GOTCHA WHERE I WANTCHA

Mama Lisa shook her head, then shook it again, but Perry could tell these were not gestures of refusal. His words had moved her—well, of course they had, they’d moved Perry, too. His question had come from a place so deep inside him that he was amazed he’d found the words to clothe it.

The woman opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything, a wail split the air of the house, sounding even above the wind and rain battering from without. The sound froze Perry in his seat.

“Mama Lisa, come quick!” This time, it was Mr. Casey raising the alarm.

A deadly calm had settled over Perry. His scalp tingled from it.

Mama Lisa rose so quickly from the table that the motion bowled her chair onto the carpet.

Perry didn’t remember getting up. He didn’t remember rushing into the living room, but he was there in time to see Mama Lisa arrive. He heard his father charging heavily down the stairs.

Perry’s mother held Brendy like a baby, shaking her gently at first, then rougher. “You hear me, baby?” she said. “Mama calling. Wake up, now. Wake up!”

Perry’s father let out a wordless shout as the power went out.

“What has happened?” Mama Lisa asked.

“She won’t wake up,” Mr. Casey said. His voice cut through the gloom from somewhere to Perry’s left. “She just— I don’t know. She’s not dead, but Trouble Compass says she’s not here.”

“E-nough!” Mama Lisa bellowed, and light bloomed back into the room.

At first Perry thought the power had cut back on, but it hadn’t. The light issued from a halo surrounding his grandmother.

“What effrontery!” she barked. “What gall! You dare enter this blessed place to bedevil my family?”

“Who you talking to?” Perry’s father asked. He looked at Perry. “Who she talking to?”

Perry shook his head. “Grandma. Mama Lisa. No one came in. Brendy left. She left without me.”

The adults all turned to stare at him.

“It’s true,” he said. “Check her hands and pockets. I bet you her rock is gone.”

Perry’s mother reached down to feel Brendy’s right hand, then shifted her grip on the girl to check the other, then went into Brendy’s dress pockets. “Empty,” she croaked. “Nothing.”

“She’d never leave it behind,” Perry said. “She’s gone after Peaches or Daddy Deke, or both.”

“Why would she do that?” Mama Lisa’s voice was close to breaking. “Why would she be so foolish?”

“She’s not foolish,” Perry said calmly. “She’s a soldier and this is war.”

“Soldier or not, we gotta get her back,” Mr. Casey said. “Trouble Compass will take us to her.”

“We can’t follow with our bodies.” Perry locked eyes with Mama Lisa. “This is a spirit war. Bodies will only slow us down. I need the weapon.”

“The fact that you think of it that way…” Mama Lisa began.

Perry just watched her.

“It’s… it’s called the Elysian Trumpet. Buddy Bolden built it when he first began to suspect he was going mad. No madman should ever wield power like his, so he placed most of his magic in the trumpet and hid it at the Colored Waifs Home in City Park where Louis found it. He gave part of it to your grandfather instead of turning it over to the Powers.”

A wave of weightless relief almost made Perry’s knees give way. “Thank you,” he said.

“Its power is immense, and it could only have grown by now. To blow one note on it, let alone a scale… to make music on it would be impossible.”

“It contacted me,” Perry said.

“What?”

“On the way from Peaches’s house. It touched me when I reached into the sack. I think it wants to help.”

“Help who?” Perry’s father asked.

“What do you mean?” Perry asked.

“Does it want to help us or the Storm?”

“We fight for the city,” Perry said. “It knows who I am.”

“It might do, little man,” Mr. Casey said, “but this fight has gotten outta hand. Sometimes when two sides fighting over something, there’s only one thing to do…” He trailed off.

“Take it from both,” Perry’s mother said. “‘If y’all can’t act right, nobody gets it.’ You think that’s what the horn thinks?”

Perry didn’t like the sound of that, but he had to admit the possibility to himself. Still, there was no way he could let his baby sister charge into battle without him.

