New Orleans Noir

sinners.”
    Hannibal’s eyes widened. “Do you think he’ll go?”
    “He will if he wants the four hundred and fifty thousand dollars in Spanish gold I said was buried there.”
    “Considering the amount of money he’ll have to borrow to finance an expedition,” mused Hannibal, “and the time it will take, and the gnawing anxiety of knowing there’s a treasure just waiting for him …”
    “If he’s willing to seek it,” said January gently. “Which we know, from his actions, that he is. Where your treasure is —wholly imaginary, in this case— there shall your heart be also … and for Mr. Porter, almost certainly his fever-ridden bones as well.”
    Hannibal paused, his hand on the rungs of the ladder. “For such a thoroughly nice man, Ben, you can be a complete son of a bitch.”
    “Thank you,” said January. “I have my moments. Now let’s start writing those letters to the banks, and see how much of the real treasure is left to collect.”

MUDDY POND
    BY MAUREEN TAN
    Village de l’Est
    O n the Wednesday after the levee failed and flooded New Orleans East, sixty-eight-year-old Sonny Vien waded into chest-deep water to rescue the Virgin Mary.
    The two-foot-tall statue was at the far corner of the house, near where the front yard met the side yard. It was sheltered by a stone grotto that Sonny had built and surrounded by a garden that his wife, Tam, had planted. Climbing red roses framed the grotto and tiny white flowers formed a carpet at the Virgin’s feet. In a perfect blending of New Orleans tradition and Vietnamese-Catholic belief, they had positioned the grotto so that the Virgin’s back was to the house while her delicate Asian features and outstretched arms were directed toward the not-too-distant levee.
    For thirty years, the blue paint of the statue’s gown had faded, the brass cross at the grotto’s peak had weathered, and the garden had flourished. For all that time, the sainted Virgin—not the statue, but the mother of Jesus it represented—had remained vigilant, holding back the dangerous water of the canal and protecting the snug white house on Calais Street.
    And then the Virgin failed, Sonny thought bitterly as he navigated through the foul water toward the cross that was now the only thing marking the location of the grotto. She’d failed to protect Tam from the cancer that so unexpectedly took her life. Then she’d failed to protect the house—to protect Village de l’Est and, in fact, the whole of New Orleans—from the catastrophe that was Hurricane Katrina.
    If it had been up to him, the statue would have remained where it was. Failed and submerged. But Tam would have judged that a sacrilege. And with her less than six months in the grave, Sonny’s actions were most often guided by what he thought she would have wanted. That was why he’d ignored Mayor Nagin’s evacuation order and ridden out the hurricane rather than leaving their three Siamese cats to fend for themselves. And that was why he had left behind the security of his windowless second-floor attic.
    Wearing the same worn T-shirt and faded khaki shorts he’d had on when he’d first retreated from the flood, Sonny had gone back downstairs. He’d already ventured into the flooded first floor several times before, intent on retrieving a few more photos, gathering a little more food, fetching a couple more blankets. So as he’d waded once again through the knee-deep water, he averted his eyes from the sight of his favorite chair soaked beyond repair, looked quickly past the darkly stained wallpaper curling away from the walls, tried not to think about the rugs beneath his feet. But he couldn’t ignore the smell—the odor of rotting food, wet paper, decomposing wood, and mildew that the stagnant water seemed to bind together.
    The smell had followed him as he pushed open the water-swollen side door, then stepped onto a tiny porch. As he made his way gingerly down a trio of steps linking the porch to the driveway, a Vietnamese proverb sprang, unbidden, into his mind. He spoke it aloud before leaving the last step, tipping his head as he listened to the way the flowing syllables of his native tongue echoed off the unnatural silence beyond his kitchen door. A silence that—at least today—had been unbroken except for birdsong and the occasional racket of low-flying helicopters.
    “An co di truoc. Loi nuoc theo sau .” (“When having a party, go first. When walking in the water, go