Chapter Forty-five
Following Mr. Chang’s directions, Red Ryan and Hannah Huckabee found the alley where John Latimer had been abducted. On both sides were apartment blocks, but knocking on doors turned up nothing. No one had seen or heard anything, and the usual advice was, “Go talk to the police and stop bothering folks.”
“So where do we go from here?” Hannah said. She wore a brown afternoon dress with white collar and cuffs and a defeated expression.
“Beats me,” Red said. “Buttons was right, I can’t pick up any tracks.” He smacked his lips. “My mouth tastes like it’s full of dry mud. Let’s go get a drink.”
“We could talk to the police, I suppose,” Hannah said, as though she hadn’t heard.
“Yeah, we could,” Red said.
“But you don’t think it would do much good.”
“A big-city police department? They probably investigate scores of crimes every day, and like you yourself said, the kidnapping of a grown man, and a visiting Englishman at that, would be far down on their list of priorities.”
“Red, do you think John is still alive?” Hannah said.
“I don’t know, Hannah. I really don’t know. I can’t even guess.”
“I think Brack Cooley means to kill him.”
“Or those officers you spoke about do.”
“I’m sure they hate him.”
“Well, that’s a pretty good reason to kill somebody.”
“If you kidnapped someone off the street, where would you hide him?” Hannah said.
“In New Orleans? Ask a native and they’ll probably give you a thousand different places,” Red said.
“We’re close to the business district, Red. Wouldn’t that be an obvious place, among all those offices and warehouses?”
“Obvious to you, fairly obvious to me, but was it obvious to Brack Cooley?”
“I don’t know, but let’s take a look around the place.”
“Hannah, that’s a heap of ground to cover in this heat,” Red said. “And I need a beer, and my mouth needs a beer.”
“There will be time enough for beer after we make a search,” Hannah said. “Just put one foot ahead of the other and follow me.”
“It’s a wild-goose chase, Hannah.”
“Perhaps, but John Latimer’s life is at stake, so it’s worth a try.”
Red’s sigh came all the way up from his toes. “All right, lady. Lead the way. I swear, if I run into Brack Cooley I’m going to—”
“Hang him up by his heels ,” Hannah said.
Red managed a smile. “Yeah, something like that.”
* * *
Commerce in nineteenth-century New Orleans began and ended with the Mississippi River. Planters needed access to the water to move raw goods like cotton, indigo, and sugarcane to the port. The merchants and shippers constructed wharves and warehouses on the river, and industrialists built businesses to support them, including metal foundries, rope makers, and victualers. Thus, the business district had many layers, and as Red and Hannah walked from the river in the direction of Lake Pontchartrain, they passed first warehouses, then factories and plants, and finally two- and three-story office buildings.
They saw no sign of John Latimer and at least a hundred places where he could be hidden.
The district was crowded with workers from brawny laborers to men in ditto suits and celluloid collars, as well as many silent, usually overburdened Chinese. Goods wagons crowded the clamoring streets, and the constant noise from the factories provided a clanging, clanking, steam-hissing background.
It was unfortunate for Red and Hannah that they overlooked a narrow alley between two corrugated iron warehouses that ended with a dilapidated timber building dating back to the 1850s with a faded sign above its double doors that read:
SLAVES
AT AUCTION
Jas. Beck, Prop.
As it was, as the day faded into evening, the disappointed pair gave up the hunt and hailed a cab that took them back to the coaching inn and the schooner of beer that Red so badly needed.
* * *
It would be much later before Red and Hannah realized that for a few moments during their search, John Latimer had been only a stone’s throw away.