“It has another name,” Mama Lisa said, and her voice was full of menace. “The Horn of Unmaking.”

Perry swallowed. Now was the time for action, not thought. With great effort, he stilled his mind. Quietly, he slid the Clackin’ Sack from his jeans pocket. “Perilous Antoine Graves…” he whispered.

“How can we know?” Perry’s father asked.

“… Clickety-clack…” Perry hoped speaking at full volume wouldn’t interrupt the incantation, but somehow he felt it would work just fine. “Only one way to find out,” he said. “I’m gone ask it… Get into my sack!”

The living room disappeared, and the adults with it.

“Who car this is, anyway?” Brendy asked.

DON’T KNOW, Stagger Lee said. DON’T MATTER NOHOW.

“It matter if we stealing it,” she said. “Stealing is stealing.”

The car was a beat-up gold Chevy. Its tires were slightly flat, and its paint job had rubbed raw in places, like patches of mange on a dog. A faded American flag decal was stuck to the left rear window. It too was peeling, its colors leached by time and sunlight until it seemed more sarcastic than patriotic. The backseat was littered with odds and ends of a forgotten life—trinkets from fast food meals, sheaves of paper, and a tattered graduation robe from NOLA U.

Stag and Brendy had left the black stairwell and found the old car parked neatly in front of the building, beaten by rain, floodwater up to its undercarriage.

AIN’T STEALING NOTHING, Stag said. ALL I NEED A RADIO OR SOME MUSIC.

The Chevy’s interior smelled like a gym shoe. The khaki-colored upholstery must have gotten wet and molded over long ago. Stag wondered whether the car would run if he needed it to.

But they didn’t need it to.

GIT ON IN, he said. WE GONE BE WHERE WE BE DIRECTLY.

“By Daddy Deke?”

THASS RIGHT.

“But don’t you be double-crossin’ me now, Gun Man,” Brendy said. “I know I’m little, but I can fight. I won’t be locked up.”

YA AIN’T GOTTA WOOF AT ME, Stag said. GIT ON IN.

The little girl sniffed, nose in the air, but did as he directed. Watching her, the gangster had to suppress a smile, and the feeling of it was as strange and painful as a snootful of bees.

Stagger Lee went around and got in the driver’s seat. He glared at the radio with its broken knobs and WWOZ flared to life.

“Y’all,” the DJ said. “Y’all. It’s bad out there. Wind and rain, and weird-ass lights in the sky? People, Animals, sky trolleys up and disappeared, and now the power out all over town? Turmoil and trouble, baby. But here’s some good old barrelhouse piano if ya can hear me a tall. Champion Jack Dupree. Stay inside. Stay safe. One way or another, all this be over soon…”

The music began with an eddy of keystrokes, and that was all Stagger Lee needed.

He took the little girl’s ghostly hand, and straightaway, they’d left the Chevy behind to materialize inside a Packard not far from the Department of Streets.

Now that they were close, Stagger Lee wasn’t sure of his next move. He could have taken them straight to the ballroom, but there was no telling where Yakumo was, and Stag didn’t want to force a confrontation before he could reunite the girl with her granddaddy.

If he was done murdering songs—and that did seem to be the case—and he had defied Yakumo’s direct order to kill this little girl and her friends, what was he after? What did he want? Well, he didn’t want to go back inside that damb piano. It was worse than prison.

Stagger Lee remembered lying on a cot, then maybe a hospital bed, his strength stolen, his vision dimming.

None of that would matter if Yakumo enacted his plan to destroy Nola and set them both free. Freedom appealed to Stag, he supposed, but the prospect didn’t thrill him like the pursuit of prey, or the snuffing of life. Yes, this would be an opportunity to snuff many, many lives, all at once, but perhaps it was the fact that the deaths would be incidental—a side effect of the city’s destruction—that made killing on such a scale disinterest him.

