“I’m dying! Oh, I’m dying! For the love of God, is there a Bible in this house?”
As Williams promptly fetched the Holy Writ from where January had stowed it earlier under the bar, Hannibal and January traded disbelieving glances. “I’ve seen better acting at Christmas pantomimes,” Hannibal whispered.
The allegedly dying alleged preacher clutched the volume to his ensanguined chest and sobbed, “Bless you, my daughter—”
And with a crash, the lights went out.
“Two accomplices,” reported Hannibal softly, as he and January stepped aside to let three blundering forms spring through the door between them and sprint away across the yard.
Inside the saloon, men were crashing around and cursing; a moment later a match flared, and someone exclaimed, “Fuck me, where’d that preacher go?”
“Not badly done, though,” added the fiddler, as he and January strolled back to the ladder. “Kentucky’s promised us each ten percent of whatever we can retrieve from those bank accounts, and twenty percent for Delly, which is very generous of her. I’ll write to the Bank of New York tomorrow. I suspect that our friend Mr. Porter’s in for a very frustrating few months, writing to banks that no longer exist about accounts whose names he doesn’t have right.”
“Oh, I didn’t substitute names,” said January. “A man who considered it his right to carve up a saloonkeeper and a completely innocent black girl — who’s going to be scarred for the rest of her life — deserves more than a little frustration. No, I wrote up a very elaborate treasure map leading to an island in the middle of the swamps below Villahermosa in the south of Mexico; a friend of mine in Paris who’d been a doctor in the French Navy under Napoleon told me about it. He said nine-tenths of their men came down with fever there and most of them died. A land wrought by Satan, he said, to punish sinners.”
Hannibal’s eyes widened. “Do you think he’ll go?”
“He will if he wants the four hundred and fifty thousand dollars in Spanish gold I said was buried there.”
“Considering the amount of money he’ll have to borrow to finance an expedition,” mused Hannibal, “and the time it will take, and the gnawing anxiety of knowing there’s a treasure just waiting for him...”
“If he’s willing to seek it,” said January gently. “Which we know, from his actions, that he is. Where your treasure is — wholly imaginary, in this case — there shall your heart be also... and for Mr. Porter, almost certainly his fever-ridden bones as well.”
Hannibal paused, his hand on the rungs of the ladder. “For such a thoroughly nice man, Ben, you can be a complete son of a bitch.”
“Thank you,” said January. “I have my moments. Now let’s start writing those letters to the banks, and see how much of the real treasure is left to collect.”
Part II
Life in Atlantis
Muddy pond
by Maureen Tan
Village de l’Est
On the Wednesday after the levee failed and flooded New Orleans East, sixty-eight-year-old Sonny Vien waded into chest-deep water to rescue the Virgin Mary.
The two-foot-tall statue was at the far corner of the house, near where the front yard met the side yard. It was sheltered by a stone grotto that Sonny had built and surrounded by a garden that his wife, Tam, had planted. Climbing red roses framed the grotto and tiny white flowers formed a carpet at the Virgin’s feet. In a perfect blending of New Orleans tradition and Vietnamese-Catholic belief, they had positioned the grotto so that the Virgin’s back was to the house while her delicate Asian features and outstretched arms were directed toward the not-too-distant levee.
For thirty years, the blue paint of the statue’s gown had faded, the brass cross at the grotto’s peak had weathered, and the garden had flourished. For all that time, the sainted Virgin — not the statue, but the mother of Jesus it represented — had remained vigilant, holding back the dangerous water of the canal and protecting the snug white house on Calais Street.
And then the Virgin failed, Sonny thought bitterly as he navigated through the foul water toward the cross that was now the only thing marking the location of the grotto. She’d failed to protect Tam from the cancer that so unexpectedly took her life. Then she’d failed to protect the house — to protect Village de l’Est and, in fact, the whole of New Orleans — from the catastrophe that was Hurricane Katrina.
If it had been up to him, the statue would have remained where it was. Failed and submerged. But Tam would have judged that a sacrilege. And with her less than six months in the grave, Sonny’s actions were most often guided by what he thought she would have wanted. That was why he’d ignored Mayor Nagin’s evacuation order and ridden out the hurricane rather than leaving their three Siamese cats to fend for themselves. And that was why he had left behind the security of his windowless second-floor attic.
Wearing the same worn T-shirt and faded khaki shorts he’d had on when he’d first retreated from the flood, Sonny had gone back downstairs. He’d already ventured into the flooded first floor several times before, intent on retrieving a few more photos, gathering a little more food, fetching a couple more blankets. So as he’d waded once again through the knee-deep water, he averted his eyes from the sight of his favorite chair soaked beyond repair, looked quickly past the darkly stained wallpaper curling away from the walls, tried not to think about the rugs beneath his feet. But he couldn’t ignore the smell — the odor of rotting food, wet paper, decomposing wood, and mildew that the stagnant water seemed to bind together.
The smell had followed him as he pushed open the water-swollen side door, then stepped onto a tiny porch. As he made his way gingerly down a trio of steps linking the porch to the driveway, a Vietnamese proverb sprang, unbidden, into his mind. He spoke it aloud before leaving the last step, tipping his head as he listened to the way the flowing syllables of his native tongue echoed off the unnatural silence beyond his kitchen door. A silence that — at least today — had been unbroken except for birdsong and the occasional racket of low-flying helicopters.
“An co di truoc. Loi nuoc theo sau.” (“When having a party, go first. When walking in the water, go after.”)
Sonny had smiled — a tired, twisted smile — as he considered the uselessness of the proverb’s wisdom. Then he went first and alone into the tepid water, using his wiry 5'2" frame to estimate its depth. About four feet, Sonny decided, knowing that he was one of the lucky ones.
Though he hadn’t anticipated the flooding, he’d been cautious enough to follow a New Orleans maxim. As Katrina made landfall, he’d taken his old shotgun — rather than an axe — with him into his attic. He hadn’t needed it. But in the hours after storm-driven water overtopped the nearby levee, he’d heard shotgun fire echoing in the distance. And he feared that in the lower-lying areas surrounding Village de l’Est, people trapped by rising water in their windowless attics were blasting holes in their roofs to escape deathtraps.
Another helicopter flew overhead, its clatter magnified as the sound bounced off the swamped houses below. It was on its way, Sonny was certain, to pluck unfortunates from their rooftops. To rescue people whose lives were endangered. But because that did not describe Sonny’s situation, it didn’t occur to him to signal for help. He didn’t need rescuing. As others had evacuated, he’d prepared. He had food and water, the company of his cats, a battery-powered radio, and a dry attic. No matter if it took a week or two or even three, Sonny knew that eventually the water would recede. Then his neighbors would return.