TWO

TWO

Brooklyn Heights, New York

Earlier that day

JEANNINE LARUE STOOD outside Stanley’s brownstone, shaking in the warm summer rain, holding a useless umbrella . . . She was so upset she hadn’t even tried to protect her hair from the incessant drops. The result being that the previous $200 straightening process on her thick, black locks had turned to sodden curls. Trying to fit into the look of the otherwise all-white law firm where she worked was a job in and of itself. Stanley had suggested she’d be more “accepted” with straight hair.

Fuck him.

Fuck all of them.

She had been in courtrooms and jailhouses with murderers, rapists, and some of the evilest human trash the city of New York had ever known. None of them had ever fazed her in the slightest. “Ice Queen” is what the good ole’ boys in the office called her behind her back. Her friends called her the same thing to her face.

She liked making the white patriarchy nervous. She liked being the Ice Queen.

But Stanley? That son of a bitch could turn her back into a scared fourteen-year-old with a word or a look. She hated him and his multimillion-dollar home-cum-office.

“Fucking asshole,” she said to the brownstone behind her. Pull it together, girl. Get to the airport. You need to be in New Orleans for Curtis by tonight. You promised. You are the Ice Queen!

The rain fell harder now, and a chill emerged in the air that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. Swift temperature changes caused a twinge of pain where the prosthesis joined what was left of her leg. She balanced the umbrella on her shoulder and pulled out her phone to call an Uber when she noticed there was no signal. She tried to wave down a passing taxi, but the guy at the wheel cruised right by, ignoring the non-white-skinned girl in this pasty, rich neighborhood.

“Great. Fuck you, too,” she called after it.

Stanley had once suggested that she try to pass as a tanned white power-attorney. But New York knew a non-white girl when it saw one. Sure, things were diverse here, people of every shape and color intermingling in the melting pot of the city.

But the undercurrent of racism was always there.

“It is the only way you’ll be successful,” Stanley had said. “They’ll never say it to your face, but they’ll look down on you because of your heritage.”

My heritage, she thought. The only stories about her heritage she knew were the weird tales of Voodoo and magic her Nana had told her. Jeannine had thought of them as fairy tales. Or bedtime stories that Nana had made up.

Until recently, she remembered little of her childhood before Katrina. But things were coming to her in dreams, dreams she remembered. First, it was the image of Nana’s smile. And then she remembered the fact that Nana was black and so proud and happy to be who she was. She remembered Nana doing her hair, telling her stories of family.

That’s when she tried to pull away from Stanley. He’d been molding her into someone that fit his idea of success.

Jeannine wanted to be herself. Wanted to be happy. Maybe the rain ruining her hair was finally washing some of the fake away.

She’d have to learn how to care for her hair the way it was, curls and all.

A horn sounded, and she looked up to see a very different cab—an old NYC taxi. All rounded corners, black fenders, yellow doors, and gigantic whitewall tires. Hell, it even had wooden running boards.

“You look like you could use a lift, ma’am,” said the cabbie—a thirtyish black man wearing sunglasses and a newsy hat pulled low. He smiled, showing perfectly white teeth.

It was at that moment that the umbrella, perched precariously on Jeannine’s shoulder, took off as a gust of wind ripped it from her wet hands. It bounced off the hood of a car and was across the street in the blink of an eye.

“Fuck!” said Jeannine.

The cabbie tutted. “Heaters on in the cab, ma’am. Why don’t you let me take you to where you need to be?”

Even though Jeannine was becoming soaked, she hesitated. Something felt—strange.

BOOM! Thunder echoed around the Brooklyn brownstones.

Hell, the Yankees have retro uniforms, she thought. What’s wrong with retro cabs?

She hurried to open the back door, muscled in her carry-on, and tossed in her briefcase. She heard a thump.

“Ma’am, there is a saxophone in the back seat,” said the cabbie over his shoulder. “If you would be so kind as to be gentle with her. I have a gig later, and Ms. Maxine gets all kinds o’ fussy if she’s knocked around.”

Jeannine offered up a half-assed apology as she struggled to climb into the old car.

“Kennedy airport,” she said. “Delta terminal.”

“Idlewild. Yes, ma’am,” replied the cabbie with a tip of his hat, and they were off.

She wasn’t really listening. She was replaying the conversation with Stanley, amazed that he, even now, had such power over her emotions.

The wipers on the car were unusually loud and pushed the rain off the windshield as if the water was offering some sort of offense to the classic automobile simply by touching the glass.

Thump-thwack! Thump-thwack!

Jeannine’s cellphone rang. She looked at the number, hesitated, then answered.

“What is it, Stanley?”

Jeannine listened for a moment.

“I’m going to stop you there, Stanley. You’re not going to change my mind, and . . . hello? Hello?”

Thump-thwack! Thump-thwack!

The cab continued on its way, wipers sounding like gunshots as they swept the deluge from the glass.

“Hello? Damn, what’s wrong with this thing?” Jeannine looked down at her phone. Once again, it had no signal.

“Was that yo’ man?” asked the cabbie.

“Oh God, no . . . he’s . . . my therapist, to be honest.”

