Page 243 of Fearless

“I don’t mind.” It would be nice to stretch her legs after having been cooped up in the cottage. And there was so much to see, so much rich detail dripping from every eave and doorframe, that it wouldn’t be a boring walk.

She bumped his arm with her shoulder. “You can be my tour guide some more.”

From the Café, they set off down the Rue Ste. Anne. He pointed out Jackson Square – they stopped to gaze at it a long moment, along with the St. Louis Cathedral. The dramatic white steeple was something out of a fairytale. Then they moved along, with other slow-walking tourists, Mercy offering up what he knew of the history. Their way was paved with second-floor balconies heaped with ferns, brightly painted shutters, intricate gingerbread in every nook and crevice of every façade.

They were passing in front of the Inn on St. Ann when Mercy said, quietly, “I should tell you some things about Dee before we get there. So you’re ready for her.”

Ava hugged his arm between her breasts and leaned into him as they walked. “You make it sound like I ought to be afraid.”

“You should be.”

She stroked the soft skin on the inside of his bicep, rested her cheek against the hard outside of it. “I can handle scary things,” she encouraged. Then, tipping a smile up to him: “I handle you alright, don’t I?”

He looked like he couldn’t help but smile back. “Yeah. You know you do.” He heaved a deep sigh and let them drift closer to the inside of the sidewalk, where their slow progress wouldn’t annoy other pedestrians.

“It’s like this,” he said, putting on that storyteller voice she loved, the Cajun accent burgeoning, coloring his words in a way that splashed them across her mind. He should take up writing, she decided. He would be a natural.

“Storyville was The District – the red light district – up until 1917. The brothels were all closed up, but you know how that sort of thing works. They didn’t go away; they went underground. They demolished Storyville completely in the 30s to make room for public housing. Officially, there’s no more whorehouses in New Orleans.

“Unofficially, there are still hookers, and there are still madams. My mother’s one of them.

“There used to be this house on Burgundy Street. A yellow house with black shutters and black iron on the porches. Everybody called it Dawn House. It was just a house, owned by Miss Leanne, and she rented rooms to girls who needed a place to stay. But everybody who knew anything knew Miss Leanne was a madam, and her girls were the expensive kind.

“Dee was one of her girls when Daddy met her. I still don’t know why he went there, ‘stead of trying to find a sweet girl who wanted to marry him. Maybe it was the blonde hair. Maybe it was just that she was good at what she did. Whatever. I don’t want to know. But she eventually said ‘yes’ when he asked her to marry him, and she moved out of Dawn House to go live with him.

“She thought he had money, I guess, and that was where the first problems started. She hated being drug out into the swamp. My earliest memory in life is of her bitching about the heat and the mosquitos and the noise the gators made at night. She couldn’t cook worth a shit” –

Ava felt her stomach tighten.

– “and she wasn’t sweet, and she was awful to Gram. It was a good riddance, really, when she left him. But Daddy was heartbroken. He loved her.”

They looked both ways and walked across the cross street.

Mercy sighed and said, “Dee went back to hooking. She eventually started collecting girls of her own, but she never had a place like Dawn House. She’s got a little semi-detached up ahead here, and she used the spare bedroom some, from what I hear, but mostly she sent her girls out to meet the johns at the hotels.

“And now,” he said with an air of finality, “she’s got AIDS and she’s dying.” He shot her a wry half-smile. “And I don’t even care. How’s that for fucked up?”

She didn’t know what to say. This felt like one of those moments when she shouldn’t say anything, simply exist as his partner. “Well,” she said, “I can’t cook worth a shit either.”

His smile widened, and his voice gentled. “Oh, baby, don’t you dare compare yourself. Don’t compliment her like that.”

She kissed his arm and stroked it with her fingers. Sweet boy.

The closer they drew to Dee’s house, the heavier Mercy’s steps became, and the more he seemed to be leaning against her, rather than the other way around. Finally, they reached an adorable white semi-detached, its stacked stoop right there on the sidewalk. The shutters and intricate front door were a powder blue. The eave support bracers were ornate, lace-like gingerbread, as was the doorframe, the edging of the glass inset of the door. Brass house numbers on a black plaque. Potted aloe plants on the steps. A wreath wrapped in colored nylon scarves in peach and yellow and the same powder blue as the door. It was a narrow little bungalow, the front façade spotless, one of many just like it painted in candied shades all down this stretch of St. Ann, cars wedged in tight along the length of the curb.

“It’s very cute,” Ava commented.

Mercy wrapped a strong arm around her and hugged her tight to his side a moment. “I love you,” he said, his eyes on the door, his voice a breath of sound, like he was saying some final prayer.

Then he glanced at her. “Pull me outta there,” he said, “if I start to get…” He made a face. “If you think I’ll do something…stupid.”

If he got violent, he meant. This great big man who treated her like a china doll, who kissed her mother, who’d sat watch by her bedside when she was only eight, and he’d been her best friend, was actually afraid he’d lose his head and become violent.

Looking in his eyes, she believed him. And she believed in her own ability to pull him back from the brink. She flashed back to five years ago, in Hamilton House, when she’d been the one to back him off of Mason. Not even her father could claim that kind of influence over him.

She nodded. “I will. I promise.”

He rang the bell.

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