No, what drove Stagger Lee was the sense that somewhere, in some other, forgotten time, he had been monstrously wronged, and that everyone and everything must pay for that injustice. If everyone were to die, who would answer for that crime? Besides, these memories that kept bubbling into his mind made Stagger Lee suspect there was something, some piece of information, that Yakumo had withheld from him.

Yakumo had hinted that the old man, Daddy Deke, possessed some special knowledge, some key to their freedom… So, what if giving the old man something he wanted could convince him to tell Stagger Lee and not Yakumo?

Stag was no expert in bargaining or interrogation, but without recognizing the feeling, he had begun to feel desperate. He might as well give this idea a shot. Besides: if his gambit failed, there was always the option of murdering everyone he could find until his mood improved.

Stag got out the car to retrieve Brendy—the Little Girl, he corrected himself. He might not be looking to kill her just now, but thinking of her by her right name seemed dangerously soft. Her identity mattered only relative to Stag’s own, and that was as it should be.

He lifted her onto the driest part of the sidewalk and watched for a beat as muddy water ran through her ghostly patent-leather shoes.

COME ON, he said. HE THISAWAY.

“Hey, Mistuh Man,” the girl said. “You wanna hear a funny joke?”

NAW.

“Well, I’ma tell you anyways cuz I don’t like this wind and rain. I was only axin’ you to be polite. So.” She took a breath. “One time, there was this girl named Brendy, but she wasn’t me, and she lived in a house like my house, but she still wasn’t me, and her friend Moriah said to her one day, ‘You know what? There’s a hainted house on our block with a haint in it, and you know how I know?’”

HOW YOU KNOW?

“Not me. Moriah.”

HOW MORIAH KNOW?

“Moriah said, ‘I was walkin by at midnight last night, and I heard a terrible voice say, I GOTCHA WHERE I WANTS YA, AND NOW I’M GONNA EATS YA! And I ran all the way home!’ And I said—”

I THOUGHT BRENDY WA’ANT YOU.

“She ain’t. Don’t interrupt. So Brendy said, ‘Girl, you don’t know nothin’ bout haints. I bet that wa’ant no haint anyhow,’ and Moriah said, ‘Yuh-HUHH!’ So I waited till midnight, and I went out to see, and right when I got to the house, something said, I GOTCHA WHERE I WANTCHYA, AND NOW I’M GONNA EATCHA!’ And I was like, ‘Whaaaaaaaat?!’

“So I went in the house. (The porch was all nasty and rotten.)

“And I went up the stairs. (The stairs was all dusty, and I was coughing.)

“And right at the top of the stairs, there was a creaky ole door fulla spiders, and riiiiiiiiight before I touched it, I heard it again! (I GOT YA WHERE I WANT YA, AND NOW I’M GONNA EATCHYAAAAAAAAAH!)”

Brendy’s voice dropped to a whisper. “… And I opened the door reeeeeeeeeal slow. And you know what I seen?”

“What?” Stagger Lee asked. “What you seen?”

Brendy stood on her tiptoes for the punchline. “It was a monkey talkin’ to a bananaaaaaaaaah!”

Stagger Lee’s laugh was as loud, as flat, as profane as a gunshot.

“Girl, you too much,” he said aloud. He paused for a beat as Brendy beamed up at him, then lifted his prized purple Stetson from his head and put it on hers.

This time, there was no darkness or falling. Instead, Perry found himself standing on a city street in broad daylight. It was hotter than hot out and humid besides—the kind of day that made thermometers scream. He wished he’d worn shorts instead of jeans, but he’d had no idea he’d wind up leaving home this way.

A quick glance around told Perry that he stood outside the McDonald’s on Saint Bernard Avenue.

A mechanical hiss caught Perry’s attention. He looked up in search of a sky trolley, but there was none. Instead, a big purple-and-white bus with tinted windows squatted at the corner by the traffic signal to disgorge a stream of passengers. Perry had read about city buses, but he’d never seen one. So big.

