All the Devil's Creatures by J.D. Barnett Page B

Pierre back. Lost his house in the storm—been staying by his daughter in Westwego.”
    Geoff swirled the last of his wine in the candle light and ordered a glass of port. He savored it as Marisol sipped chicory coffee and the old man played an extended medley of tunes in the rolling New Orleans piano professor style before diverging with grace into spare, modern improvisations of a series of standards—
All the Things You Are
,
Tenderly
,
On Green Dolphin Street
. Geoff lost all sense of time or space—he saw only the candle flame dancing in time with the music, glistening through the ruby wine and felt the familiar, blissful feeling of the world floating away.
    •
     
    They walked into the bar just after midnight as the band started up its first set. Geoff picked out T-Jacques on the trombone. He was fit and handsome. His close cropped hair had a sharp side part, and he wore a narrow dark suit with narrow lapels and a narrow dark tie. He was smoking a cigarette on stage, puffing between solos. He looked like 1962.
    Geoff stumbled and nearly missed his bar stool. He caught Marisol’s sideways glance and ordered whiskey. She had an Irish coffee. The band played jazz infused with New Orleans funk while hipster kids danced in Depression-era getups. As if they danced for all their life to forget the shattered world outside.
    When the set ended, Geoff waved to T-Jacques, who nodded back. T-Jacques put his trombone into its case and as he stood up he put his arm around the shoulder of one of his band mates and said something into his ear. Then he walked over to the bar and faced Geoff. He didn’t sit down.
    “I guess you’re Waltz. Who’s that?” He didn’t look at Marisol, just twitched his head slightly in her direction.
    “Marisol Solis. She works for me. She’s okay.”
    “Alright.” T-Jacques spoke with the smooth melodious diction of Creole New Orleans. “We’re going to the back bar where we can hear ourselves. It’s a little more private. You can take your drinks.”
    They disembarked from their bar stools, Geoff taking his tumbler with its yellowish ice cubes, Marisol leaving her empty mug on the bar. They followed T-Jacques through a doorway behind the bar, down a narrow hall to a small room of classic old world decadence in sharp contrast to the bright, airy dance floor of the main room. The walls were a deep green over cream-colored wainscoting bearing ancient water spots. Gilded lamps with cracked, silk shades sitting on oak table tops dimly lit the room. Two overstuffed velour sofas—one deep purple, the other gold—and matching armchairs provided seating. In one corner stood a small bar with a half dozen stools. Geoff didn’t see a bartender, but two men in suits and hats were sitting at the bar smoking cigarettes and drinking cocktails. Before them lay a clarinet in an open case, which the men appeared to be discussing in soft tones.
    T-Jacques gestured to one of the sofas and Geoff and Marisol sat down. Then he walked to the bar and refreshed Geoff’s drink and took some rum for himself. The two men at the bar nodded and T-Jacques nodded back. Then, settling into an armchair near Geoff, he said, “After the break, our trumpet man will go up and play some solo numbers, sing a little. So, we have time. But first—” He reached into his breast pocket then handed Geoff the flash drive. Geoff put the thing deep in a pocket of his jeans.
    “Dalia said, ‘if anything happens to me, get this to Geoff Waltz.’ You follow what’s on there. Think y’all can handle that?”
    “Sure,” Marisol said. “That’s my job.”
    “Alright.”
    Geoff said, “What else did Dalia say, T-Jacques? About what she’d found.”
    “That she was scared. That there was bad shit going on at the lake. That it involved Robert Duchamp.” He spat the name.
    Marisol said, “Duchamp? The congressman?”
    “Ex-congressman,” Geoff said. “The refinery’s in his old district. But T-Jacques, what the hell could