Number Nine: Chapter 21

NINE O’CLOCK AT BURGANDY


FADE IN:

EXT. – LOWER NINTH WARD – SUNSET

An ominous, dark and beautiful sunset sky zooms in to the number 927 on the porch column of Jake’s just purchased safe house in the lower ninth ward.

INT. – PRIEUR STREET HOUSE – SUNSET

Holding a shot glass with a green liquid, MONK offers a toast to JAKE, fitted in a classy dark suit, jazz hat and fitted with a fake goatee, for his plot to free RUBY from PALE LOUIE’S underground prison. Two women and seven men, all African American, join them in a circle, as Ruby’s bootleg recording plays in the background (Bessie Smith’s BACKWATER BLUES).

When it thunders and lightning and the wind begins to blow…

FADE OUT MONK’S BAR, FADE IN:

INT. – BURGANDY UNDERGROUND – NIGHT

RUBY on stage in a pool of light sings.

Well it thundered and lightened and the winds began to blow
Well it thundered and lightened and the winds began to blow
There was a thousand poor women, didn’t have no place to go…

Fade scene.



Monk made good on his word and Jake made good on his. Bones took him to the bus station, where he retrieved his bags and a briefcase full of cash, and returned him to his two-story safe house at 927 Prieur Street, where Monk and his people had cleaned and furnished the upstairs, leaving the street floor barren.

Money was counted and exchanged and Monk introduced six men (Bones was the seventh) and two women who could be counted on to carry out Jake’s plan – as long as it did not entail killing Pale Louie – on that they would have no part.

They were street people, musicians, hustlers and gophers, who got along just fine with a little help from their friend, the Monk. Consequently, they had a sense of loyalty bordering on devotion. If Monk ordered them to kill Pale Louie they would try to talk him out of it but failing that, they would give it their best shot.

Monk had too much respect for the ways of the underground to give such an order, no matter what Louie was rumored to have done. There was not enough money in New Orleans to order that hit and Louie knew it.

Monk had intimate connections with the underground of which Louie was a central figure and used them to collect three invitations to the Burgandy House underground where Ruby Daulton was being hailed as the new voice of New Orleans.

Monk provided Jake appropriate attire, a dark jazz funeral-style suit, with a fake goatee to serve as disguise, a couple of escorts in bright red gowns and a Cadillac limousine with Bones as the driver. He was required to appear at the street level entry of Burgandy House precisely at nine o’clock – three minutes later, he would not be admitted. It was Pale Louie’s way of keeping a low profile. There would never be a crowd outside his doors.

After a short lull, the rain resumed its pounding, jackhammer beat and the wind swept through the streets like a lost highway on the high plains, alternating from a whistle to a scream, foreshadowing the storm to come.

She had a name now and she was pounding the Yucatan peninsula, triggering mudslides that buried whole villages of poor people who were accustomed to disasters. With nowhere else to go and no one to welcome or assist them, they would build again until the next disaster struck. As always, it would only be a flicker on the nightly television screens of wealthy nations. Maybe the Red Cross would send aid, maybe not. Maybe that assistance would reach the people, more than likely not.

They would survive.

The boys on the corner of Reynes and Prieur, drenched and huddled against the wall of a local market, sang with the rhythm of the pounding storm, the words arriving with the wind and the pouring rain.

Rain came down like a runaway train
Listen to the pouring rain lord
Listen to the pouring rain

Jake and his escorts climbed in their limousine at precisely 8:30 and the driver measured his route, pausing at safe locations inside the Quarters, timing their arrival for an appointment with destiny.

Plaquemine preacher said a prayer today
Listen to the pouring rain lord
Listen to the pouring rain…

Jake presented his embossed invitations to the doorman and they were immediately directed through an expansive, chandeliered greeting room, furnished in seventeenth century New Orleans with magnificent erotic paintings, sculpture and objects of affection. They followed up a winding wrought iron staircase to an equally lavish waiting room, where they were seated and served cocktails while the eyes of Louie Marchant examined them through the magic of modern surveillance technology.

Louie insisted on personally approving every visitor to the underground, especially now that he possessed the most prized jewel of New Orleans.

Having seen nothing but a fleeting shadow of a ghost by the name of Jake Jones, Louie had no reason to be alarmed. He and his entourage were typical of the clientele that Monk sent his way.

The doors of an antique elevator opened, the attendant bowed and welcomed them to the underground. As they entered a cavernous concert hall, its walls lined with blue velvet curtains, its furnishings striking a contrast in carved wood and red velvet against a gray marble floor with gold and red oriental carpets, they were politely asked if they had any weapons and escorted through an x ray machine.