He didn’t have time to tease out the riddle of this bizarre not-Nola. He was here on pressing business. He squared his shoulders, then pushed his way into the restaurant.

A roar of conversation greeted him. Old folks, men and women, Black, Hispanic, Asian, white—but mostly Black—filled every table. They sipped coffee or cold drinks, read the newspaper, played dominoes, bid whist, and spades, all of them wrapped in that McDonald’s not-quite-food smell of hot grease and almost-meat.

The fact that everyone seemed in good spirits, that nobody was arguing or cussing anyone out, made Perry want to stand right where he was and just let the scene wash over him.

He scanned the room, wondering as he did whether anyone would push inside behind him, grumble at him to make way. Then he saw it. One empty chair opposite a booth where Jailbird Stomp played checkers with a white-haired old man Perry didn’t recognize.

Perry made his way across the restaurant’s linoleum floor and sat down opposite the song.

“Look who it is,” Jailbird said with a grin. His gold teeth glinted in the light, and his suit still looked slept-in. His squashed-up hat had slid back on his head, revealing his wooly, salt-and-pepper ’fro. “Savin’ Man hisself. Answer to mah prayers. Y’all don’t even know. I said, ‘Save me, Jesus, hide me, Lawd, O God,’ and Youngin here stepped right up and spirited me away!”

It took Perry a second to realize Jailbird wasn’t mocking or complaining. Still, Perry didn’t think it wise for anyone to know who he was or what he could do. He squinted a little, shook his head slightly, and Jailbird clammed right up.

“I’m just here to talk to somebody,” Perry said.

“Somebody who?” Jailbird’s friend asked.

“I think he’s an instrument,” Perry said. “A horn.”

“Baby, we all instruments,” Jailbird’s friend said with an exaggerated wink.

“Well, not all all,” Jailbird said under his breath.

“Hey, now!” someone shouted elsewhere in the dining room. “Sing!”

Perry turned in his seat to see a sixtyish man in blue velour track pants and a white tank top standing in the center of the room. He was bald, and he wore a constellation of jewelry on his hands and around his neck.

“Whatchall wanna hear today?” asked the man. “Y’all wanna hear some rock’n’roll? Some Johnnie Taylor?”

“NO!” the crowd answered in unison.

“Y’all wanna hear some blues? Some Muddy Waters?”

“NO!”

“Y’all wanna hear some Juvenile? Some ‘Back That Thang Up?’”

“NO!”

“Well, thass all right then, baby. Cuz you know, I can’t sang just anything, ya heard me? You know, I can’t do the thangs I used to done, ya feel me?”

“Yeah!” someone shouted.

“Praise Him!”

“Hallelujah!”

“I just can’t sang like I usedta done since Go-o-o-o-o-od done brought me through, now!” He was already half singing. “Because you know I been changed!”

The crowd erupted. A tingle stole through Perry’s body. He almost knew what was coming next. Almost, but not quite.

The old man crossed his wrists behind his back and pushed out his chest as he began the song.

Oh, I know I been changed

I-III know I been changed

I-III know I been changed

’Cause the angels in heaven done signed my name

Well, the angels in heaven done signed my name!

The old man’s voice was rough, but its power wasn’t entirely raw. It sounded weary but bright, full of longing and compassion. Perry remembered the feel of his hand in Daddy Deke’s as they walked in City Park. He remembered kissing Brendy’s skinned knee, telling her she’d got the run, and in kickball, that was all that mattered. He fought back tears for as long as he could—three seconds, maybe four. He remembered his father telling him, It’s not true that men don’t cry. To cry isn’t weak. Gangsters and hoods don’t cry because they’re not strong enough to remember how.

