“I need to find Curtis,” I said.

“Peckerwood Curtis?” he asked, laughing.

“Is he out?”

“Yeah, got out a few months back. Went back to Stella, too.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

He nodded. I took a small sip of the blueberry margarita and pushed it away.

“You seen him around?”

“Puttin’ in some floors at some new bar on Decatur,” he said. “You know that place that used to be a coffee-house where them vampire people hung out?”

“Thanks.” I got up to leave and shook his hand again.

There was a long mirror behind the daiquiri machines framed in some dripping red chili pepper lights. I watched us – even as I continued to talk – and noticed the fine line of gray on the back of Felix’s normally smooth head. To me, he’d always been ageless, between forty and seventy. I’d never asked. Watching our reflections, I was jarred with a memory of when I was nine and at Disney World with my parents. It was the Haunted House, the end of the ride, and there was a trick mirror when you didn’t see who was sitting with you, only the ghosts who’d stowed away.

“You tell Loretta hello,” he said. “Would you do that?”

I told him I would.

7

The French Quarter is a shiftless little town. People gain and lose jobs the way some change underwear. You may be working as a bouncer at a club on Decatur one week and the next you find yourself as cook at a four-star restaurant on Bienville. Addresses don’t mean much. Most people just crash, always looking for the cheapest housing where you won’t be too worried about getting jacked every night. I needed to find a buddy of mine named Curtis Lee. Curtis, as I learned from Felix, had been out of Angola for at least six months and had gone straight. Again. Either it was religion or AA; Curtis always found the latest salvation. After one short stint in the Jefferson Parish Jail – this for pissing on the sheriff’s boots during Mardi Gras – he told me he wanted to become a monk and spent months at JoJo’s reading prayer books.