist trade: overpriced feathered masks, plastic krewe doubloons from Mardi Gras past, rubber crawfish keyrings, suitably primitive-looking voodoo dolls that came with pins included.