Perry remembered the last day of school. When he looked back, he barely recognized himself, arguing with Mickey Ledoux, watching The Phantom Tollbooth for the umpteenth time… He thought of the Family Circus cartoons in the Times-Picayune. How they’d chart Jeffy’s progress through his neighborhood with tracks of black footprints. Perry had left his former self so far behind that he imagined maps of his earlier days marked up the same way. Every photo of him ever taken was of someone who had ceased to be.

And I’m gone now, he thought. I’m not even in the world. And it’s fine. This is what I do.

Two horses standing side by side

When death rides down and cracks the sky

I been changed I been changed I know I been changed!

Perry slid from his seat to stand on the tile floor, legs planted like a gunslinger, as the old man wailed the last note. He’d been terrified of the sack when he first received it, and on some level, he was terrified still. The fear in him was no longer a hindrance, it was an understanding of power. A respect for the responsibility it entailed. Was it the sack that had changed him, or had Perry changed in order to use it? He had ventured inside it willingly this time. His quest was desperate, but it was his quest. He’d formed the plan himself and acted.

The crowd whooped and hollered, filling the restaurant with their approval. Perry couldn’t remember whether he’d already wiped the tears from his face. He didn’t care. He waited for the crowd to settle down.

“Mr. Horn!” he called.

“Who askin’?” the old man said.

“My name is Perilous Antoine Graves. Do you know who I am and what I’m about?”

The old man looked Perry up and down. He smiled a little, nodded. “I believe I do. You think you got what it takes?”

“I have no idea,” Perry said. The steel had gone out of his voice, but bluffing didn’t seem the thing to do. “If it can be done, I’ll do it.”

“There anything you want to ask me before we go?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” Perry said. “I don’t even know what I don’t know. How…? How do I make music?”

“That’s the easy part,” Mr. Horn said. “You don’t make music, you ax it to come on through. And don’t try to out-blow your bandmates, ya dig? You give them a little something, they give you a little something, and together, y’all make something new.”

“I think… I think I know what you mean.”

Perry looked around the room. Everyone seemed to hang on his words, waiting for what he’d say next. They seemed just as rapt now as they’d been for Mr. Horn’s song. Perry thought he should say something to them.

“This place is wonderful,” he said. “You’re wonderful. I love you, but we got work.”

The crowd cheered.

“Perilous Graves, Elysian Trumpet… Clickety-clack, get outta my sack!”

Peaches sipped short breaths as she moved through the darkness. At the bottom of the stairwell, she made it out—or did the darkness withdraw, leaving her alone? Without realizing it, she took a deeper, settling breath and took in her surroundings. This didn’t look like the Department of Streets at all, but buildings worked differently on the Dead Side of Town, so maybe wherever she was now was connected to her destination.

The concrete floor was water-spotted from floods, and the bare cinder block walls made her think of some sort of Haint School. She was fine with haints, for the most part, but Peaches hated school. She wrinkled her nose, not just at the idea of sitting still while some grown-up tried to tell her and a bunch of other kids what to do and what to think, but from the smell. It smelled wet and swampy, but also like mothballs and the skeletons of small, dead animals.

Peaches cocked her head to the left as if listening for something, but she was smelling instead. Was that…? It was. Daddy Deke’s cologne. Just the barest hint of it, as if it had fallen off his body somehow. Head still cocked, Peaches stole carefully down the hall. She didn’t smell anybody else, but haints and criminals didn’t always smell the way she expected them to, so it was better safe than sorry.

At the next corner of the corridor, Peaches stopped and balled her fists, not even breathing. Something about this didn’t seem right. Would whoever had taken Daddy Deke let Peaches just waltz in and collect him back, like picking him off a shelf at Family Dollar? Why wasn’t he hidden? Why wasn’t he under guard?

The old man’s scent was stronger now, and there was a little more of Daddy Deke in it. There were some other, uglier smells, but those abounded, so she thought little of it. She took another step, and a familiar voice rang out.

DAMB IT! WHAT YOU DONE?! THE HELL WAS YOU THINKING?!

Peaches broke into a run.