The driver looked at Jeannine via the old, oval rearview mirror. “Oh?”

She bristled. Why are all men such assholes?

“I’m an attorney,” she said, emphasizing her title. “I deal with the dregs of society every goddamn day. Sometimes . . . it gets to me.”

The cabbie chuckled. “I love seeing the women-folk doin’ a man’s job—not that there’s anything wrong with that,” he added hurriedly as he studied Jeannine’s frown in the rearview. “Gives me hope for the future, is all.”

Jeannine raised her phone to make another call, this time to Curtis, but it still felt strange to just call him after all this time—and there was something about her driver. Something in the way he spoke, maybe, or in that ever-present smile of his. She somehow felt comfortable with this stranger, and that in itself piqued her interest.

She put her cell phone in her coat pocket.

“Why are you driving around in such an old car? It’s got to be a classic. Should be in a museum or something.”

“Well, little lady, this car is like me. Hates to sit idle. Hates not to be doin’ what she was made for. She’s like my horn you almost flattened back there.”

Jeannine’s cheeks flushed. “I really am sorry about that.”

“Oh, you don’t need to apologize to me, ma’am,” replied the cabbie. “But Ms. Maxine, she will not sing for me tonight if she’s in a mood, see. But if you apologize to her, that’ll make her feel better. Then we’ll all feel better. Tu comprends?”

Jeannine rolled her eyes. “Oh, for fu . . . I’m not apologizing to a saxophone!”

“You’ll feel better. I promise. You dig?” He smiled at her in the rearview mirror.

What is it with this guy? Why am I even talking to him? Jeannine sighed. “Okay. But if you tell anyone, I am a lawyer.” She looked at the worn and scuffed case. It was covered in tan canvas with frayed, medium-brown leather piping along the edges. Faded tourist stickers from cities around the U.S. decorated the canvas. There were scratches and tears fixed with yellowing tape. Chipped gold letters under the handle spelled out “Easy Street.”

This case has seen better days. Maybe the driver, too.

Jeannine sighed again and said, “I’m sorry, Ms. Maxine.”

“There! Don’t you feel better now?” asked the cabbie, and laughed.

Jeannine laughed with him. The tension that followed the meeting with Stanley melted away. “I actually do feel better. Thank you.”

“Bartenders and cabbies. We’re the ones you tell your troubles to. Not these high-priced headshrinkers. All they want is your money.”

“I hear that,” muttered Jeannine.

“Idlewild,” he announced. “As promised.”

“That was quick. I expected it to be at least another thirty minutes. I . . . ” her voice faded away as she looked out the window of the antique cab.

They had pulled up to an airport, but it wasn’t the bustling, congested throng she was used to at Kennedy. No buses with liveries jockeying for position. No cement barriers. No crowds with matching luggage.

There was one building, a single runway, and a prop plane idling on the grass shy of the runway. On the tail, blue lettering spelled: Pan American Airlines.

“Pan Am?” said Jeannine. “Where the hell are we?”

She turned to the driver to scold him for obviously delivering her to some sort of antiques show, but this time she wasn’t speaking to the back of a head or a rearview mirror. The cabbie, facing her now, had removed his sunglasses.

Words died in her throat.

The cabbie had no eyes.

“Idlewild, as promised,” he said again. A too-wide smile slithered across his face.

“Who . . . what the fuck?” Jeannine had a sudden urge to pee as she held her briefcase close.

“Let this be a lesson to you, little plaçage,” said the cabbie. “Take nothing at face value. Remember this. You will be in N’Orleans soon enough. The waters will speak to you, if you pay attention. The trees and the creatures will flatter you with lies. But hidden among those lies are whispers of truth. Listen to the whispers of the bayou, and you might just make it out alive.”

The cabbie removed his hat, revealing two round wounds, one above each eye socket, filled with maggots.

“Take it from poor ole’ Easy Street. I know.”

The wipers slammed against the windscreen, the report of the blades akin to two gunshots, the water splashing off the windscreen like blood spraying from bullet holes.

Thump-shwa! Thump-shwa!

Jeannine threw herself back into the seat, eyes wide, desperately trying to find the handle of the door, when a woman’s voice said, “Miss, we’re here. That’s $27.50 and the credit card machine is broken.”

Jeannine blinked once. Then twice.

She was in the back of a NYC cab—but not a classic car with a dead driver. It was a Prius, and a woman in a fleece with her hair pulled back in a bun was staring at her.

Horns blared, and a cop knocked on the windshield.

“Move it! You’re blockin’ the bus lane!”

“Please, miss. $27.50. And get out of my car. I don’t want a crazy person in my cab no more!”

Jeannine grabbed a fifty from her wallet and handed it to the woman, who sped off without offering change as soon as Jeannine’s carry-on was out of the car. Jeannine stood by the curb, shaking.

A vision. She’d had a vision. That hadn’t happened since—since she’d left New Orleans over a decade ago.

“What the fuck is going on?” she asked.

The rain continued to fall, as throngs of people rolled luggage around her.

None of them answered her. None of them would even meet her eyes.