New Orleans Noir

plank bar and some tables and chairs, not all of them matching. A ceiling fan creaked overhead and the floor was spread with dunes of sawdust that had gone dark with tobacco juice and spilled whiskey. The windows were open on two sides so the breezes off the river could carry away some of the smell. There was a trough in back that served as a toilet. It would take a hurricane to blow that stench away.
    A Negro boy who was standing watch opened the door for Valentin, who tossed him a nickel and stepped over the threshold. Two working men leaned their elbows on the near end of the bar. Valentin stepped up and asked for Mr. Roy. The bartender, a tall and lank mulatto, pointed a finger toward the back of the room.
    Settled behind the wooden table in the corner was Mr. Roy, a hugely fat man with broad African features and skin a mottled brown, as if he was suffering from some odd ailment. His hair was woolly and the whites of his eyes were a deep yellow, matching his large teeth. He wheezed on every breath and his body and clothes reeked of sweat.
    Valentin had never seen him before and didn’t know if he was a lawman, a criminal, or a nobody. Valentin didn’t know much of anything, other than the fact that Anderson, “The King of Storyville,” owed the owner of this rundown establishment a debt, and that Valentin was there to pay it off.
    He took a seat across the table from Mr. Roy, who gasped lightly though his mouth as he regarded his visitor. The mulatto came creeping from behind the bar with a bottle and a clean glass, then made a quick retreat—making Valentin wonder if his reputation had arrived there ahead of him.
    There was no point in exchanging niceties, so Mr. Roy got right to the point.
    “The fellow’s name is Eddie McTier,” he said, heaving like a tugboat. “He’s a guitar player and a gambler out of Georgia. He been in near every night. He busts in on every game, then cheats and takes all the money. Then he lies to cover it. When that don’t work, he starts talking that he’s fixing to pull his pistol. He must have took fifty dollars off my customers over here. Now no one wants to come around no more.”
    Valentin was noncommittal. He recognized the type, one of an army of tramps who preyed in places like Algiers, within spitting distance of New Orleans, where he wouldn’t last a minute. That he was a guitar player signified nothing.
    “Why don’t you just put him out?” he inquired.
    “I tried that,” Mr. Roy huffed. “He just laughed in my face and spit on the floor, and then come right back in the next night. He says he ain’t broke no law, and so he has a right. He also say he be carryin’ some voodoo, ’count of playin’ the blues and all, and so nobody want to cross him. Anyway, the gentleman owns the property wants him out for good. He’s ruining business.”
    For a moment, Valentin thought Mr. Roy was making a joke. What business would that be? But the fat man’s face was grave.
    Valentin had seen this gambit before. If a fellow talked tough or bragged on his voodoo enough, people who should know better fall for the act. This McTier had everyone in the place believing he was a bad actor who wasn’t going anywhere until he was good and ready.
    Valentin poured an inch of whiskey in his glass and drank it down. “What time does he come around?”
    “Soon as the sun goes down. So any time now.”
    Valentin picked up the bottle and the glass and nodded in the direction of the table in the other corner. “I’ll sit over there. He and I’ll play some cards. See if he tries to cheat on me.”
    “Oh, he will,” Mr. Roy said.
    “Then I’ll have reason to put him out.”
    The fat man pursed his heavy lips. “Don’t go gettin’ yourself kilt over here.”
    “Don’t plan to,” Valentin said. “But if anything starts, you make sure everybody stays the hell out of the way.”
    He got up and moved to the table, so that he was for the moment hidden in shadow to everyone except the bartender and Mr. Roy, and only because they knew he was there. He drank one more short glass of whiskey. It was hot, and he wanted his wits about him.
    Some minutes passed as the sun went all the way down over the river. Valentin let his thoughts wander until the boy who was standing guard stepped inside, rolled his eyes a certain way, then faded into the woodwork. Valentin smiled; the kid would himself make a decent rounder one day.
    He heard Eddie McTier before he saw him. The windows were