A Father's Duty

Which meant that, as much as she dreaded it, she’d have to make a visit to Isabella Delacroix.

“YOU GOT A DOLLAR, mister? I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast, and I’m real hungry.”

“Hungry, are you?” The guy took the dirty hand Becky held out to him and pulled her beneath the streetlight. He shoved her mass of thick, black curls away from her face. “What’s your name?”

“Are you a cop?”

“A cop? Whatever gave you that idea? I’m a businessman, and I may be able to help you.”

“Hmmp. Not a lot of people looking to help me, but my name’s Becky Lane.”

“Are you from around here?”

“What’s that got to do with anything. I stay here now.”

“I see. Do you have any family here?”

“You sure ask questions like a cop.”

“I can assure you that I’m not in law enforcement.” He looked her over, from top to bottom and up again. “You may be exactly the kind of girl who can do well in my business.”

Becky studied the man, afraid of what he might really want from her. He was a honky, tall and skinny, with slicked-back black hair that looked as if he’d soaked it in motor oil. The man gave her the creeps, but he was dressed nice, and she was hungry.

“I just need a few dollars or whatever you can spare,” she said.

“What you need is a job, so you can buy your own food and some nice clothes. A young lady has needs.”

“What kind of job are you talking about? I’m not a hooker, you know.”

“A hooker? Such a disgusting term. I don’t deal in disgusting. I deal in class.”

“How old would I have to be to get this job?”

“Eighteen would be old enough. You look eighteen to me.”

She was barely sixteen, though she did look eighteen when she wore lipstick and had her hair fixed. She didn’t mind lying about her age, as long as he didn’t want some kind of proof. “I’m eighteen, but I don’t have a driver’s license or anything like that.”

“You won’t need to drive in this job.” He led her to the circle of illumination beneath a streetlight, then tugged on her blouse, pulling it to the back so that the fabric fit tight around her breasts. “You have a nice shape and nice skin,” he said, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. “Men like light-brown skin when it’s as soft as yours. We’d have to do something with that hair, of course, and you’ll need decent clothes, something expensive. Have you ever worn silk?”

She didn’t answer, just stared down at her worn, dirty jeans and stained sneakers.

“I’m talking high-class, Becky. Very high-class. No gutter talk. No gutter clothes. No gutter ways. Just high-class dancing, and being friendly. You’re a friendly girl. I can tell. This will come naturally to you.”

“When would I start?”

“We’ll talk about that later. In the meantime, let me take you to see a friend of mine. She’ll see that you get a good meal and have a nice bed to sleep in tonight. The rest of this can wait until tomorrow.”

Food and a bed. She wasn’t about to turn that down. As for the job, she’d make up her mind about that later. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Mr. Gaspard.”

“That’s a nice name.” And so far he seemed like a really nice man. She hadn’t met too many of those. Maybe New Orleans would be the place where her life got turned around for good.

GEORGETTE PARKED her beige sedan in front of the shotgun house in old Algiers. Some guys next door were working on their car in the street, their jeans hanging so low on their hips, she could see the band of yellowed underwear at their waist. They were shirtless and shoeless, and one was gulping down a can of beer.

He finished it, crushed the can in his hands and tossed it to the curb as she got out of the car and started up the front walk to her mother’s house. Some parts of old Algiers had experienced a rebirth over the last few years. The historic old houses had been restored and the yards and streets cleaned up. They’d started neighborhood watches and gotten rid of the run-down vacant houses frequented by addicts looking for a place to flop.

A neighborhood like that would have tossed Isabella Delacroix out.

The old feelings were potent as Georgette climbed the front steps and knocked on the door. It had been over a year since she’d seen her mother and then it had been at a café in the Quarter at Isabella’s request. It had been five years since Georgette had been in this house. That had been the night her grandmother had died.

Georgette lifted her hand to knock again, then dropped it to her side. She couldn’t do this. She absolutely couldn’t be drawn back into curses and gris gris and mysterious spells. She turned and had reached the steps when she heard the door open behind her.

“Georgette.”

Her mother’s voice crawled under her skin the way it always did. It was lyrical and haunting, as much a part of who and what Isabella was as the bright colors she wore and the bracelets and earrings that jingled when she walked.

Georgette took a deep breath, then turned to face her mother. “Hello, Momma.”

“Come in, Georgette. Please. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”

Georgette looked for words but didn’t find them, so she just walked to the open door and stepped inside. Isabella hugged her then stepped away and started straightening some magazines on a small table. The house hadn’t changed. The front room was where her mother did business. Telling fortunes, reading tarot cards, giving psychic advice. As always, it smelled of incense and spices, and was dimly lit by lamps whose shades were draped with red silk cloths. Music played in the background, an aria from an unfamiliar opera.

“Come with me,” Isabella said. “Let me look at you under the bright light.”

Georgette followed her into the small kitchen at the back of the house. It was exactly the same as it had been five years ago. The appliances were old but clean, and the small wooden table and chairs were the ones Isabella had bought in a second-hand furniture store on Magazine Street when they’d first moved here from down the bayou.

Charcoal drawings Georgette had done in high school were thumbtacked to the wall next to the refrigerator, and an eight-by-ten framed picture of Georgette in her cap and gown hung on the wall behind the table. It had been taken the day she’d graduated from Tulane Law School.

Isabella ran her fingers through Georgette’s shoulder-length hair, then cradled her cheeks in her hands as if she were a small child. “You are so beautiful. You look like your grandmother did in her old pictures. You have the same hair. Silky and black as pure onyx.”

“You have the same hair, Momma.”

“Maybe once. I don’t remember. Are you hungry? I could fix us some lunch. I have an appointment at two, but nothing before then. That gives us a whole hour and a half to visit.”

Far more time than Georgette planned to be here. “I’m not hungry,” she said, “but fix something for yourself if you like. We can talk while you eat.”

“I’ll eat a bite later, but I’ll make us some herbal tea. It’s good for the tempers.”

They didn’t talk as Isabella filled the kettle and adjusted the flame on the front burner of the gas range. When she finished with that, she dropped two tea bags into a teapot and took two delicate china cups from the cabinet.

“I wish you’d come to see me just because you wanted to,” she said, taking the chair closer to Georgette, “but I think it’s something much darker that brings you here.”

“It is.” Georgette spread her hands on the table. “I’ve been seeing images of a young woman who appears to be in danger.”

“Is it someone you know?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never seen her before.”