They were shown to a table half back from the stage and off center to the right. The attendant bowed again and refused a hundred dollar tip as an old black sax player in a jazz quartet finished a set inspired by John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman.

The dim lighting was raised a notch as Jake ordered two bottles of Cabernet and a liter of Absinthe, the elixir of poets and artists. The waiter accepted his gratuity with a smile and left them to their own means of pleasure.

Jake examined the surroundings, noting the exquisite balcony boxes high above the floor, each with a gentleman or two in evening attire and at least two pale skinned women of rare porcelain beauty, laughing politely and bathing their guests with gentle grace.

He noted where the velvet curtains parted, clearing a path for the ventilation system to pull smoke filled air out and pump clean air in.

The stage, where the musicians were busy loading their equipment as technicians prepared for the next act, was large and deep with elaborate theatre lighting and red velvet curtains.

The crowd, seated at tables and along two bars at either side of the hall, was mostly white while the stagehands and help, except for the attending porcelain women, was almost entirely black. The hall was nearly full and hushed with whispered anticipation.

Applause started and grew to an ovation as the master of ceremonies, a striking man familiar to everyone in the underground, a man who went by his title only, emerged from off stage and approached a standing mike.

Jake recognized him at a glance.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” announced the Marquis. His initial focus tipped the location of Pale Louie in his balcony perch to Jake’s right, close to the stage where three of his favorite porcelain beauties leaned out for a better view.

“We have arrived at that point in the evening you have all anticipated. I present for your pleasure, the wondrous, the exquisite, the incomparably passionate jewel of New Orleans: Ms Ruby Daulton!”

The curtains parted, exposing Ruby in a full blue velvet gown, leaning on a stool with her head bowed and her eyes closed. The crowd swooned and some began to cry before she even raised her head.

Ruby sang.

What has happened down here is the winds have changed
Clouds rolled in from the north and it started to rain
Rained real hard and it rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline…

For the first time Jake understood what was about to happen. Ruby had drilled beneath the layers of revelry and good times and jazz and centuries of culture tuned to moss and stone and secret knowledge of spirits and voodoo magic. Ruby, in her altered state, had arrived at the core, at the very heart of New Orleans. She knew without knowing that something very big was coming and her name was Katrina.

Ruby sang.

Louisiana, Louisiana
They’re trying to wash us away
They’re trying to wash us away…

He understood as well that Ruby was not in immediate danger from her captor. She was drugged or stoned and her feet were not planted on solid ground but Pale Louie would not harm her. She was his prize, his treasure, his most precious possession, and he would risk his own life to protect her or to stop anyone who tried to take her from him.

The river rose all day
And the river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away alright…

By the time Ruby finished the song even the waiters were choking back tears, struggling to maintain decorum. In New Orleans, decorum must be maintained but they knew too well what was happening. They all knew. The Randy Newman song was written about the hurricane of 1927 but it might have been written in 1912, 1913, 1935, 1947, 1965, 1969 or tomorrow. Everyone knew.

Ruby composed herself, allowing her audience to regain its composure as well. She looked out across the sea of dark, barely visible faces and fixed for only a moment on Jake. A sorrow was drawn on her expression beyond anything he had seen before. She was reaching through the looking glass, swimming through the liquid green vision of an ancient brew, and trying to recall the face and the place but unable to remember anything beyond the feeling. She mouthed a song title to her piano man and he began to play.

Ruby sang.

It cost me a lot
But there’s one thing that I’ve got
It’s my man…

Cold or wet
Tired, you bet
All of this I’ll soon forget
With my man…

Jake pulled himself from a trance that threatened him with paralysis and politely asked a bartender to direct him to a restroom. He walked down a blue velvet corridor and came face to face with a familiar figure.

“We meet again,” said the Marquis.

Jake was startled but hardly surprised. He felt no fear. Whatever fears he once harbored, they were buried and transformed by his devotion and determination to his cause. The Marquis opened a curtain, revealing a stone chiseled passage that opened to the underground and led to virtually everywhere in the Quarters, extending outward like tentacles to the outer parishes.

They stepped behind the curtains before the Marquis continued.

“If you think Louie did not notice where Ruby fixed her gaze, you are a bigger fool than I am for helping you.”

Oh, my man, I love him so
He’ll never know
All my life is just a spare
But I don’t care
When he takes me in his arms
The world is bright
All right

What’s the difference if I say
I’ll go away
When I know I’ll come back
On my knees someday

For whatever my man is
I’m his forevermore

Ruby sang from the depths of her infinite soul and all of New Orleans welcomed her to its warm and loving eternal embrace.