“She seemed decent enough to me,” Fargo said. “She met Parker and me when we got here, down at the docks.”
“That’s Hattie, all right,” he said. “She likes to play the lady, but she’s more snake than woman.”
“Come on, H.D.,” Fargo said. “She’s just a woman—and a whore to boot.”
“Fargo, you listen and you listen close,” H.D. said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Hattie Hamilton has killed at least two people that I know of, though I could never prove it. And those girls of hers are barely more than slaves. She’s got more money than Parker or Beares, and if they’re holding this so-called game at her place, you better have sharp eyes, because something about her is . . . wrong, broken on the inside.”
“Do you think she’s dangerous?” Fargo asked. “Honestly?”
“Like a hungry alligator,” H.D. said. “And she’s damn near untouchable. Half the men in the state senate have either slept with her or been in her place. She knows lots of pillow secrets, and even when she’s suspected of something, every deputy in this town will look the other way.”
Fargo whistled, thinking that maybe he’d underestimated the players in the game. “I can’t say as I’m much impressed with this place,” he said. “Why do you stay?”
“Safer than being out west,” he said. “Out there, in the open, there’s nowhere to hide. Once a bad man moves into an area, you’ve either got to kill him, hang him, or arrest him—and if you’re outnumbered, the odds are against it. Here, all I have to do is keep the streets quiet and go about my business. It’s not justice, but I’ve learned that at least here, I’ve got places to hole up in.”
“Didn’t imagine you being much of a runner,” Fargo said. “You stood and fought right next to me back in Kansas.”
“This isn’t Kansas, Fargo,” H.D. snapped. “It’s not like anywhere I’ve ever been or heard of. New Orleans sprang up out of a swamp, and in its rotten heart, it’s still a swamp. If I weren’t married, why I’d—”
“Married!” Fargo interrupted. “Since when?”
“I met her about two months after I got here,” H.D. said. “Beautiful Creole girl. She won’t leave because her family is here. Otherwise, retirement be damned, I’d have moved on.”
“I’d like to meet her,” Fargo said. “No wonder you’re keeping your head down.”
H.D.’s face reddened. “It’s . . . it’s worse than that, Fargo.” He skipped the glass and knocked back another swallow of the sour mash. “She . . . she worked there. At the Blue Emporium. She was a whore.”
“What?”
H.D. shook his head. “I ain’t supposed to talk about it,” he said. “But the truth is that Hattie Hamilton’s had me by the short hairs since I got here. And if I do anything that messes with her, I’ll be out of a job, probably dead, and my wife . . . she . . . she’d have to go back to work for Hattie.”
“Damn,” Fargo whispered. “You’ve landed in a world of trouble, haven’t you?”
His old friend nodded, then said, “And now you’re in it, too, Fargo. Once you’ve messed around in Storyville business, it’s like a bear trap. You don’t get free. Not ever.”
“I’m my own man,” Fargo said quietly. “I always have been.”
“Not here,” H.D. said. “No one here is free.”
Looking into H.D.’s eyes, Fargo could see that his old friend believed what he was saying. Every word of it. Struck by the depths of despair, the lies and deceit all around him, Fargo finished his glass of whiskey and set it on the desk with a soft thump. “I guess I’ll get over to the hotel,” he said. “Maybe grab some dinner. Then I’ve got to find Beares. I want to talk to him before the game.”
“Don’t worry about it,” H.D. said. “He’ll find you.” He poured himself another snort from the bottle, and Fargo saw that his friend’s hands were steady, but his eyes were haunted. “He’ll find you and then you’ll have talked to them all and you’ll know what I’ve told you is the truth. This place isn’t a city, Fargo. It’s an alligator pit, and each and every one of them is hungry.”
“Damn,” Fargo said again. He could never have imagined John H. D. Timmons this broken down inside, this scared of anyone. “What have I gotten myself into here?”
“A real bad place, Fargo. A real bad place.”
6
Fargo took the Ovaro to the livery, mentioning Fleur to the owner, who got flustered and turned a shade of red Fargo hadn’t seen since the last time he’d eaten beets. Still, the man ran a decent enough stable, and Fargo felt comfortable leaving his horse and tack there with only minimal questioning.
The man assured him that someone was on duty at all times. “Day or night, sir,” he said. “Ain’t no one messes with my place. I pay my dues.”
“And you’ll see to it that he gets his oats?” Fargo asked, hanging his saddle on a rack next to the stall they’d put the Ovaro in.
“Yes, sir,” the man said, nodding his head like it was on a string. “Once a day, plus fresh hay and water. I’ll watch after him.”
“Good enough,” Fargo said. He paid the man for a week’s worth, even though he fully intended to be headed back west before then.
“That’s more than you owe, Mr. Fargo,” the livery man said.
“I know,” Fargo replied. “I should be back for him within a few days. If I’m happy with his care when I get back, you can keep the rest as a tip.”
Voice quavering, the man said, “And if you’re not?”
Fargo’s blue eyes stared hard at the man; then he said, “Then I’ll take my money back—and not in a nice way.” He’d already come to the conclusion that only force, threats of force, and excessive money bought much of anything in this place—three types of currency that he preferred not to use unless necessary.
“You’ll be happy, Mr. Fargo,” the man said, nodding his head again. “Happy as a gator with chicken bones.”
Fargo shook his head, then grabbed up the rest of his gear and headed to the hotel, wondering about some of the strange sayings people had in this city. As much as he’d traveled, combing back and forth across the frontier, most of the people he’d run into talked pretty much as he did. The city of New Orleans was a strange place, almost a world of its own, and he’d be glad to leave it behind him.
He felt even more besieged by the city as he walked its streets now. Maybe it was the convergence of all the historical troubles that had taken place here. The French displacing the Indians, the French ceding control to Spain in a secret and unpopular treaty provision—and little more than a decade later French and German settlers forcing the Spanish governor to flee. And during all this, enormous epidemics of malaria, small-pox, and yellow fever, to name just a few of the terrible medical mishaps that thinned the population again and again.
Add to this the strange beliefs and cults that entangled so much of daily life in the city. The Cajuns with their swamp tales and myths, and the constant evidence of voodoo, that fevered belief system that merged Roman Catholicism with Haitian black magic. Many of the stores advertised that they sold trinkets of various kinds to combat spells and curses. The shopkeepers would smile ironically about them but deep down you had the sense that on some level at least they believed in these things.
Say what you wanted about bloody trail towns with all their shoot-outs and boot hills. But however troubled they were, they didn’t dally with zombies and boiling pots of chicken parts meant to bring death to some unsuspecting person halfway across town.
Fargo had to smile at the thought of all this. He’d always heard about hell. But he’d never believed that he’d actually be able to walk its streets, not in this life, anyway.