Page 13 of Romeo
“Of course you are,” I told him. “You would have to be a cemetery buff or have gone on those Metairie tours lots of times to know about him.”
“Apparently, you have been there lots,” Romeo said as he nodded at me. “I haven’t really but I love odd history and Neversmile was super odd.”
Everyone in the room looked back and forth at us as if we were from a different planet.
“Neversmile?” Liv asked in confusion as she tilted her head.
“Si…Joe Neversmile is a part of New Orlean’s illustrious history,” Stephano interjected. Smiling at us, he nodded. “I heard about it years ago. His story got me and the man himself was someone I admire. Davvero meraviglioso…An absolute winner. The perfect gambler.”
“Until he wasn’t.” Romeo scoffed.
“I’m not sure he wasn’t,” I argued.
“He got offed in his car, Julianna,” Romeo reminded me. “I think he cheated at a card game or someone thought he had.”
“Ok, ok,” Talon exclaimed as he raised his hands up at us. “What the hell does he have to do with this?”
I looked over at him and pondered this for a minute. He was right. What did this story have to do with Deacon Walker?
“I have to agree with him,” Romeo said. “I don’t get it either. Why have the exchange there at his crypt?”
I took out my phone and said, “Just a second.” I quickly looked up the famous gambler story. “I seem to remember…” I nodded as I read over the article. “Yes…”
“Oh, I cannot wait to hear this,” Dante said.
His father Stephano agreed. “Si, si. This should be interesting to say the least.”
I stared down at my cell screen and read part of the famous story…well famous in the South, at least. “On July 21, 1924 Joseph Harrington was returning home in his shiny new Buick Roadster, purchased only ten days before, from a successful night of craps and card playing – when he was gunned down on the corner of Louisiana and Constance Street – just a couple of blocks from his house.
Harrington was found slumped over the wheel of his car while it was still running with a split lip and $1304.04, tucked away in a secret pocket on the inside of the breast of his shirt, next to his undershirt known was a “gambler’s pocket” so it wouldn’t be picked. The first line of the State’s newspaper article reporting his death was simply –They got Joe Neversmile. He was nicknamed as such for his uncanny ability to read his hand without looking up and never revealing the slightest hint with a twitch of face, or a raise of an eyebrow to the hand he held. It was also said he could make the dicebehave.”
“Bene, bene,” Stephano cut in as he looked amused. “The story always intrigued me. The man was a pure gambler if there ever was one. A charmer as well. And yes, he pulled stunts or crimes you might call them and no one knew it had been him. They say he amassed a fortune from that and not just cards. Historians agree that he might have been the slyest criminal ever to live here.”
“Until Deacon,” I corrected him.
Stephano stared at me as he seemed to get the similarities. “Oh, dios mio…”
I nodded and pointed it out, “The description is familiar, right? Neversmile sounds just like the man I watched in Glory’s video earlier. He’s a gambler, secretly a criminal and smart, though no one could ever catch him.”
“Until now,” Romeo stated smugly.
I shook my head at the irony and then read a bit more aloud from my cell screen, “Neversmile’s murder remains unsolved. But that is just one mystery to Neversmile’s death, there are more. The day after his death, Harrington was placed in a receiving vault. Bertha, his distraught widow, selected a design from Albert Weiblen for his tomb. She wanted a seated bronze female angel figure to appear to be laying a spray of roses outside on one side of the doorway of the crypt. A local judge passing on the succession of Harrington refused to approve the expenditure for the tomb, saying it was out of proportion to the assets of Neversmile’s estate. Bertha was determined and paid three thousand dollars to Weiblen all in cash – in denominations of 20s and 100s. Not that much of a mystery as to where the money came from, but she used it for her husband even after he was dead. Bertha died twenty-five years later and was buried in the tomb she built for Neversmile. On the tomb it reads:What Love Hath United, Death Cannot Separate.To this day, visitorsstill leave change on Neversmile’s tomb where the angel statue is laying the roses, in honor of the stoic gambler.”
“Interesting story but why do it this way?” Dante asked.
“I wonder about that too,” Romeo spoke up. “This V plans for us to make the trade at night, in a famous cemetery, in front of this gambler’s tomb?”
“Games,” Glory spat the word out. “She’s playing the same games Deacon plays.”
Liv nodded and looked over at me to add, “They play with people’s lives though, not with cards.”
I had to agree. But I also wondered if V knew who she really was? Or had O brainwashed her into believing she was really her daughter? I need more information. I wasn’t even sure if Deacon knew who his supposed sister was.
Chapter Five:Battleship
Romeo
“So that means we gotta play too,” Julianna said.
