“Mon cher petit cœur!” she exclaimed and flung out her arms.
“Nana!”
“Al! I knew it was you, my Al. Ever since you were little you liked to come around to the kitchen instead of to the front.”
Dupree smiled. No one else ever called him Al.
He hugged her, feeling how fragile she was. She’d gotten much thinner. Her clothes hung loose from her angular frame. Dupree held her tight and closed his eyes. When had she gotten so small? He remembered her being as tall as he was, but now her frizzy locks of white hair hardly grazed his chin. He leaned down and planted a long kiss on the top of her head.
“You here, you here, my baby boy,” she murmured through tears.
It broke his heart to see her weep. He held her tighter and pressed his own lips together to keep from blubbering. “Nana, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Why that, mon cher?”
“Because I didn’t get here earlier.”
The old woman leaned back enough to look him in the eye. “Don’t you talk nonsense to me now. We both know you not s’posed to come back, but you were going to, anyhow, sooner or later, and now that you here, I don’t know if that good or bad.”
“I don’t know either.”
She motioned toward the pistol in his hand. “You better put that away before somebody round here get hurt.”
“It’s your fault,” he answered with a smile as he holstered his gun. “For a minute there I thought somebody was looting your place. I heard you hurt your hip. You shouldn’t be moving furniture.”
“Your Nana stronger than you think. You think a broken hip gonna finish me off?” she said, giving him a defiant look. “My hip just fine. It my chest where the hurt won’t ever get better. Just like yours.”
She took his hand and guided him across the unlit kitchen to the living room. Her uncertain steps gave the lie to her confident declarations about her hip. He started to say something, but was struck dumb when they entered the living room.
“I had to move some of the furniture ’cause I needed the space . . .”
Every piece of furniture in the room was pushed against the walls or the windows. Dozens of lit candles were placed on the tables and the upturned chairs. The blurry faces in old photos of their deceased ancestors peered at him, their eyes brought to life by the gently flickering candlelight. Next to the wall was a little altar where saints and skeletons contemplated death amid scattered coins that were no longer legal tender. The feeble flames cast an uncertain light, and for a moment, he feared they might ignite the silken garlands decorating the loas.
“Only important thing is having you here, darling. That got to mean something.” She gave him a concerned look. “You think the storm gonna be bad as they say?”
“Yes.”
“Bad enough to lure him out?”
He sighed deeply but said nothing. He nodded, his heart heavy. She came to him and ran her hands up his arms, across his shoulders, and over his chest. She lifted her right hand as if to bless him but instead placed two fingers directly over Dupree’s heart. His old wound burned beneath his shirt as if new and raw. She took his hands, cupped them, and placed a tiny cloth sack in his palms. Dupree took it and felt a dry, earthy substance inside. He closed his eyes, both relieved and deeply moved, and slipped it into his pocket. When he opened his eyes again, she was watching him calmly.
“Finish him. Bring my girls home.”
He nodded. “I’ll do everything I can, Nana.”
“Swear it to me. Even if they dead. Even dead, you bring my girls home.”
Dupree’s eyes filled with tears. “I swear it to you, Nana.” He stepped back in an effort to master his emotions. “But we need to make a deal. You have to promise me you’ll leave the city soon as you finish here. They’re still running evacuation buses. I’ll pay for a hotel room in Baton Rouge, in Dallas, wherever you want.”
She shook her head. “You can’t ask that. You know I can’t leave. But don’t you worry ’bout me. People here in the quarter watching out. You remember the Davis family?”
Dupree nodded. He recalled Nana’s neighbor, the one with two husbands and five kids.
“They still here too. Seletha been a widow for a while now; she had a stroke and been laid up for three solid years. Her boy Bobby, the littlest, a good boy, take care of her. Got an old car that won’t take us far, but he promised he gonna get us out if things go bad. They sayin’ the city gonna open that Superdome for emergency shelter.”
“Oh, Nana!” objected Dupree. “The stadium?”
“Only if they have to. Bobby’s daddy, bless his departed soul, worked there when they buildin’ it. Bobby says it’s high, above the water, good and strong, made with concrete and rerod. Says the space under the stands good as any bunker.” She smiled and gestured toward the altar. “Anyhow, you know I always been faithful to the Santos.”
Dupree tried to smile back, but he wasn’t very convincing. His concern was plain. He went to the door, still ajar, and retrieved the sack he’d left on the porch. He held it out. “I thought you’d need this.”
She closed the door, took out the package, put it on the kitchen table, and used a butcher knife to cut the fabric Meire had wrapped it in. She studied the contents. She looked into the silk bags, examined the labels Meire had laboriously prepared in his backward-leaning handwriting, and held the vials and powder tubes to the candlelight. She turned to Dupree.
“I got just one question. What you want to do with all this, mon cher—drive away that hurricane or call it here?”
15
PAIN
New Orleans, Louisiana
Joseph Andrews Jr. wore jeans and an olive-green Tulane University sweatshirt. His long hair dangled over his blue eyes and stood out against the pallor of his face. He slouched in a chair in the dean’s conference room with a book on the table before him. He wasn’t reading. Amaia observed him from the hall, listening to the dean’s whispered comments.
“He’s an amazing young man and a brilliant student. We try to do everything we can for him, especially since the tragedy. He lives on campus and never leaves the university. When the evacuation order was given, we knew some students wouldn’t leave. We set up a shelter in the main building, and I was sure Joseph would be one of those who would stay.”
“Is that wise?”
“The main building has weathered hurricanes before.”
It wasn’t much of a guarantee.
Joseph Jr. straightened up when they went in. His attitude changed as well; he tensed and hunched his shoulders. He was slim, but his impressive biceps were visible through his cotton sweatshirt. Joseph stared at them through that dark curtain of hair. They held out their credentials; he glanced at them, not particularly interested. Johnson gave the boy their names and said nothing more. He’d told Amaia to take the lead, guessing that a young male student would be more likely to open up to a woman closer to his age.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Andrews,” she said. “Amaia Salazar, I’m from the FBI. I’d like to ask you some questions. May I call you Joseph?”
“You’re no FBI agent,” he countered. “Your badge says ‘temporary.’ How old are you? Twenty-two?”